Tricks to get FREE copies of your credit reports?

[Anonymous]

Real hard-copy reports come from the bureaus, not a CMS.  While CMS reports can be similar, there have been plenty of examples of them differing from real credit reports.  Whenever you really want to know what's there, it's important to obtain a real hard-copy report from one of the bureaus.  Using a Discover denial letter to get your TU report is one example of how to accomplish this for free.

[Sabii]

Oh I understand now, thanks you.
Would freecreditscore.com count? It's actually just the Experian site. It's the same one that you pay for, it just has a workaround where they don't charge you I believe.
USAA redirects you to an Experian website and generates a report with the Experian logo and report number. I could see where it might not be accurate though.
Equifax is the report that always eludes me. They don't give out anything for free it seems!

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure about what you're getting from the Experian site.  If you've ever received your real hard-copy credit report from EX, I guess you'd have to see if what you're getting there matches that.  Typically credit reports depending on the thickness of your file can be many pages long; usually they fit 2 accounts or so per page.  I recently received my TU report and I think it was 16-17 pages long and I have 23 accounts on it.

As for EQ, you can always get each of your credit reports for free once per year at annualcreditreport.com.  I'd suggest going that route to get your EQ report for free.