Do you know what credit score is ? I bet we all know what score means in cricket or any other sport….
What is Credit Score in USA ?
Credit Score is a way to measure your Credit History. It is a weighted number that explains how well you are doing with handling your credit. It is called also called FICO Score. What does FICO Stand for ? FICO means Fair Isaac Corporation. Just an acronym and the company FICO introduced the concept. The score can range between 300 and 850. You will not find these two extreme score. The higher your score, the better you are ! A good score is around 700.
Here are the three Credit reporting agencies most of the companies use : The scores differ from one to other slightly.
Experian – http://www.experian.com/
Equifax – http://www.equifax.com/home/en_us
Transunion : http://www.transunion.com/
Coming to the point,
How to check Credit Score for free ?
Well, obviously, there is no free lunch anywhere, it is kind of trick and you have to be careful. Many companies let you enroll for free as a TRAIL member to check your credit score for free for the first month like http://www.identitymonitor.citi.com/ or http://www.privacyguard.com/ or for that matter, you can go to all the three websites listed above too. You will have to put in your credit card information when you do this, so, be careful. You HAVE TO MAKE A NOTE to call THEM AND CANCEL within a MONTH. Otherwise you are charged. So, it is very tricky and be sure to call them and cancel it. I am not encouraging you to just join and quit here, if you like the service, you can keep it. I used to pay $12 a month to monitor my credit score, when I was building my credit history and planning on applying loans. It was a good service I really like it because there are some features like What if estimators, to estimate your scores and some other features.
