Your credit report

[Ed62]

Do you get offers for mortgages, offers from insurance companies, or financial institutions from people you never heard of? Guess what? In many cases,they've already checked your credit report.

Here's a link to a site that goes into the problem: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/...prescreen.shtm. Here is a quote from the site: "Can prescreening hurt my credit report or credit score?
No. There will be “inquiries” on your credit report showing which companies obtained your information for prescreening, but those inquiries will not have a negative effect on your credit report or credit score." That is true, but that does not mean there are not possible negative effects from a lot of inquires. For instance, even if you have the best possible credit score, some companies will hold the amount of inquires against you. You have the option to "opt out" of pre-screening inquires, as indicated on the site. It seems to me, in most cases, it's the logical thing to do.

Ed

[MilDoc]

I ordered all 3 credit reporting agencies to block all access to my creadit reports until approved by me. I have to call from my home phone # for approval, but that's no big deal.

Takes a letter to all 3 companies and they must comply.

[Ed62]

Takes a letter to all 3 companies and they must comply.

There is also an 800 number you can call. That will get you on all credit reporting companies. It's good for 5 years.

Ed

[Alex Franke]

On a related note, don't get fooled into believing that highly advertised "free credit report dot com" is the place you should go to get your free credit reports.

Instead, visit www.annualcreditreport.com.

Only one website is authorized to fill orders for the free annual credit report you are entitled to under law – annualcreditreport.com. Other websites that claim to offer “free credit reports,” “free credit scores,” or “free credit monitoring” are not part of the legally mandated free annual credit report program. In some cases, the “free” product comes with strings attached. For example, some sites sign you up for a supposedly “free” service that converts to one you have to pay for after a trial period. If you don’t cancel during the trial period, you may be unwittingly agreeing to let the company start charging fees to your credit card.

You can get one a year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. I space them out so I'm getting one every four months or so.

[misteralbert12ab]

re:credit report

I found good information about this on http://www.CreditReportMonster.com, there are many resources out on the Internet about the topic.