Free Credit Report????
By villageanne
@villageanne (8553)
United States
March 3, 2007 9:16pm CST
My husband and I was in the car the other day when the commercial for “Free Credit Recport.com came on. I made the comment that I wondered how they got by with saying that you get a free credit report and rating. My husband didn’t say anything but in a few minutes the commercial came on again. He said “Well if you listen really close to their words, they do not say that your credit rating score was free. They just mention it and give you the impression that it is free”. I just don’t understand how companies can get by with being so deceitful to the public. Why are we as citizens letting this happen.
The fact is that you can get one free credit report a year by law but not at freecreditreport.com. They charge for your score and if you don’t cancel your membership, they charge you a lot of money.
Here is an article that I found on Dave Ramsey site.
http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/newsletters/company/021607.cfm?&action=vote#4
This lady was charged money and did not know anything about it until she went to use her debit card and it was denied. This money had automatically came out of her checking account. The scary thing is that this could have happened to any of us just as easily. The commercial leads us to believe that it is totally free.
I think we must all be careful these days and read the fine print. We need to Get everything in writing. Anytime a company that I deal with calls to make me a better deal, I never agree to anything on the phone. I politely tell them to mail me the details. I do not give them my address either because if they are indeed from the company, they will have my address.
6 people like this
21 responses
@emeraldisle (13139)
• United States
4 Mar 07
OH I know. I love how they say it's free but it's not. If you don't cancel you get hit with a heavy fee for each month until you do. It amazes me how companies can get a way with this. Just because they put it in the small print, that almost no one can read on thos commercials? TV ones I mean not the radio.
Exactly you can't take chances with anything. I get everything in writing when ever possible. I don't take what they try to sell at face value. Ask questions and find out everything first. If they don't like it then that should give you an idea that they aren't exactly as they seem.
@Leykon (579)
• Canada
4 Mar 07
It is to bad that there is no laws when it comes to credit companies.They make it so easy for the young people to get into dept and not have much hope of ever getting out of dept. They make it all sound so good.We learned our lesson many years ago by getting into dept and the only way out was to give back the car and lose all we had into it.but it was a lesson well learned,got an old car to get around with and waited until we could pay cash when we wanted a new one or anything we wanted it was our motto.I used to call myself the someday girl.lol
The sad part now that we can afford the things I wanted I don't want them anymore
2 people like this
@peaceful (3294)
• United States
5 Mar 07
I've learned long ago: Use a debit card, pay cash otherwise and never sign up for monthly subcriptions with a credit card, if you can help it, because these leave you open to abusive but legal practices...
My motto "Try never to spend money you have to pay for!" might be of use to you! :)
1 person likes this
@brokentia (10389)
• United States
4 Mar 07
You know, I am glad I am not the only one that gets upset at this.
I hear the Free Credit Report thing and have checked out the website.
But I have also made it a rule that if they ask you for your account or credit card info, it is not free.
Commericals can be so misleading. Here, our government actually regulates what is allowed and what is not...when it is allowed and such. But they still allow misleading wording.
1 person likes this
@villageanne (8553)
• United States
4 Mar 07
Years ago, they would have never been allowed to say this stuff. Commercials used to be great and you could believe them but now they lie.
@bgerig (1258)
• United States
4 Mar 07
Thanks for the information. I will have to check it out. I have always wondered about the free credit report announcements. I am so tired of the "free this" or "free that" and then when I call in I find out there is a handling or shipping charged. Thank you for your informative posting.
2 people like this
@sappho99336 (354)
• United States
4 Mar 07
Freecreditreport.com drives me crazy. It is such a scam. You are required to enroll in this free trial of a credit monitoring service and it is really hard to cancel it. i got charged for it for a few months just because it was so hard to cancel. When I finally got someone on the phone, they really tried to get me to not cancel. I finally ended up screaming at the guy to "CANCEL IT!" So he finally did. I cannot believe they are still being allowed to get away with it. And it is through one of the major companies--Experian. Why a company who is one of the big three credit-reporting agencies is allowed to rip off the public like this is beyond me, and it's really scary. Also, you probably already know this, but you can get a free credit report every year through annualcreditreport.com. You get one free a year through each of the three companies--Experian, Transunion, and Equifax. Your score still isn't free though, just the cerdit report part. I think that's wrong; I think the score should also be free. But if you go through annualcreditreport.com, you get charged like $6.95 (a one-time fee) for the score and don't get enrolled in any rip-off trial of anything.
@coolloupe (40)
• United States
4 Mar 07
great information. I never really knew that I was getting lied to. I geuss I will never look at thoose comercials the same way again. Thanks again. :)
1 person likes this
@sigma77 (5383)
• United States
4 Mar 07
As far as I know, you can get a free crdit report every year from one of the reporting agencies. But there will still be people that will try to rip off the unsuspecting public by charging them for it. You are right, the fine print, if you can find it, usually tells the tale. That is as long as you can understand it without having to hire a ton of lawyers to interpret it for you.
