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Home > Blog > Married with Children > When Can I Order a Free Credit Report?

When Can I Order a Free Credit Report?

Posted by: Henry B. | Apr 25,2008

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The normal conventional wisdom is that you can only order a credit report once a year. Normally this is done in advance of applying for a loan to make sure that you’re loan-shopping with a decent rating. There are actually other circumstances where you can order a free credit report, even if you’ve met your quota for the year:

If you’ve been denied credit. This could come as some surprise to you so you’re going to want to see if there’s been an fraudulent activity on your report that’s clogging up your rating. Keep in mind that you have to do this within 60 of the rejection.
If you are unemployed and looking for employment. This is similar to getting ready to apply for a loan – you need to check your report to make sure everything’s as it should be. Likewise, if you’re rejected for a job based on your credit report, you’re eligible to check out why.
You’re on public welfare.
You believe you’ve been the victim of fraud. This could be the case if fraudulent charges have been discovered on your credit card. If this is the case, you should order a credit report as soon as possible.
Finally, if you have attempted to erase an inquiry and you want to make sure that the issue has been erased.

Certain states also offer the ability to order up more than one free credit report a year. These are: Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont.

Another point needs to be mentioned: being eligible for a free credit report means that you are eligible for a credit report from each of the major credit bureaus of Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. If you only order a report from one bureau you’ll have a false sense of security, as there could be a fraudulent or inaccurate inquiry on one bureau’s report but not another.