Inside of 10 minutes online you can get yourself a free New Years’ present. Equifax is the largest credit bureau in Canada, used by over 80% of lenders to make their decisions. Right now, Equifax will give you your free credit report online.
You can go to: Equifax.ca and click on the top “learn more” section where it says Equifax’s response to Covid-19. Or here is the direct link to a better section at: https://www.consumer.equifax.ca/personal/products/credit-report/
Make absolutely sure to check that you do not have a tick mark on any subscription or their upsell to other things. They cost a bunch of money and you do not need them! Since less than 20% of adults have ever seen their credit report, now would be a great time to do that.
Why bother? The same reason you have a physical and go to the dentist for a checkup. This is your credit health – and it’s free and you can do it from home! Almost a quarter of adults have errors in there that are serious enough to be turned down for credit. You can’t fix what you don’t know. Plus, millions of people took advantage of mortgage or loan deferrals this spring. This is your chance to make sure your lender has coded it correctly as a deferral and not as arrears!
What will you get in your report? It’ll be 4 or 5 pages in total. The first section is just your personal information such as address, etc. The next section shows you which company looked at your credit report. Look through it for anyone you don’t know that is looking at your credit and shouldn’t be.
The main section shows each of your borrowing items. So for a credit card it’ll show when it was opened, your credit limit, last statement balance, and minimum payment and how many times you’ve been a month, two months or three months behind. Needless to say, this is the most critical section to go through because it’s 35% of your credit score.
If something is wrong, the law states that they have to fix it when you challenge something in there. The bottom of your report will give you the information. Of course, the Money Tools book has an entire chapter on the what, the why and how to of your report. You’ll have access to it for 30-days and should print it off and keep it.