Apparently many Americans are afraid to check their credit report because it "lowers their score"
That's actually untrue.

When someone views your credit report (including yourself) this is called an enquiry.

When you apply for an apartment, credit card, loan of sorts, and other things of this type these are called hard enquiries which do affect your credit score if you apply for a lot of things at once.

When credit card companies look at your credit report to mail you credit card offers or you look at your credit report yourself this is called a soft enquiry which does not affect your credit score at all.

It is a common misconception that looking at your credit report is bad for your credit score. Completely false, untrue, lies. While looking at your credit report doesn't do anything to your score, it can be a good thing because there can be errors and these errors can lower your score.

For example, I have a credit card open with a balance on it. For some reason my credit report was showing that I had two of this card open and duplicated the balance so it looked like I owed a lot more than I do.

Also it is illegal for a company to do a hard enquiry without your permission. If you find a hard enquiry on your account that was made without your permission, the company that does that owes you $1000 by law.

You should be checking your credit report now more than ever because companies like Capital One and Washington Mutual are hunting for new customers and checking your credit report without your permission. With the current credit crunch, consumers should make sure everything is correct on their credit report before they absolutely NEED credit and let incorrect parts of their credit reports hurt them in the borrowing process.

Just don't use any of those scam sites like FreeCreditReport.com.