I was recently in a great GRI class on Finance and during part of the discussion, the topic of credit reports and credit reporting came up. I was surprised that many people didn’t know some of the things I mentioned — so I thought “well, if these smart, knowledgeable people don’t know it — maybe other people don’t either”. So here it is:

Ignore those stupid advertisements that you see. No one has the money or desire to run expensive TV ads to give you a “free credit report” unless there is a way for them to make money from it. Advertising is not free. There is, however, a real way to get a genuinely free copy of your credit report. The federal government made the credit reporting companies do this years ago. [Read more...]