New credit honesty option coming...

Via a tip from Medley, this potential solution to unexpected credit denial woes: free annual credit reports, which appear to be being rolled out across the nation (with, sadly, a year still to wait in my area). There is already a website set up for combined reports from the three major companies.

A survey by the California Public Interest Research Group found that 25 percent of credit reports contained serious errors that could result in the denial of credit, such as false delinquencies or accounts that did not belong to the customer. It found that 54 percent of reports contained less-serious errors.

Consumer protection groups recommend checking your own credit reports with some frequency (to catch mistakes before they cause you problems, and to watch out for identity theft). It's about to become a whole lot easier...