It is amazing how so many companies use this misleading tactic to scam people. The idea is to get you to sign up for a monthly charge, and eventually many people forget they even signed up for the service, yet the fees are paid automatically every month.
1 person likes this
@SpitFire179 (2536)
• Canada
4 Mar 07
that's very good advice.. your right, we do get screwed extremely easily, and i always make sure that my husband gets all his settlements, insurance and everything in writing, because he's been screwed over before, and i can happen again so easily...
I don't think there's anything anyone can do about these people lying on the air, but i do think that we can do something about our knowledge level in dealing with things like this.
It was nice of you to post this to inform people
@KrisNY (7590)
• United States
5 Mar 07
There are alot of services out there that you have to cancel before you free trial is up. I consider them to be gimmicks and I stay away from them- It's hard to remember to cancel things- At work I sometimes order things and write them on my big calendar!
I agree that we all need to read the fine print. Not much in life is free. Thanks for the heads up.
1 person likes this
@cjsmom (1423)
• United States
5 Mar 07
I was hooked into this, thinking it was free and, once I was enrolled I realized that you were signed up with, Triple Advantage; olbuddy is correct when he says that as long as you cancel your 'free' subscription (they give you so many days to try it) before they actually bill you, then you'll be all right...
I'll tell you that it made me very mad but I must admit, I should've read everything on the site before I enrolled; I know it's a pain to read the fine print on documents, etc., but in the long run you'll know what to expect.
@mommy2jason922 (529)
• United States
4 Mar 07
i know i HATE that!! that is unfair to us. i wanted to look up my credit and all the sites i went to asked for a credit card. i dont have a credit card or a bank account.
1 person likes this
@awonderfullife (2893)
• United States
4 Mar 07
Everyone is entitled to one free credit report per year. If you go to annualcreditreport.com you can instantly get a completely free copy of your credit report from each of the 3 major agencies. I did it last year and was not charged any fees-- at one point they give you the option to get your FICO for a small charge, but I didn't select it. You can go to your bank and ask them to look up your FICO score for you for free.
1 person likes this
@kgwat70 (13387)
• United States
4 Mar 07
I am very aware of these websites claiming that you get free credit reports but in reality you do not because they get you to sign up and then they charge you for it. The only time you really get a free credit report is if you get turned down for credit or for a loan that requires a credit check. If you get denied credit, the company that turned you down is required to send you a denial letter with the credit bureau information on it so you can send that letter and get a free report without being charged. Otherwise, if you get a report any other way you will get charged for it later unless you cancel your membership, which these websites are good at hiding from you. I agree that we all need to read the fine print.
1 person likes this
@gabs8513 (48686)
• United Kingdom
4 Mar 07
Yes Anne we must and there is more and more about it. A friend of my Sons has just been had as well with his Car Loan, the Lad thought he had paid it of only to find out he still owes them money, he didn't want the Payment Protection and he tod them that at the time, well noone told the Lad when he signed the Paperwork, that he was signing for both so now he still owes them £2000 and it is not right that they did this. But these Compnaies are getting worse and a lot of People suffer through that.
@vmoore709 (1101)
• United States
4 Mar 07
You do get one free report. I didn't go through that site though. I went through my Credit Union's site and they connected me to the appropriate place. The thing one should keep in mind is that if they ask for a credit card number, watch out and read the fine print. I never give that info if it is supposed to be free. It usually turns out that you have to cancel a subscription by a certain date...most people forget.
1 person likes this
@freak369 (5113)
• United States
4 Mar 07
There isn't much in life that is free; credit score places like this enroll you in a plan that is pretty hard to cancel if you decide to do so. It is a good idea to see what is on your credit report but there are ways of doing it for free. Especially if you have been turned down for a credit card; you get a letter in the mail stating why you were denied then you can contact the company that they used to check your credit and request a report from them for free.
1 person likes this
@dfinster (3528)
• United States
4 Mar 07
Nothing these days is ever free. Most of these companies get away with this stuff because in the fine print they usually have a little clause saying that if you don't cancel your membership by a certain time they will charge you a monthly fee.
1 person likes this
@JediSkipdogg (169)
• United States
4 Mar 07
They get away with it because in general the American public is stupid and they know this. People believe everything on TV is true and generally the companies put the opposite in that small font on the screen that you need a 60" TV to even read. And if they do happen to show it large enough, you need a DVR to read it because they scroll right by it. Sadly, that passes the FCC and isn't misleading. I disagree.
Heck, they had on Judge Judy a few weeks back about a scam artist. This male and female couple posted cell phones on ebay and said something about the win what's in the picture. Well, in the picture were photos of cell phones, not the actual phone. So the buyer paid around $450 for two cells phone and then in the mail recieved two photos of cell phones. When they contacted the seller they were told that is what they bought, what was shown in the picture on the ebay page, which was a picture of a picture of a phone. The buyer then left bad feedback for the seller at which point the seller created numerous accounts to leave alot of bad feedback for the buyer.
Needless to say, Judge Judy ruled in favor of the buyer for the total amount maximum of $5000. GO JUDGE JUDY. Hopefully that's one less scam artist there.
1 person likes this
