New Congressionally Mandated Credit Resource

Free credit report will soon be available ...A new congressionally mandated credit resource for homebuyers and other consumers will be available starting Dec. 1. The site ... http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ ... will provide one free credit report annually from each of the three national credit bureaus and will also offer extensive tools to help you monitor your credit files and guard against identity theft. A toll-free number is also available at 1.877.322.8228. (Note: Eligibility for the free annual credit reports will be phased in over the next 10 months on a schedule moving from the Western region to the East Coast. Visitors will first be asked to identify what state they reside in and between Dec. 1 and the final rollout on Sept. 1, only residents of eligible states will be able to proceed to the second step. Ohio (the Midwest Region) appears in the second phase of the program and will rollout on Mar. 1, 2005.)
The three private credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) each receive information on more than 200 million consumers every year from banks, credit-card companies, etc. Many times the files contain different data (i.e. some companies report to one or two bureaus only) which is why Congress mandated annual free reports from each.