This was all over the news in 2005, but many of you may have forgotten by now — I did until just a few days ago — that all Americans can receive a free "credit file disclosure" (a credit report) once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. There are many, many sites claiming to offer these reports, but the only one that doesn't have any restrictions (such as buying a credit monitoring plan) and is sponsored by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion is AnnualCreditReport.com. It's important to check up on your credit report regularly, so if you haven't checked up on it in the past year, this would be a great time to do it.
(For those interested, here's the FTC's discussion of the creation of this website.)
