Credit Report Review

Credit report services provide credit scores and credit reports from the three major reporting agencies – Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. These services also provide credit monitoring for a monthly fee. Credit monitoring services alert you about changes to your credit reports such as new accounts, changes to your public record and credit inquiries. This information can help you determine if you are a victim of fraud, reporting errors or identify theft. Some also monitor changes in your credit score with one or more bureaus, including Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) scores. Credit score monitoring is especially helpful if you are planning to make a major credit purchase in the future. Higher credit scores can help you secure better terms for your loan such as a lower interest rate or monthly payment.

If you are wondering about free credit report services, yes, it is true. Consumers in the United States are allowed by law to receive a free copy of their Experian, Equifax and TransUnion credit reports once a year through AnnualCreditReport.com. However, if you have already received your free credit reports for the year, or if you want to monitor your credit reports or view your credit score, a credit report service can help you. Your credit score is not available through AnnualCreditReport.com. This website only provides free credit reports. Credit report services can provide you with your FICO, VantageScore, TransUnion, Experian or Equifax credit scores in addition to credit reports.

Credit report services do have a few limitations. Though they can provide information about your credit reports and scores, they are not credit repair agencies and do not interact directly with reporting bureaus to dispute an error for you. However, they will provide you with the information you need to dispute a claim on your own. Subscribers to monitoring services are alerted about positive or negative changes to reports often within 24 hours. Utilizing a credit monitoring service you can easily watch all the hard work that you put into improving your credit daily.

To access your credit report and credit scores check out what some of the major reporting agencies can provide, including our highest ranked services MyFICO, Equifax and Experian. You can also find useful articles about credit reports in our Learning Center.

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Credit Report Services: What to Look For

Determining exactly what reports and scores a credit report service can provide can be difficult. We combed through the fine print these credit score services publish to verify exactly what reports and scores you can obtain. We also looked into the additional services they may offer such as one-on-one dispute support and lost wallet assistance.

Reports Available
We looked into what credit reports and credit scores a service can provide as well as how they make those reports available. Some only offer access to reports if you subscribe to a credit monitoring plan. Some services also offer reports for a one-time fee. Be aware that some services say they offer free credit reports, but they require credit card information and will charge you $1 to view your reports. The $1 charge is to verify the validity of your credit card. If you do not cancel your membership during the trial period, they will charge you the monthly subscription fee.

Credit Monitoring
Credit monitoring should not be confused with unlimited credit report access. Credit monitoring means the service will alert you in regard to changes to your reports or scores. However, most do not provide unlimited viewing of your reports. We made note of which reports or scores are monitored and which reports or scores you can view at any time or periodically throughout the year. But don't worry – using a credit monitoring service does not ding your score. They are only soft credit inquires and not hard inquiries that affect your credit score.

Help & Support
The best credit report services are easy to contact by telephone, email or chat. Though they cannot directly contact your creditors and request changes to your reports, they should be able to help you in regard to their service and point you in the right direction to repairing your credit report errors. It is also helpful if they can provide additional assistance such as lost wallet assistance, credit freezes and fraud support.

Sorting through the tidal waves of free credit report offerings online can be confusing and warrants a bit of caution. In this review we have collected the best offerings from all major credit report agencies to help you find the credit report service that's best for you.