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March 18, 2008
FreeCreditReport.com Billing Warning
Due to what seems to me as an increase in recent marketing of the Free Credit Report website I felt it was time for me to post a warning to people who might be taken in by this company. If you don't know freecreditreport.com offers you free credit checks and also offers a service to continue allowing you to check your credit whenever you want. Now at first this sounds wonderful. In today's world one should be very careful about their credit with all the identity theft going on in the world. Knowing this and when people see the commercial thinking they want their free report how can they lose, right?
Yes you can go online and get your first report for absolutely nothing, and it is accurate from what I've experienced. Where you start to hit a problem is when they don't have an obvious place where it says you are agreeing to sign up for a monthly charge to allow you to continue checking your credit. Yes it is there but it's not like other places online where you purchase a service and they clearly state you are being charged "X" amount for the following service and a clear choice of where to bill it from. The average person does not see this and they agree thinking they are just receiving their free report. Later they will realize they have been billed on their credit card for a fee of $10.95 or so. This transaction on your account will not clearly say freecreditreport.com either. It will have no contact number of any kind, it will also have nothing to tell you what it was.
When I did this I did not notice exactly what this was because I like many have a few small online payments like this to websites for various things such as my personal webspace. I thought $10 was small and it could have been something I ordered that I forgot about because this was around Christmas as well. I didn't think much of it but then the following month it was there again, and it had a new friend with a similar look to it of a charge of $11.95. By this point I knew something had been charged without my knowledge and I researched. The ONLY way I could figure out it was freecreditreport.com was to copy and paste the transaction description from my online statement into Google search and came up with many articles of others across the country having the same problem I did and some were much worse. I called the company up furious and demanded they refund my money because I never received an email stating I was charged, I never received an online notice during the 2 months telling me to check my credit. It was a silent way they used to charge me over $30.
Legally they have not stolen money because I did agree in the fine print that was hard to see on the website. Since it was only $30 and not something like $200, I shrugged this off as a learning experience about checking my online billing more carefully. However I wanted to give everyone my entire story so you know what I as many others have gone through with this company that claims they give free reports. Be cautious of them and tell your friends because I have read up cases online about this same setup that cost people hundreds of dollars and did have to go to court to settle it. These kind of bait-and-switch tactics have been going on since at least 2003 from what I'm reading online and probably before that. The fact is you are entitled to one free credit report every year by law. So unless you really want a report every day do not go to these sites and do not pay them a dime. I hope this helps save at least one person from some financial frustration.
Posted by Charles at March 18, 2008 05:25 AM
Comments
I'm a member of Credit Expert by Experian. It cost $89.00 a year and they monitor your credit report and alert you to any changes. You can order your credit report anytime at no charge. The report also shows your scores. Been a member for years and have never had any problems. To me this is money well spent. I also get the Free reports every year to compare them.
Posted by: DebraP at March 19, 2008 08:32 AM
Charles
Did you complain to the Better Business Bureau that is what they are for. They like complaint's about this kind of stuff.
www.bbb.org/
Posted by: Sl at March 19, 2008 01:33 AM
Sorry, that should read every 4 months, not 3 months. Somehow a year just got to be 9 months this morning! :-)
Posted by: mg at March 18, 2008 02:02 PM
You are actually entitled to a free credit report from each of the big 3 credit reporting agencies annually. It's a good idea to get them from the different companies at separate times; that way you can check your credit report for free about every 3 months.
They can take some time to sort through, especially as all 3 companies have different formats, but it is definitely worth the effort in this day and time.
Posted by: mg at March 18, 2008 08:18 AM
I'm sorry this happened to you Charles, I almost done the same thing. There is a website though,
www.annualcreditreport.com and I have done this for 2 yrs. and they do not charge you anything or offer you any "free" trials. I was watching the news one day and they told of this and said to be sure to spell it right. It get's your report from the 3 credit unions and it is accurate. The only thing is make sure you keep your password and other info b/c you are only allowed 1 per yr. I hope this help's you and other's also.
Posted by: Brandy at March 18, 2008 07:12 AM