Figuring out how to view your credit report is the first step in the ongoing monitoring and repair of your credit history.

Luckily getting to view your credit report is the easy part. Here's what you should know.

There are three consumer credit companies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) that collect information from other companies on your credit history which can range from loan repayment history through to paying your bills on time.

Each of the three companies collect that information from different sources so it is important to view a report from each company or get a collated report as each company may have a differing view of your credit worthiness.

By law each of the companies are required to provide one free credit report per year to any consumer who asks for theirs.

But should you get them all together, collated or spread out over the year (remembering of course that you can pay for extra copies after you have received your one free credit report)?

Now you can certainly order all at the same time and the three consumer reporting companies have even set up a website where you can get a collated version of your report with the information from each of the companies displayed in the single report.

However, many experts argue that you should consider spreading out your free credit reports over the course of a year. ie. Get one report from one company first, then another report from another company after 4 months etc.

The reason for this is that if you are actively attempting to improve your credit over time, spreading out the reports allows you to see your progress for free.

Either way, you should take steps to view your credit report at least annually so you know your credit standing with those consumer reporting companies.

Of course, the next step is figuring out the relevant parts of your credit report.

You are going to be most interested in the items on your credit report that include unfactual or misleading information or items. By isolating these items, you can then move forward by preparing to challenge each of those items.

Each of the credit reporting companies are legally supposed to review any challenge to any of the items on their credit reports and most will do it within 30 days. Of course, if the item is then removed or improved, this means your overall credit score will improve, which is great news for you.

It pretty easy then to see why viewing your credit report at least on an annual basis is an important thing to do.

View Your Credit Report at Credit Reporter

¶ 11:45 PM