Big List of Free Consumer Data Reports 2024: Check Your Credit, Banking, Rental History, Insurance, and Employment Data

January 18, 2024 By Jonathan Ping 22 Comments
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magUpdated for 2024. Since these are available every 12 months, it is a good idea to check these near or around the same time each year. A lot of companies make their money by collecting and selling data – your personal data. It can be critical to know what they are telling prospective lenders, landlords, even employers about you. Under the FCRA and/or FACT Act, many consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) are now legally required to send you a free copy of your report every 12 months, as well as provide a way to dispute incorrect information.

Some have an online request form, but some are purposefully making it harder to check your reports by removing the online option. Don’t be afraid to call them if needed. You probably won’t want to bother checking all of them anyhow, but if you’ve experienced any sort of rejection or adverse action in these areas the cause might be found inside one of these databases. Keep in mind that you may not have a file with all of these places. Requesting a copy of your own consumer reports does not hurt your credit score.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been doing a much better job maintaining their own comprehensive list of CRAs (PDF version) recently, so I am editing down this list to include direct links to the overall categories along with the larger and more widely-used consumer reporting agencies.

Credit-Related

Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. The three major credit bureaus track your credit accounts, payment history, and other related information like bankrupts and liens. Free online credit reports now available weekly (the frequency was increased from annual to weekly during the COVID pandemic, but that change has been made permanent).

(Note: As part of a class action settlement, you may also request up to six additional free copies of your Equifax credit report directly from myEquifax during any 12-month period through December 2026.)

You can also now freeze your credit reports for free, but you must contact each bureau separately. For the contact info, please see Big List of Ways To Protect Your Identity: Free Credit Monitoring, Free Credit Locks, and Free Credit Freezes

LexisNexis. One of the largest personal information databases that includes public records, real estate transaction and ownership data, lien, judgment, and bankruptcy records, professional license information, and historical addresses on file. Free copy, must mail in form.

CoreLogic Credco. One of the largest credit-related CRAs and often used by mortgage lenders, your CoreLogic Credco Consumer File can contain: previous homeownership and mortgage info, rental payment history, any reported delinquencies, and other debt obligations like child support. Free copy once every 12 months.

Banking-Related

Chexsystems. A consumer information database used by an estimated 80-90% of all banks to help determine the risk of opening new accounts. Think of it as the banks’ version of a credit bureau. If a person commits check fraud or overdraws their account, it will be listed here. In addition, the simple act of opening or closing a bank account may be recorded in their database. Having a negative ChexSystems record can leave you blacklisted from opening bank accounts at most major banks. Free copy once every 12 months. You can now request your report online.

Subprime-Related (Payday Lending)

Microbilt and subsidiary Payment Reporting Builds Credit (PRBC). Microbilt is a provider of credit data for the “approximately 110 million underserved and underbanked consumers in the United States.” Free copy once every 12 months.

Rental History

Realpage (LeasingDesk) Consumer Report. Provides tenant screening through their LeasingDesk product, including “the industry’s largest rental payment history database.”

CoreLogic SafeRent. SafeRent provides both tenant and employment screening data, including information regarding landlord tenant and criminal public court records. One free report every 12 months.

Experian RentBureau Rental History Report. “Every 24 hours, Experian RentBureau receives updated rental payment history data from property owners/managers, electronic rent payment services and collection companies and makes that information available immediately to the multifamily industry through our resident screening partners.”

TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions. SmartMove provides tenant credit, eviction, and background checks.

  • MySmartMove.com FAQ page
  • SmartMove will disclose the contents of a criminal and/or credit report retained by SmartMove to an individual who requests a copy of their report. To verify your identity and obtain a copy of your report(s) or dispute any information within that report, please contact customer service at 866-775-0961.

Auto and Property Insurance

C.L.U.E. Personal Property Report. A division of LexisNexis, CLUE stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, which collects information that is used to calculate your insurance premiums. This report provides a seven year history of losses associated with an individual and his/her personal property. Includes date of loss, loss type, and amount paid along with general information such as policy number, claim number and insurance company name. This also means you can find out about previous claims on the house you are currently renting or recently bought, even if they weren’t made by you.

C.L.U.E. Auto Report. This report provides a seven year history of automobile insurance losses associated with an individual. Includes date of loss, loss type, and amount paid along with general information such as policy number, claim number and insurance company name.

A-PLUS Loss History Reports, subsidiary of Verisk. ISO stands for Insurance Services Office, A-PLUS stands for Automated Property Loss Underwriting System. Auto and property loss claim history.

Utilities

National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange. NCTUE tracks when people don’t pay their phone, cable, or utility bills. One free report every 12 months.

Retail

The Retail Equation. Tracks product return and exchange abuse at retail merchants.

Medical History

MIB (previously known as Medical Information Bureau). Run by 470 insurance companies with a “primary mission of detecting and deterring fraud that may occur in the course of obtaining life, health, disability income, critical illness, and long-term care insurance.” They record information of “underwriting significance” like medical conditions or hazardous activities. If you have not applied for individually underwritten life, health, or disability income insurance during the preceding seven year period, then you probably don’t have a record.

