Every American consumer is now entitled to one credit report FREE each year, from each of the three credit agencies.
You can apply for all three at once, though my advice is to not do that. Rather, if you spread them out over the course of a full year, you essentially get to check your credit (and look for problems or suspicious activity) once every 4 months.
The easiest way to do this is to go to the official website: AnnualCreditReport.com. You can apply for all 3 there, free of charge, with no need to give a credit card.
You WILL have to give your Social Security Number. That is safe...and is the only way to access your report.
Each company will ask if you want to sign up for credit monitoring, at approximately $10 per person per month, or $120 a year.
Many consumer groups say you don't need to do this, if you check your report frequently. I have heard from people who were paying for this monitoring service, and still became victims of ID Theft, and were not notified of strange activity in their account. So it's not foolproof.
Many viewers ask me about all the radio ads for "Free Credit Report dot com." I cannot emphasize this enough: "Free Credit Report dot com" is NOT free. You will be asked for a credit card number. It is not the correct site.
If doing this online worries you, if you don't have a working printer, or if you are on a work computer where you don't want your report popping up, you can call and order a report at the following numbers:
THE 3 CREDIT AGENCIES ARE:
EQUIFAX 1-800-685-1111
EXPERIAN 1-800-682-7654
TRANSUNION 1-800-916-8800
