Last chance for free credit scores

By MP Dunleavey

Editor's note: Join columnist MP Dunleavey and a group of women as they seek to strip away the myths around money, liberate themselves from debt and find financial sanity. Follow the continuing quest of the Women in Red every other Wednesday in Dunleavey's column on MSN Money.

Are you ready to improve your credit score?

I'd rather go to Alaska and hack up a moose, myself. But to take advantage of a recent legal settlement with TransUnion, I have been forced to face my credit history.

Thanks to a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against TransUnion, the credit bureau is offering tens of millions of people (likely including you) free credit monitoring and free credit scores for up to nine months.

Today, Sept. 24, is the last day to register. Information is also available at 1-866-416-3470.

Why would you want to? Why would I?

Because we, the Women in Red Credit Racers, have realized this is an unbeatable opportunity to get nine months of regular credit checkups -- free! -- and watch our credit scores rise.

The winner will be the one who shows the most gain, nine months from today. And the top 10 (men are welcome, too!) will get 50 years of free credit monitoring from the Experian credit bureau.

Is your credit ready to be reborn?

On your mark, get set . . .

To enter the credit race, you have to get a base line reading. You can use your first score from TransUnion, or you can be really good and obtain copies of all three of your credit reports.

It's like joining Weight Watchers: You have to weigh in to see how far you have to go to reach your goal.

I know, I didn't want to do that either. Fortunately, it was easy, if not entirely painless.

MP faces the music . . . and has a heart attack

Everyone is entitled to one free copy of his or her credit report from each bureau -- Experian, Equifax and TransUnion -- every year. The official site for these free reports is AnnualCreditReport.com. (Don't use sites with similar-sounding names that push you to buy pricey credit-monitoring services.)

You can view your credit reports right there online or print them out if you wish. You can even dispute errors and submit changes to the bureaus on the spot with an easy-to-use form.

Brace yourself: There will be mistakes.

Most credit reports are riddled with errors, according to a 2005 study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

About 25% of all reports contain mistakes severe enough to mess up your credit.

Luckily, I had done a pretty thorough cleanup a couple of years ago, after I was the victim of identity theft. Still, even now there were some loose ends (a credit card account that wasn't mine, a late payment that was too old to be on the report).

There was also a black mark: a late payment to one of my credit cards earlier this year. (A mistake! A snafu! Our mail got lost when we moved!)

Then, a real shocker: a public lien for $1,004.

I flipped out. My husband didn't know what it was either. I called the county clerk and learned that a tax bill, which I had paid, was on record as being in default.

It was some comfort to be able to submit a dispute right there and then, but once an item is on there, it is hard to dislodge. In fact, credit experts advise not only disputing incorrect items with the each credit bureau but also contacting the individual institutions themselves.

This takes time and persistence -- and downloading another copy of your report in a few months to see whether the offending items have been removed. (If you dispute items, you're entitled to another free copy of your report.)

MP gets her scores . . . and has another heart attack

I didn't like the surprises on my credit reports, so I decided to dive all the way in and pay for my FICO score, the one lenders look at. It's derived from the scores of all three credit bureaus, and it doesn't come with the free reports.

MyFico.com charges $47.85 for the FICO Credit Complete -- all your scores plus your reports. It doesn't sell the scores separately. I resented having to buy the whole FICO package, but what choice did I have?

Horrors! Here are my scores:

• TransUnion: 689, considered "good."

• Experian: 627, considered "not good."

• Equifax: 662, considered "good."

When my husband and I took out our current mortgage, just 10 months ago, my score was above 700 -- the banker said so! What happened? Surely this credit race will give me some insight.

Ready to join me? Here are the steps:

• Sign up for the TransUnion deal now (remember, today is the last day). Save the first credit report TransUnion sends you. This will help verify the winners.

• Get your free credit reports, and pay for your FICO score if you like.

• Go public. Each month, we'll post our TransUnion scores on the Women in Red Credit Racers thread on our message board, using the same expose-all method that the debt racers do.

It's not easy to share my credit history and scores, let me tell you. But at the heart of the Women in Red's continuing quest for financial sanity is the idea that no one can do this alone. It's not about punishment or embarrassment. The more you share, the more support you'll get. The more support you get, the more progress you'll make. As The Beatles sang, "Love, love, love . . . "

Continued: Deciphering the scores

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