Almost one and half years after FTC issued the final rules on free credit reports, such reports finally became available nation-wide. People living in the West, Midwest and South already got the taste of these reports months earlier, and starting from today, people living in the East have access too.
In order to receive the free annual credit report from the "big three" credit reporting agencies (CRAs): Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, you should access the official website at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/, and follow online instructions. These three agencies each offers a slightly different flavor of the report, so you might want to take a look at PFBlog's step-by-step guide for each CRA:
• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion
Now that identity theft is commonplace, you can never understate the importance of checking your own credit information regularly. Since you are entitled to three free report (one from each CRA) a year, one strategy may be to pull a report every four months. Good luck!