Want to See Your Credit Report for Free? FreeCreditReport.com vs. AnnualCreditReport.com
Published on - February 24th, 2009 (by J.D. Roth) Mark Frauenfelder (founder of the awesome Boing Boing) has a piece at PC.com that asks: When is a free credit report not a free credit report? The answer, of course, is: When it comes from FreeCreditReport.com.
FreeCreditReport.com, which has raised the ire of many, does allow people to look at their credit reports free for seven days, but then automatically enrolls users into a $15/month credit monitoring service. This last fact is a problem. Frauenfelder writes:
I clicked on the large bright orange button that said “Get your Free Credit Report & Score!” and was presented with a form. I filled it out. I hesitated for a second when the site asked for my credit card number, which it stated was “required to establish your account,” but the site assured me that my “credit card will not be charged during the free trial period.” Having done this before (or so I thought), I went ahead and entered the information. A shopping cart receipt indicated that the total was $0.00.
I got my credit report, looked it over, and forgot about it. A week later I was looking at my checking account register online and I noticed a $14.95 charge from a company called CIC*Triple Advantage. I didn’t recall buying anything from a company with that name, so I entered “CIC*Triple Advantage” into Google. The search results made my eyes bug out of my head. This was the name of the billing entity for freecreditreport.com. The thousands of search results were full of words like “deceptive practices,” “scam,” “ripoff,” “unauthorized billing!” and “beware!” In fact, all the top results were either from people complaining that they’d been conned into signing up for a $14.95 monthly credit monitoring service without their permission, or they were about how to cancel the service.
Frauenfelder admits that it’s his fault for being duped, but still thinks FreeCreditReport.com is slimy. Read the rest of his story for other problems he has with the service.
There’s never any need to pay to access your credit report. The U.S. government has mandated that consumers be allowed to view their credit reports from each of the three major reporting agencies once every year. If you’d like, you can obtain reports from all three credit reporting agencies at once. Or, you can stagger your requests, possibly requesting one report every four months from a different agency. There are three ways to obtain your credit report:
- Order it online at AnnualCreditReport.com.
- Call 1-877-322-8228.
- Complete the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.
You will need to provide some basic information, including your social security number, and you may need to provide some personal financial information. If you plan to check your report online, be wary of impostor sites. Be absolutely certain that you have reached AnnualCreditReport.com. (And note that this only applies to your credit report, not your credit score.)
For more information on FreeCreditReport.com check out:
- Consumerism Commentary: FreeCreditReport.com is a scam!
- The Simple Dollar: FreeCreditReport.com is ripping you off
- Smart Money: FreeCreditReport.com: Not so free — still
- The New York Times: The high cost of a “free credit report”
- The Red Tape Chronicles: Don’t fall for FreeCreditReport.com
Finally, on a lighter note, a post in the GRS forums pointed to this spoof commercial highlighting the problems with FreeCreditReport.com.
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With commercials like the ones they’re running, I’m surprised anyone takes them seriously.
Pirates and “ye olde fair” commercials are funny and all, but not when those people are asking me for sensitive information.
Although the guy that sings in them is getting some good play from them, and I’m all for that.
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Not sure if you found this in your research, but here’s the real kicker of the whole deal: FreeCreditReport.com is owned by Experian. It’s sickening.
I wrote about this a while back:
http://www.nodebtplan.net/2008/03/31/who-owns-free-credit-reportcom/
You would think a company selling $15/month subscriptions wouldn’t be able to afford millions of dollars of radio and TV advertising, and you’re right. It’s backed by Experian. Makes me sick.
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I’m thinking about taking the next step–freezing my credit.
We have our fixed rate mortgage at 5.5%. We have our one credit card that we pay off every month and earns 1% cash back. Good and growing savings, no car loans now or in the future. In short, no need for debt other than the mortgage, which we’re paying aggressively.
Freezing credit would primarily be as a protection against identity theft, but as a loyal reader to this site, I admit that I kind of like its other implications.
Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this?
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I used FreeCreditReport.com over a year ago. At the time they didn’t have the $14.95/month thing as clearly marked as they do now. It took me forever to figure out who CIC*Triple Advantage was.
When I finally did I went to their website and found the cancellation phone number. Cancelling wasn’t too hard, except for the guy trying to sell me more trial offers. If you stick to your guns they will cancel and stop charging you.
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I don’t like FreeCreditReport.com at all. Other credit monitoring services in the same ilk have a similar policy of challenging anything negative that comes across — even if it is accurate. And sometimes there is a fee for that as well. Honestly, after I’ve used my free reports from annualcreditreport.com, I’d rather just go to one of the bureaus and pay the fee.