Milliman IntelliScript. Tracks your prescription drug purchase history. “Milliman IntelliScript will have prescription information about you only if you authorized the release of your medical records to an insurance company and that company requested that we gather a report on you.”

Employment History

The following companies all offer background screening services for employers. Most will not have any information about you unless you authorized a potential employer to run a background check on you (probably during the application process). Some will not provide you information unless there was adverse action. Otherwise, you can get one free copy every 12 months.

The Work Number (division of Equifax). They also keep historical income records.

Backgroundchecks.com

Checkr

Filed Under: Banking, Insurance, Real Estate Tagged With:
Last updated: January 18, 2024
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Comments

  1. Noel says
    July 29, 2014 at 2:13 am

    Brilliant.
    I once read Clark Howard’s book and he also threw these on some pages but there was no compilation like this. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Maurice Dobb Financial Trader and Writer says
    July 29, 2014 at 6:22 am

    I was not aware of the fact that there are so many credit bureaus. I’m a financial trader at CornerTrader myself but never knew about credit bureaus anything except Experian and Equifax. Just needed to check two things. First, what credit score is a good score? Is around 400 score a good one? Is this score good to approve me for a loan or mortgage? If not, what’s that good score (I mean the minimum I need to have)? I took a payday loan recently and I’ll pay it well within time. Will that hurt my score? Please guide.

    Reply
  3. Deb @ Saving the Crumbs says
    July 29, 2014 at 7:20 am

    Nice resource. Do checking any of these free ones negatively affect your credit score?

    Reply
  4. daniel says
    January 1, 2015 at 7:35 am

    Great Info as usual! FYI this link did not work: http://www.verisk.com/underwriting/how-to-order-your-free-a-plus-loss-history-report.html

    gave me:

    You asked for http://www.verisk.com/underwriting/how-to-order-your-free-a-plus-loss-history-report.html,The page cannot be found
    The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

    Reply
  5. Brent says
    January 6, 2016 at 8:51 am

    Is consumerdisclosure.com the same as the LexisNexis site? Looks the same. I got a letter from my insurance company saying I could get my driving report from consumerdisclosure.com, but hesitate to use it because I have no way to know if it’s real or a scam. Don’t want to just go entering my info on some random site.

    Reply
    • Jonathan Ping says
      January 6, 2016 at 9:46 am

      I haven’t seen that site before, but if you look up the nameservers for the domain consumerdisclosure.com, they point to lexisnexis.com. The other domain information also supports this (registrant info, IP address). The domain is also cleared by Web of Trust. All this would suggest it is a legit site.

      Good find too, as it looks like you can request a report online instead of mailing in a PDF form. The form does ask for referring insurance company, so not sure if they cross-check first before giving you the report.

      Reply
  6. CT says
    January 5, 2017 at 4:28 am

    It is pathetic that Experian is still asking consumers to send their applications via snail mail. Is there an online option to get it from Experian without paying ?

    Reply
  7. Cooper's Dad says
    January 6, 2017 at 7:10 am

    While each of the big three credit bureaus must provide consumers with one free copy of their reports each year, it’s more productive to spread the requests throughout the year. It’s more informative to order from only one provider at a time, rotating among each one of them every four months (e.g., TransUnion now, Experian in May, Equifax in September, then rinse and repeat). This gives you a three glimpses of your credit information throughout the year, instead only one day out of 365.

    Reply
  8. Scott W says
    January 6, 2017 at 9:19 am

    I assume that you can only check yourself for free. As a landlord, I would have to pay wouldn’t I?

    Reply
  9. jucevati says
    January 11, 2018 at 5:15 am

    Nice

    Reply
  10. Jared says
    September 17, 2018 at 10:55 am

    Thanks for compiling these resources.

    Reply
  11. Sam says
    May 16, 2020 at 8:59 pm

    Jonathan,

    Here is another one, a secret one: Sift
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-score-access.html

    Reply
  12. Wilson says
    January 11, 2021 at 9:15 am

    Super helpful advice! I’m ordering reports for my own credit data now.

    Reply
  13. David says
    January 16, 2023 at 9:38 pm

    Experian’s insistence on paper applications from customers is laughable. Can I acquire it for free from Experian online?

    Reply
  14. Jason Boxman says
    January 18, 2023 at 6:16 pm

    FYI, definitely check your WorkNumber. It’s disturbing how much information they have. They had every pay check at every job except one over my entire employment history.

    You can freeze access to this report upon request. I did it snail mail as I recall.

    Reply
    • Sam says
      November 13, 2023 at 2:40 pm

      That is interesting. What are the reasons for freezing?

      Also, do you or anyone know where they get the data from?

      Reply
      • Jason Boxman says
        November 21, 2023 at 9:50 am

        I think my salary information is mine alone; It shouldn’t be available for sale.

        They get the data from ADP and other major payroll processors.

        Reply

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