Checking Credit

With the prevalence of hacks and identity theft in the world today, regularly checking your credit report is an important part of maintaining an organized financial life. There are three main credit check sources - Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Of course, you may have recently heard about the hack at Equifax. I personally have stopped using them to check my credit, as I am now wary of their security policies.

Federal law allows you to get an annual free credit report from each of the three credit unions. Since I am no longer using Equifax, I have a reminder to check my credit every six months and I alternate which company I use. There are times when running all of them at once might be useful (such as when you have a tangible concern about identity theft), but I like to alternate them so that I can keep an eye on my credit report with more regularity.

You can access your free reports at https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Once there, follow the steps on the website to get your credit report. Unfortunately, there are scam websites out there made to look official, so make sure you use the correct link and that the top of the website looks like this:

When you get your report, review the list of sources (bank accounts, credit cards, loans, landlord) to make sure they are all places you actually owe money. There may be some pretty old accounts listed, including closed accounts, as they still represent your pattern of payment. Just make sure it is an account you have had at some point and that the details line up with what you would expect to see. Some of my old listings prompted me to close out a few store credit cards that I hand't used in years.

Other than that, I would suggest reading through the report to ensure there’s nothing weird or unexpected.

Have you ever gotten an official credit report and looked it over?

(Bonus points if you can place the source material in today’s picture!)