The only website where your credit report is genuinely free just changed how it looks

There is one website where your credit report is actually free. Not free with a subscription, not free for seven days, not free if you keep a monitoring service. Free because Congress passed a law saying so.

It is annualcreditreport.com, and in late July it was redesigned.

Why a redesign is worth an article

For twenty years, the tell that you were on the real site was that it looked like the government built it in 2004. It was plain, slightly clunky, and completely unlike the glossy pages of the dozens of imitators competing for that search traffic. Consumer advocates used to say the dated look was the proof of authenticity.

That proof is gone. The site now has a modern, mobile-friendly layout built to make the weekly request process work on a phone. This is an improvement, and it also removes the shortcut people used to tell the real thing from the copies.

So learn the address instead of the appearance. Type annualcreditreport.com directly into the address bar. Not a search result, not a link in an email, not an advertisement. The paid imitators buy the top of search results, and several of them use names one word away from the real one. A few are outright harvesting operations that collect the Social Security number, date of birth and old addresses you type in, which is exactly the package needed to open credit in your name.

Two rules that hold no matter what the site looks like: the real one never asks for a credit card, and it never enrolls you in a monitoring subscription to deliver a report.

What you are entitled to

One free report from each of the three bureaus, every week. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion each hold a separate file on you, and they do not always contain the same information. The weekly access started as a temporary pandemic measure and the bureaus have since made it permanent.

That frequency changes what the report is good for. Once a year, a credit report is a checkup. Every week, it is a smoke detector.

What it is not: the free report does not include a credit score. A score is a separate product, and paying for one is usually unnecessary because many credit cards, banks and credit unions now print a FICO or VantageScore on the monthly statement at no charge. Check your statement before you pay anyone.

We file this under benefits you may be missing for a simple reason. You already paid for it, not in taxes but in the law that made the bureaus' whole business possible in exchange for your access to what they hold. Most eligible people never claim it.

What to look for, in order

Read all three reports, because an error or a fraudulent account often appears on only one.

1. Accounts you do not recognize. A card, a loan, a store account. This is the fraud test, and it is the reason for the whole exercise.
2. Inquiries you did not authorize. A "hard" inquiry means someone applied for credit using your information. Several you cannot explain is a warning.
3. Your own identifying information. Wrong addresses, a variation on your name, a Social Security number off by a digit. Mixed files happen, especially with common names and with a junior and senior in the same family.
4. Balances and limits that are wrong, particularly a credit limit reported lower than it is, which raises your utilization ratio and lowers your score for no reason.
5. Medical debt. The rules on medical collections have tightened in recent years, and small paid or disputed medical items often linger when they should not.
6. Accounts of a deceased spouse. After a death, joint accounts should be reported correctly and the file marked. This is the single most common problem widows find, and it is quietly responsible for a lot of denied applications and a lot of scam mail.

Disputes are free and go through the bureau, online or by mail. The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate. Keep a copy of everything you send.

The freeze, which is the real protection

A credit freeze locks your file so no new credit can be opened in your name. It is free by federal law, at all three bureaus, and it is the single most effective thing an older adult can do against identity theft.

• Freeze at all three. Each one separately: Equifax, Experian, TransUnion.
• It does not affect your existing accounts, your credit score, or your ability to use the cards you already have.
• You lift it temporarily when you need new credit, with a PIN or through the bureau's app, usually within minutes.
• Keep the PINs somewhere your spouse or a trusted adult child can find them. A frozen file and a lost PIN in a hospital week is a real problem.

If your information was in one of the big data breaches, and after the driver's license breach this year that is most people, the freeze is the response that matters. Monitoring services tell you after the fact. A freeze stops it happening.

What to do this week

1. Type annualcreditreport.com into the address bar and pull one bureau's report today. Then set a reminder to pull a different one in four months, so you are looking at a fresh file three times a year for free.
2. Read it against the six items above, with a pen, and circle anything you cannot explain.
3. Freeze all three files if you are not planning to borrow. Twenty minutes, once, and it protects you until you lift it.
4. If you find an account that is not yours, go to identitytheft.gov, the FTC's site, which builds you a recovery plan and the letters to send. Report it there before you call anybody else.
5. Check your credit card statement or banking app for a free score before paying for one anywhere.

None of this costs a dollar. All of it is already yours.

This story first appeared at Senior Daily Benefits, our sister publication on Social Security, Medicare and the money you earned.