My Blog, Your Money

Most people have heard that they are entitled to free copies of their credit reports from the 3 national credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and Transunion.  All you have to do is visit annualcreditreport.com and you are entitled to receive one report every year from each agency at absolutely no charge to you.  For more information, you can visit the Federal Trade Commission’s page on the free credit reports.

However, those guys at Experian thought they’d take advantage of some unsuspecting consumers and set up a site called FreeCreditReport.com*.  The site advertises free credit reports, but also signs you up for a free 7-day trial in Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring.  And if you don’t cancel within 7 days, you’ll be billed $14.95 each month thereafter.  Now, this isn’t much of a problem if you actually want the Triple Advantage service or if you remember to cancel, but knowing the average American consumer, there are bound to be people who forget to cancel or just plain aren’t aware that they were signed up for the service at all and don’t notice the monthly $14.95 charge on their monthly bill.  What a sneaky way to dupe the John or Jane Consumer out of a few bucks every month.  Fortunately, the FTC took them to court and won a settlement.  Not only were consumers entitled to refunds, but also the site’s front page now discloses the details of the trial membership (albeit in a small font).  Details of the settlement are explained here.

I guess the point is this: if all you want is a free credit report, save yourself some trouble and just go to annualcreditreport.com.

On a related note, if you are interested in obtaining some additional free reports, here’s a post at My Money Blog which describes how to get free copies of your insurance claims history, employment history, and tenant history: 4 Free Reports With Your Personal Insurance, Employment, and Tenant History.

*I did not link to the site on purpose, but if you want to visit the site, just copy and paste the URL into your browser or type it in.