I read about this in a magazine yesterday and tried it out last night. I was curious to see what appears in my credit report since I have been here for 9 months.

According to the article, a consumer has the right to a free credit report every year from 3 of the credit organizations Equifax, Esperian and Transunion. You can actually check from each every 4 months so that would entitle you to 3 reports in a year for free!

Anyhow, there are a lot of websites that entice you with promise of free reports and then youll find out that you have to pay some trial price for this.

You have to log on to this website and not with the others:

http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

Youll have to choose from which organization you want to check your report from Equifax, Esperian or Transunion. You will be directed to their site. Be FOREWARNED that they will STILL offer you those trial reports that you have to pay but just search through the page and you should see the button or link for "get your free report."

You will be asked several questions to verify your identity then you will be able to click on a link which will show your credit activity.

The report does not show your credit score but it does show if there are any financial establishments that have asked for your record. This information is very useful especially if you want to check whether there is a credit card company who finally will try you out!

I printed out mine and will check again in a couple of months! Knowing about your credit activity and what shows up when a bank or credit card company checks should be interesting especially for new residents like us!

Hope this helps!

I did this and since I did, the amount of spam email I've been receiving has increased five fold. So I'd give them an email address that you don't use very often.

Neither Equifax or Esperian which my husband and I used to get the free credit reports did not ask for any email address. Im wondering why they asked this in your case?

Dunno. I used Equifax. Maybe they've changed what they require now.

Which asks if you have lived at your address for 2 years and if not requires a previous US address. How did you get round that or did you just say 2 years.

I just checked mine, out of curiousity... and I just said that yep, I have lived here two years. Even though I haven't. As I don't have a previous address here for them to check, and as it's impossible to enter my real previous address, I thought that was the only way round it...

I then went so far as to actually pay good money to check my credit score, so curious was I... 730, apparently. How does THAT happen when I've not even been here 5 months yet? I have a Macy's card with a credit limit of $100, and a $500 limit secured credit card. Isn't 730 surprisingly good, considering?!

yup, just like featherB, I just answered yes to the question whether I have lived in that address for 2 years. No problems proceeding with the process after that.

THere are fake links that looks like this one, but the real one takes you to the site where you will see all 3 credit bureau, they don't ask you for your email id, execpt if you are going to Buy your credit scores, if it's a normal check email id is not required.

I get my free credit report every year and thus far have had no problems.

I've used the annual credit report service to check my credit report. If you are using the correct site, they will not send out any spam unless you check any any boxes that say send me additional offers.

But in the meantime I use Experian service to keep tabs on my score and see how it changes. Its about $12 per month and you can generate as many credit reports from Experian that you want.

I would suggest choosing one agency and checking your report from it on a regular basis. Not only to keep up to date on your score, but also to monitor for any credit issues.

I use BoA privacy assist. They provide your scores and information for the 3 main agencies online, whenever you want to view them. At the moment my credit score is 0 since I just got here 4 months ago and Ive only been an authorized user on my husbands credit card for 2 months and have had a macys card with $200 limit for under 1 month!! I pay $9.99 per month for it and I want it for my protection (Identity theft) more than anything as credit seems to play such an important role here and I dont want anyone messing mine up!!

Ok - so BoA is not good - i just cancelled my membership as I went on the experians own website and did the 30 day free trial and my creidt score for them came back 740! I'm amazed!! I've had my SSN only since end may/beginning of june. I dont understand why BoA doesnt update the credit scores and info!!!

Not sure if they can actually do a soft hit on your credit report. If they cant, they may limit their hits as not to affect your score. Your much better off going direct with Experian, Transunion or Equifax. Although to get reports on all 3, its more expensive. But then you don't really need all 3 reports all the time. One is usually enough, and you can check the other 2 one or twice a year.

I've been here almost three years, I have credit cards and a car loan, I don't have any late payments and I have relatively low credit card balances. Yet my credit score is not nearly as good as that of some folks in this thread who came here recently.

I guess that's because I was never an authorized user, not do I have any joint credit accounts with husband.