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Why do I need to check my free credit report Canada with my credit score?

Learning the basics of the credit report process helps you in maintaining your good financial health because credit bureau collects and maintains how you are doing with your financial responsibility, and to provide it for the people and the organizations who need to find out, have direct concern and interest in your financial history like your employer, business partner or a lender, where your credit score shows your credit risk or advantage. Its a number that has been calculated through a mathematical formula  that measure through assorted variables in your credit report such as your payment history, public records, and debt to income ratio. Here in Canada, according to Equifax’s ScorePower Report, FICO scores range between 300 (bad credit rating) and 900 (excellent credit rating), where lowest number shows you have been suffering from a critical and a bad credit situation likely to default and high credit score brings more and more advantages, like if you are applying for a loan your interest rates depends on it, rates will be higher if your credit score is low and in case of high credit ratting you will get best possible lower rates. The one big investment is your mortgage and most of the people know how good score has brought thousands of dollars in savings to their mortgage repayments. Your  Credit score brings an instant summary that holds just three numerical digits to know your creditability.

Getting a free credit report in Canada holds more advantages for Canadian residents in relation to the American residents but lot of people here in Canada even don’t bother to check their credit profile, this may also be possible that they don’t know if they are entitled to a free credit report or not. Although you will be offered a free credit report Canada but it doesn’t mean that it holds your credit score rating attached. Possibilities are, you may or may not get your credit score with your free credit report, “How To Get Free Credit Report Canada With My Credit Score”, lets clear this phrase.

There are lot of options you may order your credit report, like by phone, fax, e-mail, general mail or online form but getting your credit report at your physical address through your mail request and instant delivery through internet media are the safest and easiest methods.

By mail its free! The credit-reporting agencies will provide you, by mail, with a free copy of your report on receiving your request in writing. Getting a free credit report this way will not provide you with your credit score and it also take some days to reach you.

By Internet some fees apply! You can also order your credit report through TransUnion and Equifax Canada from these reporting agencies’ websites online. This method is quite easy, safe and fast since you will receive your credit report online almost instantly, may take just few minutes after you made your request and other good thing you will awarded with your credit score too. However, these credit-reporting agencies charge a small fee for providing you with an online copy of your credit report and score.

How to get free credit report online that contains your free credit score?

The only way you can obtain your credit score through online applications supplied by these two credit reporting agencies’ on their websites. The fee charged for your credit score might be higher than the cost of receiving your credit report online. However, the cost of your credit score will always include an online copy of your credit report. Moreover, your paid credit report subscription also includes several other features these companies may have but common one is offering you your credit identity protection. The intention of writing these few sentences up are just to make it clear for you that free credit report with free credit score can only be obtainable through these credit reporting companies online, TransUnion and Equifax Canada and it does hold a cost. Now question stands here then how this advertising media is using the phrases free credit report Canada like “free credit score Canada” “free credit report Canada online”, “free credit report Canada Equifax”, “free credit report Canada TransUnion”, “Equifax free credit report Canada” and more like these.

You know how this advertising environment have been so tighten enough today when we have plenty of platforms to select products and services we require and this kind of market behavior and customer’s trend in finding opportunities the main suppliers, producers and marketers are just trying to reach their market and consumers beside trying to balance their own business competitiveness, such kind of aggressive statements that looks golden opportunities, make them prominent to be readily click-able are not false but it require some limitations attached. That’s why (Federal Trade Commission) FTC new rules implemented early this year in America to restrict such free credit report offering through these credit reporting agencies to safeguard consumers interest from such free credit report scam happening by printing these sentences as bellow:

“THIS NOTICE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Read more at FTC.GOV.
You have the right to a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com or 877-322-8228, the ONLY authorized source under federal law.“

Its compulsory by law to print this above statement on the website’s web pages that contains such free credit report offering and those companies could face fines for not expressing full disclosure about free reports. Although its an American rule for the American websites but we should adopt it on ethical grounds till its not come up as a legislation. How this is true we can have our credit report in Canada free online that holds our free credit score?

You will find several websites offering you a 7 days, 15 days, 30 days or else free trial period for their such services, which offers you to view your free credit report in Canada online for the said period and after expiring you must sign up to carry on using the same service as paid one and some also offers the same free trial service if not canceled before the expiry of the said period you automatically becomes there paid member to be liable for the paid subscription. That’s why always carefully read first about the terms and conditions for the said free Canadian credit report offering, you are going to sign for. Some people will use the same service to view their free credit report in Canada and then just cancel their subscription or a membership before the expiry of the said period.

