Freecreditreport.com Isn’t Free

Most of you have probably seen those obnoxious Freecreditreport.com commercials.  You know, the ones with that guy with a guitar singing annoyingly catchy ditties about the tragedies that befell him because his credit was stolen.  As it turns out, credit reports at Freecreditreports.com aren’t actually free.

False Advertising

In order to get those “free” credit reports, you have to enroll in a 7-day trial of their Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring service.  If you fail to cancel after those 7 days are up, you’ll automatically be charged $14.95 per month.  Now there’s nothing inherently bad about offering credit-monitoring services.  Indeed, many people who have either had their identity stolen or are in danger of having their identity stolen will find the service invaluable.  My problem with the company stems from its aggressive advertising campaign stressing the “free” nature of the credit reports, a practice that has already been condemned by the Federal Trade Commission.  Since there are clearly strings attached, any use of the word “free” amounts to an obvious attempt to mislead the public.

To make matters worse, Freecreditreport.com’s credit-monitoring service isn’t even a good deal.  Fair Issac’s myFico website offers superior credit-monitoring service for barely one third Freecreditreport.com’s monthly price via their FICO® Quarterly Monitoring service, which allows you to track changes to your TransUnion report and gives you access to your official FICO score for under $5 per month (as of 12/8/08).  The myFico.com website is also the only place you can get your official Fico Scores/Reports from all three credit reporting agencies.

Equifax goes one step further, allowing you to monitor all three credit reports and even includes $20,000 in identity theft insurance with no deductible for a modest $12.95 per month (as of 12/8/08), which is a fantastic deal for those at risk or maybe just want some peace-of-mind.  While Freecreditreport.com’s terms promise $50,000 in coverage, most identity-theft victims are unlikely to need anywhere near that much.  Most importantly, Equifax does not engage in misleading advertising campaigns, which makes them more worthy of patronage in my mind.  Click here to Get Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Now!

There is no excuse for false or misleading advertising, of course, but then turning around and pedaling a crappy product isn’t just immoral, it’s insulting.  If a credit score is all you way, myFico.com’s Fico Scores/Reports offer is the easiest and most economical way to go.  If you care more about just making sure the contents of your reports are correct and aren’t concerned with the actual scores, you are entitled to a free (no catches) annual credit report from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus at the government-mandated site annualcreditreport.com.  This is the only website offering this service.  You won’t be able to see your actual credit score (go to myFico for that), but you will at least be able to verify the information reported by all three bureaus is accurate and current.