Consumer Rights

• The Fair Credit Reporting Act is a federal law that covers credit bureaus and defines consumer rights related to credit reports. This law was amended by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act in 2003 to include free consumer access to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion credit reports without any related purchase requirements, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center. All orders must be placed through a special website, annualcreditreport.com, which takes online orders and provides mail and telephone order instructions.
  
  

Time Frame

• FACTA does not entitle you to unlimited free credit report copies. The law allows you to order one no-cost report every year from each of the three individual credit bureaus. Then you must wait 12 months to get additional free reports. There is no requirement to order all of your reports at once, so you can spread out your orders. The Michigan attorney general's office advises getting one report every four months to continuously monitor for identity theft signs, like unrecognized application inquiries, credit cards or loans.
  
  

Additional Copies

• You get free credit reports under certain other circumstances even if you used up your copies through annualcreditreport.com. Lenders pull your reports to assess your credit applications. The bureaus must give you free copies if you get turned down for loans or credit cards based on the information contained in your reports. The State of New Jersey Department of Banking & Insurance explains that the financial institution to which you applied must reveal which credit bureau it used to check your information. You have 60 days to request your free report from that bureau. You also get free reports after disputing errors with the bureaus. They conduct investigations, fix the errors and send corrected reports so you can double-check the results.
  
  

Warning

• The credit bureaus are under no obligation to give you free credit reports if you do not order them properly. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion sell reports through their company-run websites or run free offers if you sign up for credit monitoring, identity theft protection or other services with a monthly cost. Beware if you are asked for your credit card account number, because annualcreditreport.com never requests such information.