Each of the 3 Credit Agencies Must Give You a Free Report Once Per Calendar Year
I originally read about this on Jonathan’s My Money Blog a while back. I was aware that anytime you had credit pulled and you are denied you can request a free copy of your report from the agency that gave it to the creditor. I found out, however, that the law stipulates each credit reporting agency make available a free credit report to you on an annual basis.
Experian runs a site where you can get all 3 (Experian, Equifax & Transunion) for free. It is relatively easy site to go through, and it contacts each agency for your to retrieve the information. Before I started monitoring my credit daily, I used it and pulled all 3.
If you do not work with your credit on a regular basis you can pull just one and come back later to pull the others. The free site is located at www.annualcreditreport.com.
Read more about credit at Wikipedia.