Bad Credit Medics

Your free credit report is available once every 12 months from anyone of the three nationwide credit reporting agencies. But if you did not know already, there are smaller firms which have made this into a business by offering free credit reports in exchange for purchasing at least one of their other products. These are lenders and credit counselors who attract unsuspecting Americans to do their businesses. You should better be cautious while dealing with them.

Applying For Free Credit Report
By law, all the three agencies are required to issue all citizens a free credit report, upon request. The three CRAs are Equifax, Transunion and Experian. The law Fair Credit Report Act, FCRA, is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, equally on each of these CRAs.

To simplify the application process, the credit reporting agencies have set up a central website for the purpose. This is https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ and is the only official website to apply for free credit reports online. You can log on to the website and fill up an online application for requesting your free annual credit report.

The information you provide on the site is safe and you can rest assured as it is protected by 128 bit SSL. However, take care to spell its URL correctly as you could be automatically redirected to elsewhere who are in the business. Notice that the URL begins with ‘https’ unlike the normal ‘http’ where the last letter “s” stands for ’secured’. Also when you log on, icons of pad locks appear on your browser’s address box and at the right most bottom of the status bar indicating that the site is genuine.

Other ways include, downloading the free credit report application from http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/include/requestformfinal.pdf and mail the completed application to one agency of your choice.

The toll free number to order free credit report is: 1-877-322-8228
The mailing address is: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

If someone is charging you for free credit report, complain here:
https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01
You can report spam at: spam@uce.gov
Also https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ will never solicit for free credit report in any which way.

The law permits to order three credit reports from each of the CRAs together or severally. Providing complete information is your responsibility and you can choose to hide your SSN number partially.

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