Free Annual Credit Report

Did you know you can request an AnnualCreditReport . . . online, by mail or by phone . . . for free?

You may not remember that I mentioned this federally legislated program last year, in a March article. I laid out all of the details, so you may want to click back and reread it.

I'll wait.

(dum de dum dum ...)

Finished?

Good. Here are a few comments.

• You can only request the report every 12 months, so if you requested one last year you can't request another one until the anniversary date.
• The report is available from three credit reporting companies: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.
• You don't have to choose. You can order a FREE credit report from ALL of these companies.
• The information available to each of the reporting companies will probably differ in details. I know mine did.
• If you find information which is inaccurate, which doesn't seem to apply to you (they sometimes get someone else's data confused with yours, because it is often reported by name), or which is outdated (some records can legally only be kept for a limited time, such as seven years) you can dispute it. This is also for free, and generally they just wait a while and then write to tell you that the disputed entries have been removed.
• You do NOT get a Credit Rating with your free report. However, they will happily provide you with that information on a one-time basis. The fee is usually about $25.
• They WILL put you an an emailing-list, and send you monthly offers to provide regular reports. The cost for this service varies, and you can just ignore them or you can take you up on it.
• Did I mention it's free?
  

Often, the credit reporting companies will also offer you Income Tax-return services. That is, you can fill out an on-line form with information from your W2, and they will prepare your tax return for you. I've heard that you can no longer use your telephone to enter your 1040 or 1040EZ returns, so this might be an attractive alternative.

The drawback is: it takes a while to enter the data, but then it takes a while to fill in the paper form, too.

Another drawback to the online Income Tax-return service is that they're not always accurate. You will want to roughly figure your taxes from a tax table, to get a ballpark figure on what your return or obligation ought to be. That way you have some idea of what figure THEY should come up with.

When I took advantage of this service last year, I found that the Federal return they calculated actually saved me money.

However, the Oregon Stage tax return (another $15, if you accepted their numbers), had me owing $1600; my figures showed that the State owed me money, because I had overpaid. I declined to accept the State tax figure they had calculated, and sent in my own . . . which was accepted.

Caveat Emptor: Free is a very good price, but sometimes it's not really free after all.

(Presented as a public service by Jerry the Geek)