Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumers have won the right to access their credit report once a year from each of the 3 major credit bureaus.

Access was granted on December 1st for people in Western states through the Federal Trade Commission.

I pulled up my report yesterday, but I was only able to access 1 of them online (my TransUnion report). It did take a few minutes, and there were some verification steps that didn't seem to work well (it didn't recognize my American Express account number).

But credit reports are notorious for being inaccurate, so it's definitely worth checking to see if there's something wrong on your report.

Here are some things I noticed when I pulled up my credit report:
-Because I consolidated my student loans, I have a bunch of closed student loan accounts.
-My credit report has an account that I co-signed with my sister a few years back, that I totally forgot about. (If you have mysterious accounts on your report, it might be that a family member has included your name on the account.)
-I have a Discover card currently open that I didn't know about either.

I should add that requesting your credit report doesn't affect your credit score (which isn't free). The free credit scores you may see in ads are only estimates of your FICO credit score. Your FICO score can be purchased at www.myfico.com