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Unfortunately, annualcreditreport.com is useless for people like me- Americans who live or are stationed overseas. The site is only accessible from within the US.
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I was burned by these guys too. Ugh.
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I’ve used for annualcreditreport.com every year for a few years now and appreciate being able to get the reports for free, but the government went half-assed on this – they should have required them to give us the credit score too, as the credit score is what really matters.
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They do apparently give you a free credit report, as offered. Then you need to cancel. Big deal. Perhaps they’ve recently changed their web site, but the front page currently contains this notification which doesn’t seem all that deceptive to me:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple AdvantageSM Credit Monitoring. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period†, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership.
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I’m not sure how people unknowingly get roped into this. The front page of the site says “When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership.” The commercials say “Offer applies with enrollment in Trip Advantage.” So it seems that people are upset because instead of paying attention to what they were signing up for, they just listened to the guy in the pirate hat sing his funny song.
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Again, our government is a bunch of pansies not to have hammered these idiots about this issue. I think the do nothing regulators need to make freecreditreport say “YOU ARE BUYING A MEMBERSHIP FOR $X” or “YOU WILL PURCHASE A MEMBERSHIP FOR $X”.
That is if the government couldn’t just take over the domain itself… eminant domain indeed.
And #5 Mark- the credit score is now in debate as there are changes to it and one of the credit reporting agencies no longer wants to pay Fair Isacc for the FICO score service anymore. The reason for the gov’t getting after the credit reporting agencies is so that people could check for ID theft or mistakes BEFORE going for a loan etc…
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Helpful hint about credit reports.
If you are the victim of ID theft, and you put a fraud alert on your credit report, all three credit reporting agencies are required by Federal law to send you a copy of your report.
You can renew the alert every 90 days, and they must send you the report. This is in addition to the free report you’re entitled to once per year from each agency.
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Just last week I helped my father who wanted to get his Credit Score through this site (the Free Credit Report, blah, blah, blah). We did submit his credit card info and, as they state, he was signed up for the “Triple Advantage” offer.
After digging all over the site– we DID find the phone number to call if you want to cancel (not an easy thing to find but it is there). We called immediately, got a representative who attempted to keep my dad locked in, but after several refusals, we were able to get it cancelled. He is going to keep an eye on his upcoming credit card statement just to make sure that they really did cancel it.
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Andrea @ 6
If overseas, you should be able to get your credit report by mailing in a paper request form. Click the link in the article for “Annual Credit Report Request Form,” and follow the links to print off the form and mail it in.
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I was taken by the FreeCreditReport “scam” as well. Do yourself a favor and stay away from these guys.
In contrast AnnualCreditReport.com has been a joy to use. It is a very useful thing to have such a service provided you for free.
As you mentioned in your article, I prefer to spread my credit reports out 1 every 4 months.
Regarding credit score…people should be aware of the fact that Experian will consistently have the lowest credit score of the other 2 reporting companies. This is not a theory, but a reality that I have been witness to over the last few years since securing my free annual credit reports in this manner.
Thank you for raising awareness on this topic!
DebtFREEk!
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Oh, don’t stop there! I read the fine print and after obtaining the report, I immediately called them to cancel my subscription, and I’ve NEVER experienced such aggressive customer service. They started castigating me for not caring about my credit. I actually laughed briefly at the ludicrousness of their pitch, and they said (real quote), “What, sir, do you think this is a laughing matter? Do you think identity theft is a laughing matter?” This went on for a few more seconds, then I told them THEY were a laughing matter, then I told them a few things that I can’t print here.
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This is a huge problem. I wrote a guest post about it for Lending Club last year – Keep your free credit report free
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I think the people noting the disclaimers are missing the point. Or points.
1. There’s already an official way to get free credit reports that offers no risk of being charged.
2. The disclaimers are apparently rather new.
3. Regardless of the disclaimers, this is a company that bills itself as offering “free credit reports”, but that’s not its actual business model. Its business model is to sell people a subscription service credit-monitoring tool. If they called themselves something like “Expert Credit Monitoring”, but offered free credit reports as a premium for signing up, nobody would have a complaint.
4. As reported everywhere, they make it difficult to cancel. You can sign up via the web, but you have to cancel by phone — if you can find the number. (Note that Audible.com, a service I love, does the same thing, and for that reason I will never subscribe to them again. I hate this practice. It’s shitty.)
5. The FreeCreditReport.com ploy works well enough, regardless of the disclaimers. Many people, and many smart people (Mark Frauenfelder is not stupid) get trapped into the monthly payments.
