Learning How to Get a Credit Report

Knowing how to get a credit report is important because you want to check your record regularly.  By checking your credit report regularly, you can see if there is any inaccurate information that might be dragging down your credit score. You can also see if someone has stolen your identity and opened a new card without you being aware of it. Finally, you can check your debt repayment progress and get a full overview of your debts.  All of these are major reasons to check your credit report and score regularly, but you need to know the right steps to take to get your report.

How to Get a Credit Report

One of the best ways to get a credit report is to sign up for a service that provides one to you regularly.  This includes services such as IDENTITY GUARD® Platinum, which provides you with access to credit reports from the major credit reporting bureaus in the United States.  Using a service to help you to obtain a credit report makes the process easy and simple and ensures that you can regularly check your credit. It is important to check your credit on a regular basis since information on your report and from your creditors is updated monthly.

The Steps to Take to Get a Credit Report

When you sign up for a service to obtain a credit report, you will need to provide some basic information in order to be able to access your report. This includes providing your name, address and social security number. You may need to answer identifying questions about information contained on your credit report dealing with past loans or past addresses in order to verify that you are the person you say you are. This is done to protect access to your credit report so your sensitive information does not accidentally fall into the wrong hands.

Get Your Credit Report Today

Obtaining your credit report is easy from a service like IDENTITY GUARD® Platinum. Now that you know how to get a credit report, order your report today so you can start monitoring your debt and be informed of the information about you being shared with lenders.

Key Reasons ID Theft Protection is Needed

ID theft protection is something that almost everyone needs. Having identity theft protection is important to protect your finances and to avoid spending hours dealing with a criminal act committed against you.  There are many reasons why you need protection from having your identity stolen, and once you consider the important advantages, it will be easy to see how valuable this type of protection is.

ID Theft Protection Helps You to Avoid Credit Denials

One of the biggest reasons you need ID theft protection is to make sure you do not get denied the ability to borrow money based on someone stealing your identity and misusing it to take on credit in your name. When you buy a house or a car, you may have a limited period of time to get your credit approved and make your purchase before the car is sold to someone else or your contract to buy the house expires. The last thing you want is to be derailed from a big purchase because your identity was stolen and you were not able to fix the problem in time.

ID Theft Protection Helps Protect Your Credit Score

Your credit score is one of your most important financial metrics, and a bad credit score could not only result in a denial of credit, but could also make it much more expensive for you to actually be able to borrow money. If your identity is stolen and your credit score suffers, you could end up getting a mortgage, car loan or credit card at a very high rate (if you get one at all). If you don’t realize what happened and just accept the higher rate, you could end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more over your lifetime.

ID Theft Protection Can Help Catch Identity Thieves Quicker

When your identity is stolen, you can take steps to get the negative information removed from your credit report and to fix the damage that was done to your credit. However, it can take a lot of time as you deal with police reports, contacting each of the creditors and contacting the credit bureaus.  If you are able to catch identity thieves sooner because you check your credit reports or are alerted to a problem, then you can avoid spending tons of time dealing with the theft of your identity.

Services such as IDENTITY GUARD® help to empower you in the fight against identity theft. Learn more about ID theft protection services today.

Understanding Your Credit Report

Checking your credit report regularly is a very wise choice. In fact, many people choose to sign up for a service such as http://www.identityguard.com/, CreditProtectX3®, or CreditProtect® so they will have the tools that allow them to keep up to date about the information on their credit and debt. By keeping tabs on what is going on, you not only have the best chance of fighting identity theft, but you also have the ability to see how your behaviors and actions with debt and spending affect your creditworthiness. These aren’t the only benefits of checking your credit report regularly either; there are many, all of which relate to ensuring good financial fitness.

However, in order to enjoy and make the most of all of the benefits of monitoring your credit report, you will need to understand your credit report. Here are a few times to help.

Understanding the Information on Your Credit Report

The information on your credit report is compiled by various agencies that assemble details on your debt and then use that information to give you a score on how creditworthy you are. Banks and lenders use the score and the information on your credit report in order to determine if you are a good lending risk or a bad one. If there is too much negative information or your score is too low, they won’t lend to you at all. If you have some negatives, you may have a low score but will still be creditworthy enough for banks to lend to. In this case, you’ll just pay a higher interest rate than someone with a good credit score.

The information on your credit report, therefore, consists of all of the details needed to determine what credit score to assign to you. The credit report also consists of details that banks and lenders might be interested in when assessing whether lending to you is a risk. This information includes the following:

• The names of all open accounts, the balances due, the length of time you have had the card, the minimum monthly payments, and your payment history (i.e. whether you’ve ever been 30, 60, or 90 days late or whether a creditor has ever had to discharged or “charge off” debt since you didn’t pay it back).
• Information about public records or judgments against you.
• Information regarding the number of new “inquiries” on your credit report. An inquiry is a request by a creditor to see your report because you’ve applied for new credit. “Soft” inquiries (those you initiate yourself when you want to check your credit and those that are done by companies for marketing or identity verification purposes) do not show up on your report, only queries that creditors conduct when you request new credit are listed. As such, this category shows lenders how much new debt you are taking on.

It is important to regularly monitor all of this information on your credit report by using a service such as IDENTITY GUARD®, CreditProtectX3®, or CreditProtect®. With these services, you get regular access to the details on your credit report so you can check for mistakes in your information, see if you have a good mix of debt, track your balances and inquiries, and otherwise make smart choices to protect a vital asset: your credit score.