You can now access your credit report once a week for free, rather than just once a year

By Dave Lieber, The Dallas Morning News (TNS)

If you’re someone who manages the family’s finances, worries about identity theft and values maintaining a good credit score, The Watchdog has the latest updates for you.

Specifically, let’s dive into what credit reports and scores really mean, how you can access them and why staying on top of them is so important.

I recently tuned in to a town hall on consumerism sponsored by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Much of it was old hat, but my ears perked when I heard one speaker casually mention that you could get a free copy of your credit report once a week.

Bam! It used to be you get a free copy of your credit reports every 12 months.

How did this happen? The rules were temporarily suspended during the pandemic. Afterward, they were kept in place.

It’s a little confusing because the government-sponsored website — AnnualCreditReport.com — is still keeping its name. It should be WeeklyCreditReport.com, but the feds have spent a lot of time and money promoting the website.

The site itself is still confused. At the top of the home page, it states reports can get sought weekly for free. But lower on the page the outdated language is still there — “every 12 months,” it notes.

Credit reports

Have you ever asked for your free credit report? It usually comes by email and runs a dozen pages or more. Every financial account and credit relationship you have is detailed in the report.

If there are inaccuracies, under law you can get them corrected.

More to the point, if there are any accounts on there that you don’t recognize, that could be an error or, worse, an identity thief mooching off your good name.

At the start, try to get your report by going online to the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

Warning

Be forewarned. When you search for these sites, a lot of imitators pop up pretending to be free and credible like AnnualCreditReport.com. These sites are fakers who try to lock you in for costly monthly subscriptions.

Credit scores

Credit reports and credit scores are two different matters, but let’s talk about the scores, which are supposed to reflect your financial picture with emphasis on how likely you are to pay your bills.