If you’ve ever tried to get your credit score for free, you know that there’s no such thing as a truly free credit score. You’re forced to enter your credit card information and sign up for a free trial of a service, just so you can forget to cancel and get charged for a service you don’t want. Though you can get a free credit report easily with no credit card, one popular website, Credit Karma, allows you to retrieve your credit score without providing any payment information.

About a year ago, a few credit card issuers began sharing FICO Scores or VantageScores with their customers as part of their monthly statements. As competition heats up, more credit card issuers are now offering customers’ credit scores for free.

Black Friday has become known for terrific sales to kick off the holiday shopping season. If you visit some stores this Black Friday, a store clerk will likely ask you, “Would you like to save X% by opening a credit card account?”

The three credit reporting bureaus deal with a substantial amount of information daily. As a result, mistakes can occur on your credit report. By requesting and reviewing the free annual credit reports from each of the credit reporting bureaus, you can be on the lookout for errors that may exist on your report.

The information in your credit report determines in large part what kind of credit, from car loans to credit cards to mortgages, you’ll be able to get. Federal law gives you the right to know what consumer credit information is collected on you and you need to exercise that right.