PSA: You can now get free credit reports every week

[FireLane]

An announcement from the FTC:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/10/you-now-have-permanent-access-free-weekly-credit-reports

The three national credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — have permanently extended a program that lets you check your credit report at each of the agencies once a week for free.

Visit AnnualCreditReport.com to request free copies of your credit reports. Other sites may charge you or be fraudulent sites set up to steal your personal information.

By law, everyone is entitled to one free credit report every twelve months from each of the three credit reporting agencies. In 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic upended the finances of millions of people, the three agencies announced they would temporarily make free reports available every week. The program was extended twice and is now permanent.

I doubt anyone needs to check their credit every week. But it's nice that you can now get them more than once every year.

[Adventine]

Does anyone know of an actual real-life non-theoretical situation where someone legitimately needs to check their credit once a week?

[neo von retorch]

Does anyone know of an actual real-life non-theoretical situation where someone legitimately needs to check their credit once a week?

Not exactly enough of a reason to do a full credit check history every week, but I do have several credit monitors...

When a bank opened a fraudulent account in my name... I actually got an envelope in the mail from them. (Why my address was used isn't clear.) Then I was able to login and do that check immediately and get enough information to verify some things and figure out where to go to close it.

[Phenix]

Does anyone know of an actual real-life non-theoretical situation where someone legitimately needs to check their credit once a week?

If you find an inaccuracy on your report and want to check the status of it because you're getting ready to buy a house. I have had a bank open an account without my consent and would have never known had it not been for checking my free credit report. The account was never used (I'm guessing whoever opened the account on my behalf was trying to meet a quota), but had it been a past due account negatively effecting my credit, I would have been checking in on it regularly to ensure it was properly removed.