This idea is bright ray of sunshine that takes a big chunk of the mystery out of the credit score industry. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) wants credit card companies to put your credit score on your monthly statement. Some are already doing this and recently, CFPB Director Richard Cordray asked the other top U.S. credit card companies to do the same.

Cordray says, “Making consumers’ credit scores freely available on their monthly statement or online makes it easier for them to spot problems with their credit report. We will continue to work to ensure that credit report disputes are fully investigated, errors are fixed, and consumers are treated fairly.”

The three big credit reporting companies, Experian, Trans Union and Equifax keep track of our credit activity and history. Each has a files on over 200 million consumers. The information from those files is turned into the credit score number that ranges from about 350 to 850. The higher the number the better the score.

Your credit report is available to you for free three times a year. You can visit annualcreditreport.com to get it. But one in five Americans check their credit report in any given year. And this can be a problem. Monitoring your credit report helps to protect against identity theft and allows you to discover inaccuracies.

That’s a big deal because many people, who look at their reports, find that there are serious mistakes.
The top three problems:

1. Incorrect information including debts listed as outstanding when they are already paid.

2. Inaccurate personal information.

3. Debts or accounts that don’t belong to you.