Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matt A on January 5, 2010 at 12:16am

freecreditreport.com?

If you have never made payments for anything, you likely don't have any credit. I recommend getting a credit card and buying a few things that you have the money for, and paying it off.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Joey on January 5, 2010 at 4:00am

Actually, freecreditreport.com is just a scam with an obnoxious jingle (And Ben Stein!) used to advertise it. You want the Annual Credit Report which is the website freecreditreport copies your free report from right before they start billing you for a monthly service.

The Federal Trade Commission has information on why they give you a free report and the ACR website.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by FreeThinker on January 5, 2010 at 6:42pm

Like Matt A said, if you don't have a credit card and have never had a home or auto loan, you probably don't have any credit history and thus, no credit score. If this is the case, I would recommend getting a secured credit card from a bank. With a secured credit card, you put a deposit on the card (usually between $300 to $500), which becomes your credit limit. Use it once or twice a month (small purchases) and pay off the balance each month. After several months (maybe a year), you can ask to the bank for a regular unsecured credit card. Here's some more info on secured credit cards:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/10-questions-before-ge...

You could also try applying for a credit card from a gas station or a store like Walmart.

To check your credit score, I would go to annualcreditreport.com and check your score from one of the three credit bureaus (I think it is about $5 or $6 to get your credit score).

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by damian on January 7, 2010 at 9:29am

I use creditkarma.com ... There may be some debate about how accurate it is, but you can check your score daily, and there are all kinds of easy tools and stats: credit simulator, updated outstanding debt, number of open accounts, lots more. For me, it seems to be pretty accurate, because i can see my outstanding debt change after making a large payment. I just took a screen shot of my visit. Click on the credit.JPG attachment below. Oh yeah, it's free.

Attachments:

• credit.JPG, 49 KB

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on January 7, 2010 at 11:26am

This is a particularly American (US) phenomena. You can't get this information in countries with privacy laws and paying for everything with a credit card is unusual and unnecessary.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by FreeThinker on January 7, 2010 at 3:00pm

I agree, but the reality is that, in the US, if you don't have sufficient credit history, you can't get a loan to buy a car or house. I pay for most of my purchases with my credit cards, but I pay them off at the end of each month, so I'm not paying any interest on it.

As bad as the credit card debt is in America, our government's debt is significantly worse. It is an abomination that our government is not able to maintain a balanced budget.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bailey Laird on January 10, 2010 at 12:01pm

Thank u very much that is very helpful!

• ▶ Reply