Grappling with high gas prices, dropping home values and an uncertain economc future is enough of a burden.  But what about your credit report?  Everyday, there are news stories about laptops containing personal information of thousands of customers, students, veterans, etc., being swiped out of some careless employee’s car trunk.  The difficult financial straits that a lot of us face probably make it even more tempting for crooks to commit identity theft.  Recently, a friend of mine had her purse brazenly snatched out of her car while she was driving!  The friend was waiting at a red traffic light, and her passenger side window was rolled down.  The robber casually strolled over to her car, grabbed her purse and ran the other way.  My friend later found out that her credit cards were used at a nearby gas station to fill up the tanks of five different cars within 15 minutes of the robbery.  She promptly contacted all three credit reporting agencies (Experianm Equifax and TransUnion) to put a fraud alert on her credit.

In today’s world, you can never be too vigilent about your credit.  To check for inaccuracies or unauthorized activity regarding your credit, get a copy of your credit report asap.  To pull your credit report free online, go to www.annualcreditreport.com.  You can get one free credit report from each of the three credit report agencies once each year.  You can’t beat this deal!