Michael In the U.S., when buying a house or leasing a car, the lender will check the customer's so-called credit report to make sure they are credit worthy and not in the habit of squandering away borrowed money. This American equivalent to the German Schufa is managed by three different private companies in the US: Equifax, Experian and Transunion. We already explained the details in Rundbrief 05/2004.

Consumer associations also advise that every American check their own credit report once a year so that they can immediately detect if something is wrong and take countermeasures. Until recently, there used to be a fee for private individuals of about $30 to view their credit records on the Internet with the three companies.

Politicians have realized that there is a lot of abuse with credit data and it would be very careless to omit the annual review. However, it is not quite fair to burden the citizen with the cost, and a new law was enacted, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which mandates that the three companies provide this service free of charge once per year.

On the official website http://annualcreditreport.com, the citizen enters their personal data and is then subsequently directed to the websites of Equifax, Experian and Transunion, each of which disclose the data the have stored on the citizen. The whole thing is somewhat clumsily implemented and the companies repeatedly and hypocritically ask if you don't want to pay money for a more detailed service, but if you always click "No" persistently, the data actually comes out for free. Not included in the package, however, is the so-called "Credit Score", a number between 300 and 850, which still costs money, but is irrelevant if you're just examining the data for inconsistencies.

Beware: Do not fall for the similarly sounding website freecreditreport.com, it is a private company that charges $14.95 per month for a service that runs free for a week but then automatically renews. It has absolutely nothing to do with the free legal credit report. The correct page for the free Credit Report is annualcreditreport.com. Do not confuse them!

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Stella Awards
  	Barack Obama, 44th President of the USA
  	Nader and the Endless Campaign
  	Top Product: Garage Door Opener
  	Time Zones
  	Proposition Number 8 (Same Sex Marriage)
  	Open Studios and Berkeley Art Center
  	A screwdriver opens the door lock
  	Solution to the Time Zone Trivia Question

  
  

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Stella Awards
  	Barack Obama, 44th President of the USA
  	Nader and the Endless Campaign
  	Top Product: Garage Door Opener
  	Time Zones
  	Proposition Number 8 (Same Sex Marriage)
  	Open Studios and Berkeley Art Center
  	A screwdriver opens the door lock
  	Solution to the Time Zone Trivia Question