When to Obtain a Credit Report

The proper time to obtain a copy of a credit report is about six months prior to your application for getting credit card or a loan. The reason is by reviewing the report long before applying to get a credit you have the advantage of having information about your personal credit status. By doing this, you'll get to know immediately if the creditor is going to approve or reject your loan application. Checking the credit report puts you in a better position for bargaining with the creditor and asking for better interest rates. If you have knowledge about credit history along with a credit score, then obviously you can confidently request to get lower rates of interest or higher credit limit on your card from your future creditor.

But if you find that you are having very poor history of credit and a bad score, then what steps should be taken? By obtaining your free credit report from the government minimum six months prior to sending in a loan application, you can have time for working on how to improve credit score. Within these six months, you must take all the required steps which you can take to boost the credit. First, pay off all your previous bills which are due. Contact your present creditors to ask for getting new terms for repayment. Be sure about not missing or delaying any single payment which is to be given to any current creditors. Doing this, significant improvement can be made in the credit score.

You can get the credit report when six months are over and check it to see if you can finally apply to obtain new credit. Even the smallest rise in your score makes a big change to get your loan approved for lower rates.

It does not mean that you should obtain a report only if you plan to apply to get a new credit. Ideally, candidates should check it for at least two times a year because its checking can best protect you against fraud and identity theft.

Everyone can get a single copy of the report yearly. For getting annual free credit score and credit report you can go to the websites of annualcreditreport.com or ftc.gov.

If you want a second copy, then fee ranges from $9 to $15, based on your credit reporting organization. The three major bureaus - Experian and Equifax and the TransUnion - have separate reports and it is better that you obtain your copy from each one of these companies.

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