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FreeCreditReport.Com Is Far From "Free"

Service lures buyers into paying for credit monitoring

By Mark Huffman and Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 2, 2009

Under federal law, you have a right to receive a free credit report from each of the three nationwide credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian and Transunion — once a year, for a total of three reports per year. You can order your free credit report online at AnnualCreditReport.com (www.annualcreditreport.com) online or by calling 1-877-322-8228.

If you order your credit report online, make sure you only so at AnnualCreditReport.com. Don't confuse this completely free Web site for a commercial service, FreeCreditReport.com, which is heavily advertised on television.

FreeCreditReport.com has nothing to do with the government-mandated free credit report to which you are entitled. The company, which is a subsidiary of Experian, will provide you a copy of the Experian version of your credit report, but you can't get it without signing up for a "free" trial of the company's credit monitoring service.

If you don't cancel your membership within the seven day trial period, you will be charged $14.95 a month. The FreeCreditReport.com Web site clearly states that it is not affiliated with the government program that provides a free annual credit report, but many consumers writing to ConsumerAffairs.com are apparently confused by the "free" in the company's name and fail to make the distinction.

"I too signed up for free credit report," Rob, of Quinlan, Texas, told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I came to the section where you put in your credit card info and it wouldn't let you bypass it. You couldn't continue without giving your payment info, even though it was to be free. It was very deceptive and who is going to remember to cancel something with 9 days of activating something you didn't even know you activated. My free credit report cost me $15.88."

It isn't clear from the FreeCreditReport.com Web site what the "Triple Advantage" credit monitoring service is. Curiously, the company offers no promotion information about it until a consumer has signed up. It's easy to conclude that the only reason consumers sign up for it is to get a free copy of their credit report.

Most credit monitoring services' value for protection against identity theft is dubious, as they only detect fraud after it has occurred, and do not prevent it. Credit monitoring also doesn't detect misuse of a Social Security number, debit card fraud, or usage of personal information to create new identities for fraudulent purposes.

Unless consumers are interested in a somewhat undefined credit monitoring service for $14.95 a month, they should stick to getting their true free credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com.

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