How to Check Credit Score and Why

 

 

If you want to enjoy financial freedom, you have to keep your credit score in the perfect range. Your credit score is only affected when you do credit transactions. Credit transactions include borrowing personal loan from the bank, getting a credit card, mortgaging a house, taking out a car loan etc. Of course, as soon as you approach a lender for any of these purposes, they will ask your credit score. Based on your credit score they will decide whether to approve or reject your loan request. Your credit score also affects your terms and conditions while obtaining the loan.

If you want to avoid rejections, it is best that you check credit score on your own. For that, you will have to know how to check credit score. Let’s see.

Checking Your Credit Score

How to Check Your Credit Score – Using the CRA Websites

CRA websites are the first places you would want to go to for checking your credit score. In most cases, the CRA websites have complete instructions on how to check your credit score. It is just like an online form where you have to provide your personal information including your email address, physical address, etc. These websites are the most reliable sources of pulling your credit reports because credit reporting agencies are the entities that compile them. You can even subscribe to their services in which they will send you the report regularly for your viewing.

How to Check Credit Score – Using Non-CRA Websites

If you want to know how to check credit score without visiting a particular CRA website, you can try other third party websites. Here is an important thing for you to know. These websites will also pull the report from the same sources. The most important thing to know here is that you should not agree to pay anything for your credit report. You can pull that information for free on any of the CRA websites. If there is a company asking for money to tell you how to check credit score, you should stay away from it. You will be surprised to know that there are hundreds of websites that will try to make money from you in this manner.

Will It Affect Your Credit Score If You Pull a Report?

Once you are clear about how to check credit score, the next big question on your mind would be about its effect on your credit score. There are online websites that try to prove to you that checking your credit score or pulling a report will affect the score negatively. What they are telling you is only half truth. Yes, your credit score gets a negative affect but only when a lender pulls it. The more frequently the lenders pull your report, the more negative the impact will be. That’s because the CRAs can see that you are being rejected the loan by the lenders.

You should not, however, mix this inquiry with a soft inquiry. You can read about soft inquiries on the websites of the credit reporting agencies as well. They clearly tell you that soft inquiries will not affect your credit rating in any way. A soft inquiry is when you request one of the three major credit bureaus for your credit report. Why would your personal inquiry negatively impact your credit score? So, if you want to know how to check credit score and someone suggests you should not, tell them the difference between soft and hard inquiries.

How to Check Credit Score – The Procedure

If you know how to fill out an online form to schedule a service of your car, filling out the form to get your credit report should not be a problem at all. Here is the procedure of how to check credit score.

1. Open the website of one of the credit reporting agencies
2. Use the sign up option to create an account on the website
3. Fill out the form with accurate information
4. Submit the information and you can now view your credit report

There are many additional tools that you will get access to when you sign up with a credit reporting agency. For example, you can check online whether your information has been hacked or stolen by someone. Credit report tracker is another tool that you can use once you sign up with the CRA.

Why You Should Know How to Check Credit Score

The first reason why you should know how to check credit score is because you can do it for free. You don’t even have to provide your credit card details to get the reports on your credit history. Once you know this fact, you will not fall for the many scams online that try to tell you that you have to pay some money to get your credit report. Some will even go the extent of telling you that pulling your credit report will have a negative effect on your credit score. That’s simply not the case when you pull the report yourself using the website of one of the CRAs.

Additionally, you want to keep an eye on your credit score at all times. Doing so will give you an idea as to what is affecting it negatively and positively. If doing a certain credit transaction is adding positive points to your score, you would want to do it more. In a similar way, you can also keep track of any errors on your reports. You can report the errors to the credit bureau to have the issue fixed.

Final Thoughts

Now, you should have a clear idea of how to check credit score. If you have access to the internet, you can pull your report whenever you want. The good thing is that you can pull these reports not only on your desktop computers but mobile devices as well. After the security breach that took place in 2017, it is even more important that you check your credit reports frequently. If someone has stolen your information and is trying to use it, you can take an action immediately.