Does Pulling Your Own Credit Score Hurt Your Credit?
- An amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act called the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act gives you the right to pull your own credit score, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. You are free to order it from FICO, which is the major score provider, or one of the three dominant credit bureaus. TransUnion, Experian and Equifax all have their own versions of the score. FACTA also makes them disclose the main factors they used to calculate the number. Reviewing your score has no effect on your credit rating and does not show up in your credit reports.
- FICO and the credit bureaus may charge you a reasonable fee when you request your credit score. This usually runs about $8, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Mortgage lenders must disclose it at no cost under certain circumstances when you purchase a home. Beware of free credit score offers because they are usually attached to a purchase requirement for identity theft protection, credit report monitoring or some other paid service through the credit bureaus.
- Your credit score is a three-digit number between 850 and 300, according to Dana Dratch of Bankrate, with higher numbers being more desirable, but it gets compiled based on various factors tied into your credit use. All scores used a formula similar to FICO's, which devotes 35 percent of its score to payment history and 30 percent to debt load. Fifteen percent reflects the amount of time the consumer has used credit, while the remaining 20 percent is split between account types and newly opened accounts.
- You can estimate your credit score for free once you know what influences it because FACTA entitles you to free credit reports from TransUnion, Experian and Equifax every year. The only requirement is to get them from the AnnualCreditReport.com website. Scoring data comes from those reports, so things like strong on-time payment histories on all your accounts, low owed amounts, lengthy credit use history and a mix of installment loans and credit cards mean you have a good score.
