Protect Your Credit

Protect Your Credit: Get A Credit Report

Because of the importance of credit to the world’s economy, it is important to protect one’s own personal credit. This protection can be accomplished in a number of ways.

One of the major ways to protect one’s credit is to get a copy of a credit report that reflects an individual’s credit history. Therefore, it is important to get a credit report and know how to accomplish this important task.

The Importance Of Getting A Credit Report

First of all in today’s day and age one must realize how important it is to get a credit report. The importance of obtaining a personal credit report is to ensure that the credit history is accurate and to make sure that there is no fraudulent activity reflected.

A person’s credit as reflected on a credit report is a critical document. This is because any potential lender will request an individual’s credit report if that person is requesting a loan or wants to open up a credit account. The credit report will reveal the history and current activity regarding the individual’s credit activity. This information is critical for the potential lender as they will be able to see how an individual handles credit. In addition, if a person’s credit report is in good standing, they may qualify for lower interest rates.

Also, the importance for an individual to get a credit report reflecting their credit activity is to monitor their credit activity. This is important because many individuals give credit card information to various individuals and enter that information on to various web sites. This activity increases the chances of an individual becoming a victim of identity theft or their credit card information falling into the hands of unscrupulous individuals. Therefore it is important to get a credit report on an annual basis to monitor any unauthorized activity.

How To Get A Credit Report

There are a number of ways for a person to get a credit report. Probably the easiest way is for an individual to go on to the Internet and log on to various web sites that offer an individual their credit report at no cost. This free access to an individual’s credit report is due to recent legislation that requires that credit reporting agencies provide this information on an annual basis to an individual.

Another way for a person to get their credit report is to give one of the three credit reporting bureaus a phone call and ask that their credit report the mailed to them. Those three credit reporting bureaus are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. In addition, a consumer may request their credit report by asking for that report in writing.

In addition, think about using a digital wallet, a payment system housed on your smartphone that makes it possible to conduct electronic transactions using your credit cards. Because digital wallets use encryption, tokenization and authentication, they have the potential to be safer than carrying a credit card. If you use a digital wallet, make your smartphone hard to unlock by requiring a passcode and fingerprint, where possible, and download an app to help you find your phone in case you lose it.

Lastly, keep in mind If you allow your browser to store your credit card number, you could be vulnerable. To prevent this, consider turning off the Autofill function in each browser that you use.