Pulling Credit Report

[Anonymous]

When is the best time to pull your credit, beginning of the month or end of the month?  I want to pull my credit before I apply to a credit card.  March 2008, my score was 624.  I want to do a balance transfer because the card that I currently have has a balance of 2,000 and ARP is 18% but I keep recieving credit card offers for 0% ARP until June 2009, and I plan on paying it off soon but the ARP is holding me back from doing it sooner.

If I pull my regular credit as oppose to my Fico will it be the same?

[Anonymous]

FICO is just the score with the same credit report. If you pull your credit directly you will still get the same report but not a FICO score, except Equifax gives you their credit report with a FICO score. TransUnion and Experian directly will just give you their credit report but a FAKO score not a FICO score. Pull it any time. However your accounts only update once every 30 days.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for responding.  You wouldn't happen to know when in the month they update information?

[smallfry]

This is the main reason I have all my accounts cut as close to the same date as possible. One pull around the 10th of the month since they all close and report well before then.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for responding. You wouldn't happen to know when in the month they update information?

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Every account that you have updates on its own schedule, so there's no magic about beginning or end of month.

Almost all credit cards and other loans report to the credit bureaus on their statement dates. These are not the due dates; these are the dates that your new statements post online, or get mailed to your house. So what the others are saying is that for simplicity's sake, many people get their statement dates changed to fall around the same date, maybe the mortgage at the beginning of the month and everything else around the 15th.

Otherwise you have a sort of rolling reporting going on through the month, as each account takes its turn to update. This is how mine look, because I've never tried to change their dates.

On top of this, each credit bureau updates at their own speed. For me, EX updates within 24 hours of each new batch of info, then EQ 2-3 days later, then TU up to a week. This can be completely maddening.

To know for sure, many of us subscribe to TrueCredit, CreditSecure, and various other credit monitoring services. If you're interested in doing this, be sure to get one that lets you pull a new report (not just look at an old one) once a day, and whatever else you do, ignore the scores (aka "FAKOs") and advice, which can be contrary to what helps your FICO scores.

[RobertEG]

The best time to pull your CR is when you need to apply for new credit.  That somehow for me does not translate into a day of the month.