If you are not sure what your credit score is, getting a credit report is an extremely good idea. Whether you expect to be applying for a loan, buying a car, putting a down payment on a house, or simply applying for a credit card, you will want to know what kind of credit you have beforehand, and a credit report is the only positive for a loan or credit card, a credit report will help you find out why.

Fortunately, getting a credit report isn't such a problem anymore. Thanks to the internet, you don’t need to make any appointments, fill out any paper work, or even leave your house. There are several different sites today that offer you a credit report upon enrolling. I decided to check out some of these sites just to try them out before applying for a new credit card a while back. Initially I noticed several sites that claimed that they would provide a credit report for free, so I tried one of these to start.

However, the first site I tried was indeed free, but I have yet to receive a credit report from them. They required a credit card number, which I gave them, and a lot of other personal information, after which they said that I would receive my credit report in the mail. Well, even though it's several years later, I haven’t gotten one yet! Luckily, they didn't charge my account for anything, but all the same I am sorry I signed up with them.

There is a much better choice, I soon learned, in getting a credit report. Annualcreditreport.com is only one online source authorized to provide free credit reports under the federal law. Beware of other sites that may look and sound similar. AnnualCreditReport.com is the only official site where you can get a genuinely free copy of your credit report from all three reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, . And if you'd rather order your free credit report by phone or by mail, you can do that too .

Overall, my advice before getting a credit report is to spend a few minutes researching different credit report sites. Don’t be fooled by offers of free credit reports unless it is Annualcreditreport.com, because there are likely strings attached. Additionally, there is always the danger that the site you are signing up on is a complete fraud designed just for collecting peoples' personal information for illegal use.

Lenders consider our credit report to decide if we are credit worthy and should be given a loan and at what interest rate that loan should be given. In the long haul a good credit score can save you thousands of dollars. FICO scores are most often within a range of between 300 to 850. A score of 300 being the lowest (bad credit) and 850 is the highest (excellent credit). The average American score for borrowers in the USA is approximately 720.

There are ways to increase your credit score and if you currently have a low score, you should learn how to increase it. To find out how to improve your credit score by 249 points or more, visit: Fix Your Bad Credit Fast!