Why Should You Care About Your Credit Report?

Your credit report can affect your ability to purchase a car, get a credit card, or even find a job. Knowing what your credit report says about you is very important. Every consumer in the United States is allowed by law to receive a free copy of their credit report once every 12 months and the only legally authorized distributor of this service is AnnualCreditReport.com. This service provides consumers with reports from all three major credit reporting bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion).

One thing that is not usually available for free is your credit score, which may be called something different by each credit bureau. Equifax calls this number a BEACON score, Experian calls it an Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model, and TransUnion calls it your FICO Risk Score.

In general, consumers know of a credit score as a FICO, which is an acronym for Fair Isaac Corporation. Your FICO score is basically a mathematical calculation of your overall credit worthiness based on information provided by the three credit bureaus. This credit rating ranges between the 300 and 850, and a higher number is more appealing to creditors. The average American has a score somewhere in the 600-700 range.

This site features many products that may be used to monitor your credit reports and the credit scores associated with them. Keeping track of this information and ensuring its accuracy can greatly assist consumers in their credit repair efforts.

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What is a Credit Report?

Your credit report is a record of accounts and other personal financial information kept and maintained by the three major credit bureaus in the United States. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion keep separate reports based on information submitted by individual creditors like credit card companies. This information is used by lenders to gauge your overall credit worthiness, that is, how well you pay your debts.

Lenders aren’t the only one’s looking at your credit. Other companies that may pull your credit information include property managers, potential employers, and even utility companies.

It is recommended that individuals review their personal credit report on an annual basis to check for inaccuracies or signs of identity theft. Although each product on this site can be used to obtain a copy of your credit report, AnnualCreditReport.com is the only organization authorized under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide your legally mandated free annual credit report.

To rate each of the credit report providers featured on this site, we used the following criteria:

Credit Monitoring
Consumers decide to monitor their credit for a variety of reasons including preparing to purchase a home, a new car, or even when applying for a new job. Whatever the reason, remember there are three major credit reporting agencies and they may be reporting different information. Looking at one and not the others will only show you a piece of the puzzle.

Identity Theft Prevention
None of us ever wants to become the victim of identity theft but sometimes it happens. Many products provide protection against identity theft and will even help you recover from an attack if you do become a victim. Most even offer identity theft insurance which helps to pay for recovering your identity.

One quick note about identity theft insurance: a common phrase you will see associated with most of these products is “not available to residents of New York.” This recurring statement made us curious so we decided to investigate its origins.

Identity theft insurance is not available to New York Residents due to a number of regulatory statements issued by the New York Insurance commission prompting major insurance providers to eliminate coverage. The underlying reason for this is that New York State Insurance law doesn’t allow for insurances that provide coverage for “costs incurred while the victim restores his or her identity.” The Insurance Department has however approved such coverage if it is component of another policy, such as homeowners insurance.

Business Solutions
Credit doesn’t only affect consumers. Businesses that extend credit to consumers or rely on work from external contractors should also be concerned about credit. Products that provide credit reporting, marketing services and collections management are extremely beneficial to businesses and minimize financial risk.

Help/Support
As with just about any other consumer product, help and support are of the utmost importance. If you can’t figure out how to make it work it isn’t worth the purchase. Luckily, the products in this category all provide support.

The price shown in the product matrix represents the cost of obtaining a complete credit report that includes reports from all three credit bureaus, and a copy of your credit score.

Some of the lower ranked products may not offer the complete package which may be why they are at the bottom of the list. If they don’t provide a full credit report from all three bureaus, an explanation of actual services is offered in the review.