Obviously, FreeCreditReport.com isn’t the first one to think of this business model. Many companies offer something for free, and then have fine print saying that by agreeing to the free thing, you’re enrolling yourself in an expensive monthly thing.
For example, when we moved into this house, I got an offer by mail for some free service or other. I signed up. But then I noticed in my introductory package that I had agreed to subscribe to a monthly travel letter. Yikes. I called to cancel, but it was a nightmare.
The lesson, as always, is to read the fine print. Always read the fine print.
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Since JD and a couple of commenters mentioned credit score, I’d like to argue that you don’t need to know your credit score. I’ll say it again:
YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW YOUR CREDIT SCORE.
What good comes from knowing this number? Are you suddenly going to stop paying the minimum on your credit card debt? Are you going to stop eating out and start cultivating organic produce? Are you going to stop paying for premium gas and keep your tires inflated? No, knowing this number changes nothing.
By all means, keep an eye on your credit report and challenge anything that is suspect. Keep reading GRS for the great tips on how to IMPROVE your creditworthiness and actually work on fixing your credit problems, but you can do all of this without knowing “the number.”
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@19 Whether people need to know it or not… some people happen to want to know it for a variety of reasons. My father never knew his and was curious. There will be no action taken because of his newfound knowledge– he is just a little bit happier now that he knows.
Also, the pirate commercial thing is knew to me. “Free Credit Report” is actually an option that you can include on your personalized (AT@T) internet homepage alongwith news tabs, weather reports for different cities, etc. which is how we came across it. I am not sure how they snagged that deal–but I have a feeling many people are finding them through that as well.
J.D.– thanks for your comment (#18)— and thanks for this article. I’m going to send it to my dad for future use.
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I’ll agree to always read the fine print. This is a buyer beware situation. We can argue about how to make them legally disclose what they are about, but scams will always be out there and it ultimately comes down to being aware of what you’re doing and really signing up for. Didn’t it strike you that it was asking for your credit card information? Any time you are signing up for a free service and they ask you for your credit card number chances are that they want it to CHARGE YOU FOR SOMETHING. If I call you will you give me your social security number and other important information because I asked?
And if you do get sucked in it is now a lesson in being diligent with your accounts. Know what charges should and shouldn’t be there. When we got married my husband had a couple of these things from his credit card (the insurance and credit monitoring they call and push). He didn’t even know they were there.
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JD comment 18 point #4
I’m glad to hear your upet about the web sign up / phone cancellation. I absolutely hate companies that take advantage of the opt-out scheme by making it difficult to opt-out.
I got burned by stamps.com for this. Funny though, I recently got an e-mail about a class action against stamps.com for this very thing–The waits to cancel on the phone were prohibitively long. So keep up the good work–it’s bloggers and others who keep these companies in line. It’s never a moral issue, just a bottom line issue–Let’s educate ourselves and make it less profitable to pull this kind of crap!
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JD, thanks for making people aware of this. I know I myself got confused about it, and almost made a mistake when trying to research me credit report.
I also think it is important for people to understand that your credit score is NOT given to you for free, because it is not required by the government. I personally think this is a bad oversight on the part of the federal government when enacting this legislation, because credit scores are just as important as credit reports.
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If you want a free credit *score* (not report), http://www.creditkarma.com/ worked for me.
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Agreed with #23. I get the impression that many potential creditors only look at the score, not the entire report because they don’t have time for the latter, their system is automated, or what have you. If I for instance apply for a credit card online, the approval process is automated. That means they have to look at my score to give me a decision that quickly. If the score falls too low, then they will look at my report to send me a letter telling me why they rejected me. The score’s a weeding-out tool.
By the way, (1) You will not get your FICO score by getting your Equifax or Transunion reports from their websites, only the scores that they calculate. They are two different things. (2) Experian (the FreeCreditReport.com guys) no longer lets FICO sell their score. They only want to sell the score they calculate. I was not happy when I found this out. It’s effective at the end of February, I believe; if you want one last shot at your Experian FICO, better go to MyFico.com now.
The other thing: Just because the feds say you have a right to all three reports once a year doesn’t necessarily mean you will get all three. The credit bureaus are allowed to stonewall you if you don’t meet their standards of identification for them to release your report. TransUnion has never, ever, EVER let me have a free copy of their report through the federal government site, and I’ve been asking once a year since this began. On top of that, most times I’ve had someone pull a report on me, it’s been through TU–and I recently pulled my TU report through MyFico and it was rife with inaccuracies, right down to me still being listed under my married name! And the divorce was final in 2001! And they have my student loan on file, which I obtained well after the divorce! I contacted them about corrections they needed to make and now they’re stonewalling me about that too. Apparently they think it’s not their job to correct the reports they generate. I have to do all the legwork instead.
