Hopefully you know that you can get a
free credit report from each of the three large credit reporting agencies for free under federal law. If you live in Maryland, you can also get a
free credit report from each bureau under Maryland law. But you may not know that credit scores are not free under federal law. However, you've probably seen the ads that offer to give you your credit score for free. Be careful, most of the sites that offer this are credit monitoring services which charge you a monthly fee for various services around protecting your credit. Watch this
video from the Federal Trade Commission on free credit reports that are not free. Other sites give you a credit score from one bureau, not a combined score, and are riddled with advertisements and "personal offers" for credit cards or loans from their paid sponsors. Always find out how such a website or company is funded and what they do with your personal information that you enter to get your "free" score. One option to consider is using the
FICO Score Estimator and Calculator. You do not enter in any personal data like your social security number. You answer questions about your use of credit and it estimates a score for you. It's pretty close to what you would get from private sites and you aren't allowing anyone to use/sell/trade your personal information.
