There are a lot of spammy, scammy, and downright fraudulent credit history and credit score websites so you should be, by nature, suspicious of every website that offers to give you a free credit report or score. The only credit history website that you should ever remember is AnnualCreditReport because it’s the only one sanctioned (and legally ordered) by the federal government. Once every 12 months, you can get a free credit history report from each of the three credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. A great strategy is to stagger the requests so you essentially get your report once every four months.

What you won’t get with that free credit report is your credit score, which is what lenders care about anyway. If you have to get a free credit score, either for your housing application or something else, you’ll have to use a service like FreeCreditReport.com. Now, didn’t I just talk about how there are a lot of spammy, scammy, and fraudulent credit score websites? Well, this one isn’t one of them because it’s run by one of the credit bureaus – Experian.

When you get your free credit score, they sign you up for their Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring program trial of 30 days. Cancel within the first thirty days or they will start billing you $12 a month.

Problem solved!