Has anyone else had problems with them?
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What about CreditKarma.com?
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Luckily, I don’t need freecreditreport.com to tell me how lousy my credit is right now. There is nothing “free” about freecreditreport.com anyway as we all know. IMO just another scammer in the deep financial industry pool of scammers.
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Before I type in any web address, I make sure I research that it is safe before I input any sensitive information. I don’t click through links unless it’s from http://www.irs.gov or another government website. That’s the safest way to avoid identity theft.
I never sign up for “free” services that ask for credit cards. It’s not worth the hassle. Usually you can find something else that is comparable for free.
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When you do things like freecreditreport you know there’s a catch. Sometimes a quick credit score and report is pretty convenient instead of waiting on the government to send you one, you just have to watch out for the scams reading is the best way to avoid that.
thank you
Derrick
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I don’t remember if it was here or at The Simple Dollar, but I was reading about getting my annual credit reports (three, actually — one from each agency) and a smart blogger or reader pointed out that a wise person STAGGERS the reports, so you can check one in January, one in May, and one in September (for example), to get a rolling (and comprehensive) look at your credit picture.
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What’s the point on paying for credit monitoring when you can do that yourself with the 3 free credit reports? The time and money that you should be investing in if you want identity theft insurance (credit monitoring) should include a restoration service once your identity has been stolen. Credit monitoring is a waste of and does not help get your life back after someone has stolen your indentify.
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As a notice for people who use Free Credit Report with the intention of cancelling. They put you on hold FOREVER before you get to talk to a real person. I got fed up, found their contact e-mail, and demanded that they cancel my account and send me confirmation of doing so.
I got an e-mail back the next day with the confirmation.
So if you do use them, send an e-mail to cancel, as you might never get a real person on the phone (and I suspect they will pressure you into a discounted rate too).
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I signed up for FreeCreditReport.com about two years ago. Like everyone else, I actually thought it was free.
Then they started charging me about $12.95/month. After I found out who Triple Advantage was, I kept meaning to call in and cancel but since $12.95 is a pretty negligible amount I never got around to making the call. So I ended up subscribed to Triple Advantage for approximately a year and a half.
Finally, after reading about them online and discovering some people claimed to have gotten refunds, I called to cancel. While canceling, I also demanded a refund. Of course they said no, but I pushed and pushed and pushed. In fact, I just sat there and said the same thing over and over again: “I’m demanding a refund, you used deceptive practices to sign me up, I want to speak to your supervisor.”
After calling them back a couple of times, I realized they have a script for keeping you from a supervisor. You ask, and they ALWAYS tell you he’s in a meeting and they don’t know when he’ll be available.
Anyways, finally I managed to get them to agree to cancel my account and refund me 2-3 months worth of charges. I told them this wasn’t enough, warned them I would contact the BBB, and then did so. In the end, a couple weeks after contacting the BBB I got a FULL refund of all charges from the past 18 months.
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It’s a great commercial though….Freeeee Credit Report dot Com…. I’m singing it now! Anyone for Red Lobster?
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To Dana #25: Yes, I’ve had problems accessing my TransUnion report online. They had my married name wrong. I sent them a letter and copies of ID, and all they did was put my real name down as one of my “aliases”.
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I’ve been looking into this lately because my sis recently had something go to collections. I want to help her pull her reports and score in a month to check to make sure the account closed and assess the damage. In this case the score is important because there is a significant chance she will want a loan of some type in the near-ish future.
A few PF bloggers (I forgot who, I know I got linked there via PF page at AllTop) have tried CreditKarma.com and seem to universally report that it is a good but inaccurate estimate when compared to the actual scores. Creditkarma.com was off by a “tier” for at least one person so it wasn’t a good indication of what sort of loan rates would be offered.
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#36 – “A few PF bloggers (I forgot who, I know I got linked there via PF page at AllTop) have tried CreditKarma.com and seem to universally report that it is a good but inaccurate estimate when compared to the actual scores.”
… so CreditKarma is estimating my score, rather than reporting it?
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They didn’t get me with that “free” crdit monitoring, I don’t appreciate abusive business practices so when I noticed that experian no longer allow consumer to see the FICO score based in Experian data but still selling those FICO scores to lenders I decided not to do any more business with hem.
I placed a security freeze in my experian report, that means no more revenue for them using my credit data.
