{"id":154,"date":"2010-06-08T21:12:52","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T01:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/?p=154"},"modified":"2010-06-08T21:12:52","modified_gmt":"2010-06-09T01:12:52","slug":"real-credit-score-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/08\/real-credit-score-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Credit Score Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Identity theft is all over the TV adds, and internet these days. Making it seem as if everyone will be a victim whereby they lose all their money and have their credit completely ruined.<\/p>\n

Truth is this will probably NOT happen to the vast majority of people EVER! Heck, my own brother had his messed up by an illegal alien not 20miles from his home – and the police could do nothing but tell him to ‘start watching’ his credit more and put fraud alerts on his accounts! It does happen, just not that often and the results can usually be resolved fairly easily \u2013 not quickly but easily.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong you should still be careful.<\/p>\n

But remember your bank and credit card company already have some pretty strict identity theft protections in place already–they’re the ones who usually wind up footing the bill, after all. But beyond that there are some pretty simple steps that you can take yourself, such as getting your annual credit report, regularly checking your bank statements for odd charges.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But please don’t get suckered into things like ‘LifeLock’.<\/p>\n

This March, LifeLock had to settle with the Federal Trade Commission for $12 million amidst charges that they were lying about what their services could do, mainly because they were. According to the chairman of the FTC, Jon Leibowitz, LifeLock’s protection "left enough holes that you could drive a truck through it,"<\/p>\n

The sort of thing LifeLock protects you from is mainly people opening up new credit accounts, which is only 17 percent of existing identity theft. If someone used your identity to get medical care, a new job or even if they just took your credit card for a joyride, you wouldn’t hear a thing until the bank showed up to repossess your new car that you didn’t know you bought.<\/p>\n

I admit, your credit score determines some rather important factors in your life, such as how easily you can get a loan, or buy a house. But it is not all that mystical and flowing. And it is very easy to get your current status and learn how to clean up your credit by yourself.<\/u><\/p>\n

There are hundreds of companies offering to ‘give’ you a \u2018free credit report\u2019 if you sign up for their monthly service \u2013 usually at an incredibly high right (average of $15\/mo).<\/p>\n

The amazing thing is, you can get your credit report completely free at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can do this once a year, which may not sound like much, but your credit score really doesn’t change very rapidly. Right Here:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.annualcreditreport.com\/cra\/index<\/a><\/p>\n

This central site allows you to request a free credit file disclosure, commonly called a credit report, once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.<\/p>\n

Here is what they are about:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.annualcreditreport.com\/cra\/helpabout<\/a><\/p>\n

Ok let\u2019s start.<\/p>\n

Select your state and start the process. I am going to show most of the process and explain where you should take care to open the reports in a separate window for printing so you won\u2019t \u2018lose your place\u2019 on the original web site.<\/p>\n

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Then \u2018Right Click\u2019 on Print your report and choose \u2018open in new window\u2019 and then print out the report!<\/p>\n

Close the print window and don\u2019t leave this page yet!<\/p>\n

Now go up to the \u2018Return to AnnualCreditReport.com\u2019 link at the top of the page to do the same for the other two agencies.<\/p>\n

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Right-click on the \u2018View and Print Your Online Report\u2019 button and choose \u2018Open in New Window\u2019<\/p>\n

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Note there are two items to print here.<\/p>\n

Click on the Print This Page and another window will pop up you can then print it out.<\/p>\n

Then click on Print Report and print out the entire report page that pops up.<\/p>\n

Once again:<\/p>\n

\"clip_image024\"<\/a>Please Note! Click on Return to: AnnualCreditReport.com<\/strong> to get your remaining Free Report(s)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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You may get this:<\/p>\n

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I did.<\/p>\n

So I right-clicked on \u2018by phone or mail\u2019 and got this:<\/p>\n

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Right-click on \u2018the link \u2018request form\u2019 and choose \u2018save file as\u2019 or \u2018save target as\u2019 depending on your browser.<\/p>\n

Save the form and print it out and fill it out and mail it<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Print and complete the form <\/p>\n

\u00b7 Mail the completed form to:
Annual Credit Report Request Service
P.O. Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281<\/b><\/p>\n

The you should get this window:<\/p>\n

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I hope this helps some of you. Keep safe out there.<\/p>\n

Peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Identity theft is all over the TV adds, and internet these days. Making it seem as if everyone will be a victim whereby they lose all their money and have their credit completely ruined. Truth is this will probably NOT happen to the vast majority of people EVER! Heck, my own brother had his messed … Continue reading “Real Credit Score Answers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,98,97,21],"tags":[245,247,246,240],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}