I recently applied for an American Express business card so that I could take advantage of a lower rate on my debt. I figured it might go through because I have two Amex cards and I have been faithfully paying them every month and have not added much to them in the last few months.

I got a letter in the mail saying I had been denied the card because of a few things that showed up on my credit report. They were not negative per se but were just things like too many inquiries in the last twelve months and too high a credit utilization ratio.

The letter said that I could get a free credit report if I request it within 60 days of getting the denial. I had never looked into those things before but since I have decided to take advantage of the free credit reoprts from http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ I said I should look at it.

The information used to make the decision came from Experian so I went on to the Experian website. It said that if I got the free report based on a denial of credit then that report was not the same as the one free report I was entitled to by law every year.

I thought this was great so I went ahead and called the number. I had to enter some information on the telephone keypad but it was not as tedious as I thought it would be. The system said that I would be receiving the credit report in the mail in about ten days so I am looking forward to that.

I have to get my next free report from www.annualcreditreport.com in April but I need to look over the information that is on the current report to see what areas I need to work on the most.