Checking your Credit Score: Tips and Free Methods

 

A plethora of finance sites, apps, and services are available that for use in finding out one’s own credit score from the three major bureaus each year. But giving away the last four digits of your Social Security has its own security implications. Fortunately, reputable places exist that issue reports of credit scores.

Beware though that receiving free scores and reports means you will certainly be receiving tons of promotional emails or ads from various credit cards or financial products vendors.

Ways to View your Credit Score?

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A type of free score that you can view is the VantageScore. It differs from your normal FICO score, a score with most vendors but it’s fairly similar. Capital one CreditWise is an example of the Transunion VantageScore 3.0 which is offered to everybody. With the Credit Karma app, you can retrieve your VantageScore from Transunion and Equifax. So does NerdWallet’s app. However, in some places, you can use Discover to obtain your FICO score at Credit Scorecard’s site. Note that your FICO scores are updated every 30 days and you can even download your reports whenever you like for comparison purposes.

American Express, Bank of America, Barclaycard US, Chase, and Citi are among other institutions that offer free scores to clients.

Credit Report

You are required to file a request to obtain full annual reports from AnnualCreditReport.com. It’s noteworthy that some of these apps and sites do offer comprehensive reports as well. Often, these reports help you to judge your financial standing. Credit Karma provides detailed reports regarding the collections you have and the opportunity to dispute any deviations directly. In addition to that, you have the ability to clarify any reports at Bankrate, CreditWise, and Credit Sesame with Experian offering unofficial free reports that automatically update every 30 days. Nonetheless, these reports aren’t comprehensive as your national credit reports but are still useful now and then.

Finally, Chase CreditJourney, Credit Karma, and Capital One also provide free monitoring services. With certainty, you should invest in an actual monitoring service or consider freezing your accounts. However, these options will send you emails if you change the email account that appears on your report.

Pay attention to the fact that most of these apps and sites aren’t entirely accurate. This is why you need to pay attention to the range that your score falls in to get a fairly general idea of where you stand with creditors. To increase your credit score rating, visit this site.