Not all credit reports are as good as the “gold standard,” the actual FREE ones you can get from annualcreditreport.com.
Here’s what to do.
When you go to annualcreditreport.com, do not sign up for any subscription, membership, service, or account with any of the big three credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and Trans Union). Those “memberships” are not necessary and can be quite harmful.
It’s also not necessary to purchase the FICO score.
Save every page of each of those three credit reports, saved as PDF files where all the text is contained within the page and is not cut off.
You might need to adjust down to 85% or 90% before saving the file as a PDF from the print window so that the text isn’t cut off. I have seen this be an issue with Trans Union in particular, so look at it carefully before you save it as a PDF.
If you have Credit Karma or some other kind of credit report, save those too, but it often isn’t enough.
A number of third-party services for “free” credit reports are generally designed to market crap to you based on Big-Brother-y peering into your banking activity (NOT private to the credit reporting agencies, BTW).
Remember, if the thing is free, YOU are the product, not the customer. OK? Third-party reports don’t tell the whole story!
So, PLEASE get your *current* credit reports at annualcreditreport.com. This is the only official site for truly free, no-strings credit reports!
If you have trouble getting the credit reports or the screening questions are wholly unfamiliar to you, make note of that too, because there may be a legal right of yours that’s being violated.
And finally, if you have what’s called a “tri-merge” credit report (typically you get these from a mortgage lender) ask if they’ll give it to you. Sometimes mortgage lenders will claim they are not allowed to give you a copy of those. That’s not true. They are simply not required to give you a copy of the report, but it is permitted. In any event, they are required to send you disclosure of your credit score and the factors that led to the credit decision, called an Adverse Action notice.
Not sure about how to save a PDF from a webpage? It’s a bit different depending on what type of phone you have or what operating system you are using. Simply google, “how to save Pdf from a webpage” and then add whether you are using an iPhone, Android, Windows or Mac, and there should be all kinds of helpful instructions.