Under Federal law, you have a right to receive a free copy of your credit report, which you can get from http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com. In addition, the FTC has developed two commercials to get the message out and empower consumers to get their credit score. You can watch one of them above. These FTC ads are very similar to the Freecreditreport.com versions, from their low budget look, to having garage bands playing catchy jingles about your credit. Even the website names are easily confused. These similarities will make it difficult for the average consumer to see the difference but is a step in the right direction to educate the public.

While AnnualCreditReport.com offers a free way to obtain your credit score, but you are limited to only one report per year per bureau. However, you can supplement this annual report with CreditKarma to track your score on a more frequent basis, as well as run different scenarios using our Credit Simulator. This will help you stay on track with maintaining or repairing your credit to the highest level possible.

Instead of waiting for this to occur, it is vital to know what is in your credit report. This will allow you to take the necessary steps to keep it squeaky clean. If you don’t, you may end up paying too much on interest rates, you may be unable to get a loan, and you may even find that you will end up paying more for utilities and certain services, such as cellular phone plans.

The first step to take is to make sure that you get at least one copy of your credit report every year. You may need to do this on a more frequent basis, especially if you are trying to improve your credit score, or if you have plans to apply for a loan in the near future. Every consumer is entitled to one free copy of their credit report every year, from all three major credit bureaus, but you will need to actually request one. You can do this by contacting each bureau, of you can simply get your free copy by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com

Once you have your latest copy of your credit report, you’ll be seeing exactly what a bank, utility company or even your landlord can see. Chances are, there may be a few things on there that you don’t want to be seen, but they are not going to go away on their own. You’ll need to be proactive about handling the items on your credit report, and fixing any errors that may be on there.

You should also have a recent report on your credit score, the number that banks use to determine how much of a risk you are. We highly recommend using a credit monitoring service, since this can help you spot errors as they occur. If your score suddenly goes down, you’ll know that something is wrong on your report and you can take quick action. Conversely, if the score goes up, you’ll know that you are on the right track. This can be a great motivator when it comes to really working at fixing your credit score.

A good credit score is typically above 750, but some manage to get their score over 800. A moderate score will fall somewhere between 640 and 750. Any score below that is cause for concern since it may prevent you from getting a loan. You will be seen as a bad risk, no matter how great a person you may be, if you have a low credit score. By taking the steps to find out what is on your credit report, and by monitoring your score consistently, you can make sure that your score reflects who you really are.

Photo Credits: 1