Free Credit Report

Factual Questions
1

A quick search did not turn up what I was looking for.

My mother wants to know her credit score. I did this by going to some service on the Net and entering my credit card number. I got my score and then cancelled the service, and so got my credit score for nothing.

Now I know Congress requires the agencies provide free annual reports.

My mother does not like the idea of giving her credit card number over the Net.

How can she check her credit report without a credit card?

2

Credit *reports *are free. Annual Credit Report.com - Home Page

Credit *scores *are not. Free Credit Reports | Consumer Advice

http://www1.ftc.gov/opa/2004/11/factafrn.shtm

http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnfall04/soon.html

3

Some possibilities:

  1. Find a credit reporting company that accepts alternative forms of payment (checks, money orders, etc.)
  2. Convince her that SSL/TLS-secured sites are safe, and see if her bank assumes liability for unauthorized transactions (many do).
  3. Go to Safeway or another grocery store and buy a Visa/Mastercard/Amex gift card with cash, then use that to pay. They act like credit cards but are actually debit cards limited to a certain value.
  4. Pay for her credit score with your own credit card and have her pay you back. Some sites allow third-party credit cards.
  5. If she has a Paypal account (unlikely given the circumstances), I believe that their Toolbar lets you generate one-time use virtual credit card numbers. Bank of America and Citibank offers similar services for their credit card cardholders, allowing her to generate one-time-use numbers with a predefined dollar limit and expiration date that won’t compromise her physical card.
4

Thank you Gfactor, that was it.

5

You are welcome. Just so you know, if your mother wants to know her credit *score * it doesn’t come on the free credit report. You can pay for scores, and you can order credit reports by phone or mail, so I think you can get it worked out.

6

Dang, I got here too late. **Gfactor **nailed it. You are entitled to a copy of your credit report from all 3 of the major credit reporting agencies once a year. Your free reports will tell you everything except your score. You have to pay for your score. The most important thing is to get copies of all of your reports and check them for errors.

7

Same here but it didn’t stop them from billing me $15 a month for several months until I noticed and called and threatened them.

8

The same thing happened to me. If all you want is the report and not the score, just make sure you go to the unfortunately named annualcreditreport.com and not that other one.