Does checking your credit score on FREECREDITREPORT.com lower your credit score?

I heard from friends that it does and I just wondered. And also what happens if you miss ONE credit card payment??? Please only intelligent answers, this is important.

With years in the business:

No. You can pull your credit as much as you want through a pay site (or www.anualcreditreport.com) and it will not affect your score. You will actually be able to see three different sections of credit pulls: 1. Pulls that are public and affect your credit, 2. Pulls that are by your current creditors to monitor your credit and that are not public, and 3. Marketer's pulls and your own pulls that are private and only viewable by you.

Only the public pulls affect your score. The three items above are not in order, and some under number 2 can appear as public, depending on your creditor. Generally, however, you only get a hit when a pull occurs.

Also, the affects on your credit due to credit pulls are generally overstated by most people. Unless you are going to open 10 new accounts in one week, a pull here and there will not drastically decrease your score. The idea here is that if you open may new accounts, you are getting desperate for credit are are more likely to default on it. With a big (non-mortgage) cluster, you could be going gang buster before filing for bankrutpcy, or something along these lines.

As for mortgage pulls, you have a 15 day window to have numerous mortgage pulls before your credit decreases. However, use caution, as I have sometimes seen many mortgage pulls to affect a score by 5-10 points, even though it is "not supposed to". I think this may have to do with they way the company is coded by the bureaus.

If you miss one credit card payment, talk to your credit card company about it. If you were less than 30 days, it likely wasn't even reported. If it was, they might be willing to remove it under extenuating circumstances - but don't hold your breath!

If the late payment is already on your credit report, it likely won't have a bad impact on your scores if you have other longer-term established credit. Also, and very importantly, the affect it has on your score dramatically decreases with time. By one year out, it's impact will be much less than when it was a current late. After 2 years it will only have a signifigant impact if you have other bad debt. Overall, if this was 2 years old and your score should be 750, it might only be 725 or 730. If you score two years out is in the mid-600's, you'll need to pay attention to paying the other debt down.

Good luck.

Checking your our score does not count as an inquiry. You should know that freecreditreport.com is a trail membership in a credit monitoring service. If you don't cancel before the end of the trial, you will be charged for a full year of the service. If you only need your report and not the score, use https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp It is actually free with no strings.

No. Your credit rating is affected only when outside parties check it.

Don't use that site; you have to sign up for something. Only use http://www.annualcreditreport.com They're the only ones that are free with no strings.

And one missed credit card payment will affect your credit rating, yes, and will stay on for at least three years.

Note that we're talking about credit rating, not credit score. You do have to pay to get your credit score.

Checking your credit score does not lower it. I joined http://www.mycreditkeeper.com and have checked my report every month, and my scores never lowered. Only when applying for a credit card it lowers your score. Missing one payment on your card goes on your credit report as "Missed one payment." If you miss more than one, then it states "Missed two payments." So on and so forth and that WILL hurt your credit.

Yes and everytime you check it

No. Checking your OWN credit reports DOES NOT lower your scores. When lenders, insurance and utility companies check it for you after you have apply for credit, loans or services such as water, electricity or a cellphone call plan then your score lowers 5-to-7-points per inquiry.

No. But don't be lured into "knock-off" sites that charge a fee to access your report. You are entitled by Federal Law to obtain one report from each of the 3 major credit bureaus every 12 months. The only federally approved website is annualcreditreport.com.

It is up to you whether you get all 3 at once or space them out every 4 months. All bureaus have different formats and may have some different information in your file when compared side by side.

I can't remember the exact figure but I think it takes 5-7 inquiries in a month time to count against you but not just every time.

keep also in mind if you miss just one credit card payment they will reset the default rate to 29.99% for any outstanding balance as they allowed to do so by law, hence why it's NEVER a good thing to miss or get even late on one credit card payment.

No. all the other irresponsible financial behavior does though.

any hits on your credit score lower it. when any one checks it is called a hit.

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