Annualcreditreport.com Is Not A Scam
Most bloggers obsessively monitor the keywords used to reach their blog, and I am no exception. It’s probably an unhealthy obsession, but sometimes it pays dividends. I’ve had visitors find their way to this site from a variety of pretty crazy keywords having nothing even remotely close to do with investing, personal finance, the economy, or anything else. While these keywords are usually good enough for a quick laugh and that’s all, occasionally I’ll notice a pattern worth commenting on.
Annualcreditreport.com Is Not A Scam
Ever since I wrote a post on annualcreditreport.com a few weeks ago, I’ve been getting a decent amount of traffic from keywords along the lines of “annualcreditreport.com scam” and “annual credit report.com is a scam”, etc. Just in case you were wondering, annualcreditreport.com is not, in fact, a scam. The site may have gotten a bad name from association with websites like freecreditreport.com, which force you to sign up for a free trial for a monthly credit monitoring service in order to get your reports. If you don’t cancel within the specified time period, they start charging a monthly fee.
Annualcreditreport.com is the only official federally-mandated website maintained by the three major credit reporting agencies where you can get one free annual credit report from each of the three reporting bureaus. You don’t have to sign up for any free trials and don’t have to give any credit card information. There are absolutely no catches whatsoever: you can use annualcreditreport.com without fear.
Please note that only your credit reports are available for free on this site. To get your credit score, you still have to pay. There is an option to buy your score from each of the three bureaus on the site, but it is important to note these scores aren’t necessarily your Fico score, which is by far the most popular score used by creditors to assess your credit. To get your actual Fico score, I recommend just going directly to the source and purchasing your Fico Scores/Reports for about $16 from Fair Issac, the company behind the Fico score.
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Since it’s a federal government site, I sure wish they had used a .gov address instead of a .com address, which makes it seem more likely to be a scam.
It’s not a federal government site, per se. It’s actually run by the credit bureaus, but it is the official site endorsed by the federal government and required by law, so it’s just as good.
I have tried several times to get my credit report from annualreport.com and have yet to receive it. They say you can order it over the website, not true in my case and when I have called, the animated computer is truly frustrating and after wasting my time last month, I haven’t received a thing. Tried it once again today. Why must I go through all of this aggrevation when I have all my information that nobody but me would know. Sad, sad, sad. Others seem to have been success, wish that were me. Then they ask for proof, which must be mailed along with SSN card, proof of address, etc. When I read the following then I understood my problem: “The following states have laws that make free credit reports available to consumers: Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont.” I’m not one of the lucky states, too bad. Now if I wanted to shell out $19.95/per month or whatever, I could get all the credit reports I want without any questions or hassles. How is that? Just Sad….
Licorice, you get your credit report instantly online. You just have to be able to verify you are who you say you are. The law saying you get free access to your credit report is a federal law, not a state law, so I’m not sure what the problem could be. I’ve never had any trouble. It usually takes a maximum of 5 minutes to get your report, and I’ve done it many times.