Our economy is in a sorry state these days. Things seem to be lurching towards an outright recession and all of us are feeling the pinch. With financial matters being in crisis, it is even harder to keep your credit score high. The mortgage meltdown is still playing out and banks and other lenders are tightening their restrictions for home loans, it's getting more and more difficult to get ahead. Whether or not you are aware of it, your credit score is affected by several factors and can change in an instant.

Right now, it is a great time to buy a home. While the market is not so kind to sellers at the moment, buyers have a lot of latitude for wheeling and dealing. A lot of people begin looking for a house before even finding out what the standing of their credit rating is and are denied home loans without knowing why. Right now, it may not seem important to you to know what your credit score is or see your credit report, but you can get a lot of benefit from knowing how your credit standing is. Before looking into home loans, one of the vest best things you can do is to find out how to obtain free credit reports.

Once you have done this and have the opportunity to look through your free credit report, you will know exactly what is on your report. By federal law, you are entitled to free credit reports once a year. Even if you are not seeking out a home loan at the moment, it is helpful to look at your report; in many cases, there is inaccurate information on credit reports. It may be easy to fix these errors in some cases, more complicated in others, but knowing what is on your report is the first step to ensuring that your credit is in good shape.

Thanks to a new amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you are entitled to obtain free credit reports every year from all three reporting companies. Equifax, TransUnion and Experian must provide a free copy to you once each year, if you request for them to do so. The Federal Trade Commission has warned the public against the numerous scams that have come about promising people the ability to obtain free credit reports. Most of them, indeed, end up being a scam and you end up giving some personal information out to others for either their own personal gain or a hidden fee or agenda.

These websites may ask you to buy something or sign up for something to obtain free credit reports. There is one site which you can go to for a free, no strings attachd free credit report card; this site is www.annualcreditreport.com. The government recommends this site as a source for getting your free credit report. If you had to pay to get a credit report or you think you may have been scammed, file a complaint with the FTC. While you may not get your money back, you may be able to prevent others from being similarly cheated.