Many credit reporting agencies now offer you a free online credit report. You can use a free online credit report to check your credit score and see your credit rating. A free online credit report can tell you if anyone else has been looking at your credit. Your free online credit report will also show you information about your latest debts.

The Free Online Credit Report

Here’s how a free online credit report usually works: identifying information, credit history, public records, and inquiries.

Identifying information is, quite simply, information to identify you. When you review your free online credit report, look at it closely to make sure it's accurate. Check your free online credit report for multiple spellings of your name or more than one Social Security number. That's usually because someone reported the information that way. The variations generally stay on your credit report. If it's reported wrong, the agencies leave it because correcting it might destroy the link between you and that creditor. Don't be overly concerned about variations, but check them to make sure someone isn’t using your information to obtain credit in your name (“Identity Theft:”)

Other information in this section of your free online credit report might include your current and previous addresses, your date of birth, telephone numbers, driver's license numbers, your employer and your spouse's name.

The second section of your free online credit report is usually your credit history. Some of the services refer to the individual accounts as “trade lines”. Each account on your free online credit report will include the name of the creditor and the account number, sometimes scrambled for security purposes. You may have more than one account from a creditor. Many creditors have more than one kind of account, or may assign a new number if you move or add or drop a co-debtor from the account. The entry will also include:

1. The date you opened the account;
2. The kind of credit (installment, such as a mortgage or car loan, or revolving, such as a department store credit card);
3. Whether the account is in your name alone or with another person;
4. Total amount of the loan, high credit limit or highest balance on the card;
5. How much you still owe;
6. Fixed monthly payments or minimum monthly amount;
7. Status (open, inactive, closed, paid, etc.);
8. How well you've paid the account.

Equifax reports your payment history in plain English i.e., never pays late, typically pays 30 days late, etc. Other comments on your free online credit report might include collections, charged off or default. The other bureaus’ reports use payment codes ranging from 1 to 9; an R1 or I1 on a report is an indication of a good payment history on a revolving or installment account.

The public records section lists financial-related data, such as bankruptcies, judgments and tax liens. It doesn't list arrests or criminal activities. You want this section to be blank. If you do have entries here, check the accuracy of the dates listed. There are strict rules for how long the kind of information included in this section can remain on your report.

The final section on your free online credit report is usually the inquiries. It is simply a list of everyone who asked to see your credit report.

Inquiries are divided into two sections. "Hard" inquiries on your free online credit report are ones you initiate by filling out a credit application or taking your child to the orthodontist. "Soft" inquiries on your free online credit report are from companies that want to send out promotional information to a pre-qualified group or current creditors who are monitoring your account. Generally, only “hard” inquiries are counted on most credit scoring models. Even these are not counted individually if you in the midst of a major transaction at the time, like shopping for a home loan.