Avoid Free Instant Credit Reports Scams

I was really kind of surprised when I started researching all of the free instant credit reports sites out there. Over on my blog I've been researching all kinds of consumer deals and I thought that this one would be pretty easy.

A lot of people have written in to me and asked if I could look into this for them, and I was kind of surprised because I always thought it was really very simple to get your credit report online, and to get it for free.

Well, I was basically half right. It is very, very easy to get a free credit report online. That much is true. But what I didn't realize is that it is still pretty hard to know which site is actually offering a true and accurate picture of your credit -- you know, the one that the lenders will see.

One of the things you need to avoid are the sites that are giving you a free report, but one that doesn't really give you all of the information you need to make an assessment about where you stand in the eyes of a lender.

A lot of the problems with this comes from sites that offer a credit score, but one that isn't really taken from an official source. The best this kind of information can do is to give you an idea of what your true credit score looks like. And when you're talking about your credit, the one thing you want is an exact answer, not a made up estimate.

So that's the first thing that you need to look for.

Important Note: We're going to get to the only sites that I recommend for getting your free instant credit report in just a second. But first, I just wanted to go over some other things you need to be aware of. So just hang tight, I'll be giving you the links in a second.

Now, the other thing I want you to be aware of is that 99.9% of the sites that you're going to find online will ask you to try out a free trial period of a credit monitoring service in exchange for getting the free credit report. There's really nothing wrong with this kind of arrangement, and it actually may wind up being really beneficial to you depending on what your situation is.

For example, if you were right in the middle of doing some shopping around for a major purchase then it's going to be vital for you to keep close tabs on your credit score. You don't want any last-minute surprises that could scuttle any deal that you've worked out because some random thing suddenly shows up on your credit report that shouldn't be there.

It's totally up to you what you decide, I just wanted to bring this up so that you were aware of the fact that these things can actually be helpful. If you're not into it, or you don't think you need it, no sweat. All you have to do is just cancel the trial and you're good to go.

So, at this point we've gone through all of the different factors you need to consider when evaluating free credit report sites. The only thing missing so far are hands-on reviews so that you can know for sure what you're getting is the real deal.

You can find info on the only free instant credit report sites I recommend right here: Free Instant Credit Reports reviews. It's constantly up to date and offers video reviews of the best free credit report sites out there.