Free Credit Reports Are Now Available Weekly: Here’s How To Pull Yours
By Chris Huntley
It’s smart practice to check your credit report as frequently as you can, especially if you’re struggling financially due to the coronavirus or other reasons. Trouble is, pulling your report more than once a year typically costs you $20 to $40 every time. But that's now changed. Until next spring, you’ll be able to check your credit report for free as often as every week.
For nearly twenty years, since passage of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), free reports have been available annually upon request from annualcreditreport.com, a website sponsored by the big three credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. The coronavirus crisis and the credit problems it’s causing have prompted the site to allow credit reports to be obtained free every week until April 2021.
Why Credit Reports Matter Now
Your credit report serves as a kind of financial resume. It lists the accounts under your name, with their original and current balances and duration and payment history. It also details whether you’ve filed for bankruptcy or ever had debts sent to collection.
The report also serves as a financial-management tool. It helps you analyze and better understand which debts you should prioritize, and which lenders you should contact first to evaluate your options.
That can be useful and empowering if, say, you’re straining to pay credit-card bills and want to take advantage of the willingness of card issuers to be flexible with borrowers affected by the pandemic. The report could help demonstrate that you’ve been a responsible card owner over the years, and can now be trusted to honor a new reduced-payment plan.
