Check your Credit Report each Year

With the Target breach and identity theft that happens all of the time now, it is important to check your credit report each year.  When you review your credit report, it can help you detect any type of identity theft. Two years ago I discovered someone had opened up two credit cards under my information and defaulted on them. It affected my FICO score by 100 points! It took one year of disputing this information to finally get this fraudulent information off my credit report.

The government lets you check your credit report for free once per year without affecting your FICO score. The government sponsored site is called AnnualCreditReport.com. It gives you a credit report from all three of the major credit monitoring business: Equifax, Experian and Transunion. The only downfall to this site is that it does give you your FICO score. You can get your FICO score from Experian, Equifax or Transunion but you will have to pay for it to review.