Starting tomorrow (12/1) people on the west coast will be able to request a free credit report at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/. This new service will eventually be available to the whole country but is starting with the western states first, allowing the bureaus to do a gradual roll out (can you say beta test?).
I’ll likely be one of the early people who runs out and signs up for a credit report, using my personal information to shake the bugs out of the new system. I’m sure everything will be just fine, what’s the worst that could happen? 🙂
The first states are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. For more information MSNBC ran a story on the subject a few days ago: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6576905/