Per a letter from Mark Udall “Earlier today, the Senate passed my amendment to the Wall Street reform legislation currently on the Senate floor. This bipartisan amendment will put consumers back in control of their own financial information by allowing them to get their credit score…for free.
Today, the system is stacked in favor of banks, credit card companies, and other lenders or businesses with ready access to your credit score that you don’t have. While you have access to free credit reports, they don’t provide you with the single most important piece of information to a lender when determining your creditworthiness: your credit score. Instead, your credit score is only available if you pay and sign up for expensive, hard to understand monthly subscriptions.
My amendment changes that. If adverse action is taken against you because of your credit — whether you’re turned down for a loan, receive a higher interest rate on your credit card, or even get turned down for a job — you’ll automatically receive a copy of your credit score free of charge. It ensures you understand the decisions made with regard to your credit, in turn helping you to improve your score in the future. It’s little wonder the nation’s leading pro-consumer groups support my reform.
Our community has given outstanding support to this legislation, and I am so grateful. Though some changes have been made to its mechanisms since I first wrote you about it last month, its core purpose and the outcome remain the same: giving you free access to your own financial information to better plan and improve your financial decisions.
I’m pleased to see my legislation included in this important Wall Street reform package. I’ll continue to work hard for its passage to hold Wall Street banks accountable and to help secure the financial future of our country.”


Thank goodness for people like Mark Udall! This was how I found out that my identity had been used without my permission. It nearly ruined my credit and took me years to get cleared up. I don’t know what I would have done had I not gotten a heads up from the credit reporting agencies. I most definitely would not be able to qualify for a car let alone a house!
We as Americans should be more informed of our own financial circumstances and decisions. Che Guevara once told his rebel troops that a country that cannot read and write is a country that can be easily tricked. I believe the same is true with our credit. If we were not allowed access to that information, or had to pay absurd amounts consistently when financially burdened, we could be duped pretty easily. Staying informed is the most important part of credit.