I still have Equifax and Transunion open, so far I didn’t have a single problem to obtain a new credit card an a new car loan, I guess a mortgage would be a different story but I,m not planning to move anytime soon.
Just a little retaliation, complaint less and do something to hurt them back
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My husband is interested in freezing our credit so that no one can use our identities to open credit card accounts. He was checking into one of the companies (I don’t remember which), and they had a freezing and unfreezing fee. This could get expensive! Any suggestions? I’m very new to this topic. Thanks
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It’s ten dollars to freeze it. After that you can unfreeze it for free. I think Experian it’s the only one who charges a fee for a temporal unfreeze but a permanent lift is free in all 3 bureaus.
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Good post! People need to know.
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What a bunch of naive people. If you entered your credit card and still thought it was going to be free, you’re an idiot. Plain and simple.
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Frauenfelder writes:
“I hesitated for a second when the site asked for my credit card number, which it stated was “required to establish your account,” but the site assured me that my ‘credit card will not be charged during the free trial period.’”
That’s a clear indication that you are signing up for something you will be paying for. If people don’t pay attention to what they read then they shouldn’t complain that they were duped.
Requesting sensitive financial information from a website you found on Google doesn’t seem like a good idea in general. It would probably be safer to go to one of the credit reporting agencies’ websites and start looking for info on how to get your free annual report there.
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I use virtual credit card numbers whenever I shop online. I sign in and generate a number for each shopping experience. They are one time use and expire the next month. I don’t know if “free”creditreport.com would except such a number but if you used one to obtain a credit report in the later half of the month, the number would probably expire before FCR attempted to charge it.
Does anyone else find it ridiculous that you have to pay to see your FICO score? It’s like paying the dentist for the privilege of seeing my own x-rays. It’s information about me, therefore I believe it should be available to me free of charge.
A final thought, many people check all three bureaus at once. I spread mine out and check one bureau every four months. I’m able to catch and fix any wrong or fraudulent information three times a year for free.
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I found out the hard way. I noticed a charge of $14.95 on a credit card that I rarely use. I called the bank and was able to trace it back to free credit report.com. I had been charged for two months. I gave them a call and asked them what exactly about them is free? The representative ran off some script that was of no interest to me. Why would I want to pull my report every single day? What kind of offer is that?
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Look, any time you want a updated credit report you can have it for free. This is one of those things credit bureaus have to do under the law but don’t want you to know. I came across of this, I tried and It works.
The various CRAs tend to hide the free online access. For example, the Equifax tries to convince you to buy it or that it’s only accessible through mail.
Here are the links:
http://annualcreditreport.transunion.com/tu/disclosure/currentSituation.jsp
(contrary to URL, this is NOT the free annual one)
http://www.experian.com/reportaccess/index.html
(Click ‘Get my Report Now’)
https://aa.econsumer.equifax.com/aad/landing.ehtml
(Equifax will constantly add on things and try and get you to buy something. Be sure to uncheck the things that require payment)
All of them require verification of some form, usually a series of questions, and I think TU requires you make an account if you don’t already have one.
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I signed up for freecreditreport.com several years ago. It has always been clearly stated that you are getting a free trial with billing if you do not cancel. Additionally, within 10 minutes of signing up and finding my information I called them up and told them I wanted to cancel. There was minimal hold time and a single, firm refusal to continue service was all it took.
Coming from a long-time System Administrator I will say this: even smart people are dumb when it comes to computers. It is extremely common for people to simply click through windows and dialog boxes as fast as possible, never reading a single word.
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I’m somewhat surprised that this entry didn’t mention Experian’s “secret” scores. As a consumer, there is no way to find out the score Experian is giving to banks.
Also, I think some might be under the impression that credit scores will be on the credit report. It is important to make sure there aren’t errors on your report. But the score is used for many things. Such as mortgage rates. Getting a better interest rate can save thousands over trying to lowball the seller.
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I recently pulled my credit report thru annual and found out that experian routes you to free credit. I thought I was savvy and knew not to agree to the score. I know I did not sign up for Triple advantage, but somehow the 14.95 showed up on my cc.
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I’ve done FreeCreditReport like 5 times since they first started, just take the trial and then cancel it. What is so hard people? They make it pretty clear on their site that they will charge you after 7 days. Open your eyes people. It says this on their homepage!!!
MPORTANT INFORMATION
When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple AdvantageSM Credit Monitoring. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period**, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership.
Pretty straightforward and honest if you ask me you people just need to read juuust a little bit before signing up for something and stop b**ing
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