This is how to get your free credit report Canada that also holds your free credit score, its a good way but you have to remember to cancel your membership with the said company before the free trial period will be up, otherwise they will be start charging you for a service that you no longer been using.

The Canadian credit reports and scores offering system in Canada is very similar to that in the United States, like we both have two common credit reporting agencies working among us, which are Equifax and TransUnion (Experian, the third one has closed its operations in Canada on April, 2009). But there is, however, one main key difference that brings more advantage to us in Canada, is that, unlike the United States, where a consumer is allowed only a single copy of annual free credit report once in a year, in Canada the consumer may order a free copy of their credit report as many times in a year he/she may without any restrictions but as long as the request is made in writing for the printed copy to be delivered by mail. You will find printed statistic on your free credit report that how many times you have received such copies and good thing is this, it doesn’t bring any effect on your credit score.

For more information on how to build or improve your credit history, and how to check for signs of identity theft along the sample credit report Canada and credit score documents you may visit Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. The Government of Canada offers a free publication called Understanding Your Credit Report and Credit Score that you can read online free there, you may also order a hard copy of said publication that is available free of cost to residents of Canada.

View your Free Credit Reports in Canada in seconds!

It’s a good idea to request a copy of your credit report also know as credit rating from the two credit-reporting agencies in Canada: Equifax and TransUnion, at least once a year to verify that your personal and financial information is up to date and correct, and to ensure that you have not been the victim of identity fraud. Its possible you may get different credit history with these two, because your credit information can be kept by more than one credit-reporting agency, and because those agencies do not necessarily share information, it’s important to check all two-credit reports carefully.

Its quite natural and people does understand well that there is always a possibility to get different credit history with the two different credit rating agencies working separately collecting data of every individual to build consumer credit files, some times errors and omissions do occur with each ones exclusive records but if transaction found in both records it is assumed that the record is correct but on the other hand if this transaction is false without the knowledge of consumer then it may be a fraud that happens to consumer record while using social insurance number or any such private identity documents, but what happens if you get two different credit histories with the same credit reporting agency for the same period, in deed it felt confusion but its been happening in Canada and most of the Canadians are not aware of it. Wikipedia is a great knowledge hub where you can find where its been highlighted as “More than One Credit History Per Person”.

How do you feel if same person gives you two different answers for your same question? It doesn’t happen only in Canada, but people can have more than one credit history in some other countries too. Reason behind this double credit history with the same credit rating company is, if person who already has applied for some sort of credit before obtaining a Social Insurance Number would come under two separate credit histories, one with SIN and one without SIN. This is due to the credit reporting structure in Canada. This can lead to two completely separate parallel histories, and often leads to inconsistencies (although typically the person in question will never notice the inconsistencies), because when a lender asks for someone’s credit report with SIN, what the lender gets is different from what he would have gotten if he asked the report without providing the SIN. This is because, contrary to popular belief, when someone gets a new SIN for whatever reason, the two credit files are never merged unless the person requests specifically. As a result, a record with SIN zeroed out is kept separately from a record with SIN. Note this happens without the person even knowing it.

Our social insurance number SIN plays a most important role in our life because it also authenticates our credit history. Most of the people don’t feel confident while using their SIN publicly, or submitting it through phone, mail or email. I have checked this question which most of the people do have in their mind with the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada on its website http://www.fcac.gc.ca, about this double credit history with or without SIN in the hope that it may highlight some important points for consumers to benefits but could not get the answer even its search engine doesn’t recognize these sentences, “Credit History with or without SIN” and “more than one Credit History per person”. Although this is highly recommended resource that Government of Canada offers to the general public that contains general information on how to build or improve credit history, and how to check for signs that identity theft has occurred, also offers free publication called Understanding Your Credit Report and Credit Score. This publication provides sample credit report and credit score documents with explanations of the notations and codes that are used. As a Canadian resident, you can order your free copy by mail; available in both soft and hard paper bindings.

You have a choice of either Trans Union or Equifax as the Credit Bureau to obtain your credit check from, as both are equally effective. Trans Union is automated and available to you 24/7 in less than 2 minutes; Equifax is only available during business hours and generally takes between 5-15 minutes to upload to your account. Moreover, always check your credit history while providing your SIN, because it provides all the credit activities, which involve your social insurance number, you can also not even instantly detect frauds and threats to your credit file but report any inconsistency in timely manner. And if you are getting your credit history by online resource other than these credit rating companies, always check availability of secure server on specially form submitting page (website address bar should starts with “https://” and a small “lock sign” at the bottom bar of your computer screen) while submitting your social insurance number into the prescribed form used for the purpose.