Just a quick followup on my last post. I took advantage of the Experian report yesterday. It's nice that you can get a free report, but a couple of cheesy things about it (don't know if this applies to the other report mentioned by NsXMas):
1. If you want to see what your credit score is, you have to pay $5.
2. It lists all open and closed accounts (not sure how many years it goes back), but gives you no contact information, in case you want to close one.
3. They don't list complete account numbers, and some of them appear to be off. So, if you have an old account that you thought was closed, and you don't have the info anymore, it will take some detective work, I bet.
The main reason I ran it for my wife and myself, was to verify that there are no incorrect listings, and to cancel any unnecessary accounts. My wife has about 5 "useless" store-type cards that she signed up for just to get a discount, and never cancelled them (or they failed to close them).
But, now I have to research to find a number to call to get these closed. I seem to remember on credit reports in the past that they included at least a toll-free number for each account.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they are being forced to provide these free of charge, but they should be more comprehensive.
Kind of reminds me of the lame legislation passed against personal information sharing by companies. The lobby for the marketing companies took the teeth out of that law, making you opt-out of it, as opposed to having you opt-in, if you want to.
