How To Get Your Free Credit Scores
Free credit scores are simply a numerical value that determines how good a risk you are from a lenders point of view. The number tends to range from 300 to 850 and the higher the number the better your credit rating.
Currently 60% of people have a credit score above 700, but only 11% have a credit score above 800. Your credit score can affect how much interest you pay on a loan. For example those with a credit score above 800 pay on average 1 percentage point less than those with credit scores between 675-700 on a typical mortgage.
How are my Credit Scores Calculated
Information from your credit reports is used when determining your credit score. The five most important factors are your payment history, amount owed to creditors, length of credit history, amount of new credit and the types of credit in use.
The following factors are not used: your race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, salary, occupation, title, employer, date employed, or employment history or where you live.
How to improve your Free Credit Scores
The best way to ensure your credit scores remains high is to make sure the following are true: you pay your bills on time, keep balances low on credit cards and other revolving credit products and finally apply for and open new credit accounts only as needed.
The longer you follow these three guidelines the higher your score will become. However if you feel that your score is too low you may have an error on your credit report. To check if this is the case you should order all three of your credit reports from our main page.
How to get you Credit Score for Free
The process of getting your credit scores is essentially the same as getting your free credit reports. Each of the three credit bureaus creates their own score based on their respective credit reports. Therefore you have three different free credit scores that correspond to the information found on your three free credit reports.
Trans Union, Equifax and Trans Union still offer free options. Please be aware that to get your free credit scores you have to sign up for a free trial of a credit monitoring service. If you cancel before the free trial is up you can keep your credit scores for free.
To find out more about your government mandated free annual credit reports check out:
The Federal Trade Commission’s Information on Free Annual Credit Reports