4) TRUE or FALSE, you should order your credit reports once a year.

Reports suggest that as many as 7 out of 10 credit reports contain a mistake. The Credit Data Industry Association estimates that two billion pieces of information are updated in consumer credit files each month. That's 24 BILLION opportunities a year to make a mistake. These reports are constantly being updated with new activity which means that there are frequent opportunities to input bad data.

Another reason to check your report annually is that the protection you get from applicable consumer-friendly laws have time limits. You get five years from the time a problem shows up to sue somebody over it. After that, you have no legal remedy.

And if you don't have enough of them already, still another good reason to check your reports annually is that there have been times where consumers have found a problem in a report, worked diligently and successfully with the big three to clear it up. And were frustrated to find the problem reappearing the next time the offending creditor resubmitted the wrong information. A new law passed in the past year offers you a bit of legal protection from this, but with 24 billion opportunities a year, mistakes still happen.

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