Get Your Free Credit Report

As found in the Everyday Cheapskate daily newsletter. Please consider yourself in the know now.

It's been a year since the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) became law. The law, packed with new protections for consumers, provides that every person in the United States is entitled to receive one free personal credit report each year from each of the three major credit bureaus -- Experian, Equifax and TransUnion -- through a centralized source. Due to the enormity of this national giveaway, the bureaus were granted permission to rollout free credit reports by region.

Here's when you can look forward to getting your free credit report:

-- Dec. 1, 2004: Western states
-- March 1, 2005: Midwestern states
-- June 1, 2005: Southern states
-- Sept. 1, 2005: Eastern states.

Until your region becomes active, unless you live in the handful of states that already offer free credit reports (Colorado, Georgia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland or Vermont), you'll need to pay as much as $9 to look at your credit record. There are three ways you can gain access to your free reports:

ON THE INTERNET: www.AnnualCreditReport.com (the only service the bureaus have authorized for requesting your free annual report) will allow you to request, view and print one, two or all three of your free credit reports quickly via this secure Internet site. I live in the West and can report that this site works well. The process is quick and efficient. I had one of my free credit reports printed within 7 minutes of arriving at the site.

CALL TOLL-FREE: (877) 322-8228

VIA MAIL: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.

Allow 15 days to process phone and mail requests.

Credit bureaus are for-profit corporations raking in billions of dollars each year by selling consumer data. They sell your information for marketing purposes. That explains many of the unsolicited offers and piles of junk in your mailbox. These bureaus also gather credit and other data on all adults in the United States, occasionally even a child or pet from time to time, which always make for a funny story. They compete with one another to sell copies of our reports to us. At a minimum cost of $9 a pop, you can imagine the loss of revenue they are facing as free reports become available region by region.

But they sell more than just credit reports. They sell credit monitoring, credit scores, 3-in-1 credit profiles and on it goes. This will not change. The FTC has given the bureaus permission to "up-sell" us when we request a free credit report. Unless you are refinancing or applying for credit you need to view your credit score only occasionally (once a year at the most). You can monitor your own credit report. My advice is to just take your three free reports (stagger them so you get one every 4 months) and to not fall for offers of add-ons.