Let's start with the basics: what is a credit report, and why would you want to take advantage of a free online credit report? A credit report is just a history of all your credit activities, including credit cards and loans, the balances of both and how you make your payments on them (regularly, on time, always late, not at all). It will also show any action taken against you for unpaid bills.

In this day and age, you need some sort of credit history to make any kind of major purchase (such as buying a house, a car, getting a mortgage, etc), or even to get certain credit cards. If your credit is busted, then so are you. That's why it's important to always be aware of your credit history and credit score, and why a free online credit report is so useful and important to have.

Imagine with me, if you would, a recent college graduate named Joe. He had some fun in college, studied hard, partied harder, ran up his credit card, didn't always pay bills on time, but hey, he graduated! He's got a job lined up about 20 minutes from home and everything is right with his world. Except, just one week before he's scheduled to start the job, Old Reliable (the '89 car he's had since his sixteenth birthday ) just up and dies on him. So he decides, why not get a new car – he just graduated, has a great job about to start and he deserves a treat – except each car dealer he goes to checks his credit report and refuses to give him a loan. So he goes to his bank and several other lenders but oops, they ALSO refuse to give him a loan. Why? Because that build up of debt combined with many late payments has wrecked his credit score. So now Joe has no way of making it to the great new job that was awaiting him.

Had our Joe taken advantage of a site offering a free online credit report, he could have been easily prepared for this situation and already working on fixing up his credit. This type of situation can easily happen to anyone without proper knowledge of their own credit history.

Your free online credit report will usually include four types of information: identification, credit, public record and recent inquires. Identifying information are things like your full name and social security number, current and previous addresses, the year of your birth, etc. Credit information includes any accounts with banks, credit card companies, lenders and retailers. Public record information would include any state and county court records on bankruptcy or tax liens and recent inquiries shows who has pulled your credit report in the past year or two.

By remaining aware of your credit history, you will know exactly what to expect and can fix any errors before making a large purchase. Why would you want to get caught unawares like poor Joe, when you can just go get a free online credit report right now?