How to Obtain Credit Reports

Video Transcript

"I'm Roger Groh. We're here today to talk about how you obtain your own credit report or a credit report on somebody else. First your own. The US government years ago passed a law called the fair credit reporting act that require companies that keep data on your credit. Require them to supply to you for free copies of what they have so that you can get it and look at it and be sure it's accurate. The three big companies who do that are Fair Isaac, Experian and TransUnion. And if you just Google free credit reporting or go to any of them or go to fair credit reporting act, all of the links that will enable to that for free come up. If you go through the government links, you avoid spam and that may be an option that you want to do. You do not have to pay any money for those reports. You can get your own. Be sure and keep copies so that if you go to borrow money you can hand a copy of their credit report to whomever you're thinking about borrowing the money from. The other thing is, how do you get credit reports on somebody else? Well switch roles a little bit, instead of you being the borrower, let's say that you're the lender. You can also go back to these credit reporting companies or to Dun & Bradstreet or to other business credit reporting companies. Type in somebody's name and social security number and a credit history report will come up. You have to pay for that, it's not a free service but you can buy credit reports on anybody today. The other thing is Google. Sounds silly but if anything public has happened to you, if you've been divorced, if you've been sued, if you've been whatever, that's going to be on Google. If you're thinking about lending money to somebody else, you want a complete picture who they are. So for sure Google them ahead of time and see if anything comes up. I'm Roger Groh and that's how you get credit history reports."