Wednesday, 04 November 2009
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FreeCreditReport.com Is Not So Free
This post comes from our friend J. Nicholson, who blogs about financial issues at Your Financial World and Very Cheap Car Insurance.
If you have been watching television recently you have no doubt come across run into the merry band of scruffy slackers singing the praises of a site called FreeCreditReport.com. Whether they are driving an old beater or waiting tables in pirate garb, these poor lads would have been so much better off if they had just paid attention to their credit record. Or would they?
Unfortunately, FreeCreditReport.com turns out to be not so free. The Federal Trade Commission has accused Experian, the company that owns FreeCreditReport.com, of deliberately steering users away from a site where consumers can get a free credit report as required by law, to a service that charges you $14.95 each and every month to alert you to changes in your credit status.
While the monitoring services like this provide you with real time updates on changes to your credit file, experts say the vast majority of consumers do not need this service. For most people, paying attention to the bills you pay and checking your credit report a few times a year is adequate.
By law, each of the three major major credit bureaus – Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian – are required to provide you with one free credit report per year. The government has set up a website to handle this, but watch the url: it's located at freecreditreport.gov (not ".com"!).
FreeCreditReport.com is part of the rapidly growing credit monitoring services industry which is now approaching $1 billion in sales. Millions of consumers have signed up for these services, but critics say many had no idea what they were actually signing up for.
Experian and other companies that provide credit monitoring services are profiting handsomely, but think about whether you really need daily updates about your credit file before signing up for one of these services. A trip to FreeCreditReport.com might not be so free after all.
Have you ever visited FreeCreditReport.com? Did you end up signing on to a monitoring service that cost you money you were not expecting?
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Comments (10)
I love that people are just now realizing it's not a free site....
I did visit it initially but then just used one of the government sites to check my credit....because it really is free.
One of my friends used it and he wrote a blog about trying to cancel his subscription....it was a major hassle!!!
Isn't it implied in the commercial that it isn't free? The announcer tends to quickly say that you have to enroll in Triple Advantage or something like that, but it is there. I always thought it was too good to be true since they kept emphasizing the free part a bit too much for me. Damn false advertising.
also annualcreditreport.com it is the free once a year site also
you'd think the govt would come up with a better name for their website.
@lot223@xanga - FreeCreditReport.com probably jacked thier name FROM the government, so that they could mislead people, not the other way around.
In response to the actual post, it's the same concept as with the FAFSA. My dad helped me fill mine out my senior year, and I had him do some stuff while I was at work/school. Turns out we went to the wrong website (again, the difference was in the .com and the .gov) and he paid $80 for my FREE application for student aid. I asked him why and he felt really bad because he said he felt it was his obligation to pay for anything regarding my schooling, and he didn't even know the FAFSA was supposed to be free. So I dont' blame him, but I feel bad for people that get swindled that way.
@x__RainOnHerParade@xanga - hmm... maybe i read the post wrong but it sounded like the govt created the website afterwards?
I already knew that freecreditreport.com was a scam- my economics
teacher in High School warned as all about it. For more on this story
check out this video...
http://www.newsy.com/videos/ftc_clamps_down_on_free_credit_report_scams
I think it goes a good job explaining the issue and what FTC is doing
to try and stop this sort of thing from happening in the future.
I thought there are agencies on the internet (is it called ICANN?) that are suppose to prevent the use of similar named domain names in bad faith. So creating a similar domain name to trick ppl, like for FAFSA , is obvious trying to get ppl who mistakenly type in the wrong domain ending.
I love them commercials though xD.
If something is supposed to be free, and then they want me to give them information they should not need if it is free, or if they blatantly tell me they want to charge me money (even a buck!), I immediately just shut the window. I don't like being tricked or manipulated into buying/paying for things I did not want in the first place.