Latest responses to “How to get your free FICO score and avoid getting ripped off” Copyright 2013, MoneyBlueBook.com 426560 2010-12-16T09:40:11-08:00 Paul You know, I'm curious as to what the percentage of calls to companies like freecreditreport.com are irate customers who are angry that they found charges on their credit card. A friend of mine fell for this nonsense, and when he called the customer service representative told him that they were perfectly "clear" about the automatic enrollment. Now, how exactly print so small you need glasses to read it under massive buttons egging you to procede is "clear" is completely beyond me. And if 90% of the incomming calls (and I'm positive it is actually more) are from customers who had no idea that they were going to be charged, you would think that the management at freecreditreport would think, "hmmm....maybe we ought to make that point a little bigger." Yet they don't....as if their customers wouldn't care. "We'll just barely mention this thing about (what is now) 20 dollar charges to their credit card every month. We can't imagine that it could possibly be important to anyone. So it's not really worthy of anything more than, say, 8 point font. The button that says 'comfirm' (or whatever it is) is WAY more important." PLEASE!!! 426520 2010-06-22T04:33:08-07:00 Dog Books Well, I do not agree at a point or two while the remaining appears professional. 426510 2009-09-11T11:02:15-07:00 Laura Hi, my name is Laura and I am an analyst at Balestriere Lanza, a trials and investigations law firm in New York. I saw your post on expressing a desire to be contacted if any potential class action law suits against Free Credit Report were in the works. Our firm has been investigating Free Credit Report's potential misconduct for several months and would be interested in hearing more from you about your experience. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience at laura.sayler@balestriere.net or at (212) 374-5400 x 133. 426490 2009-05-26T00:31:23-07:00 CornHusker I recommend using MYFICO's Score Watch program for credit monitoring rather than FREECREDITREPORT.COM or any of the credit services in this blog. With the ScoreWatch program from MYFICO you get credit score monitoring which also shows important changes to your score and report as they happen. 426470 2009-05-21T12:29:29-07:00 Scores Annualcreditreport.com is the ONLY way to get your free credit reports! It's the only official sponsored source via the federal government. With the official Annaul Credit Report you get 1 free credit report from each of your 3 credit bureau reports once a year - so manage them properly by requesting one every 4 months. By staggering the requests throughout 365 days you'll get a full one year picture of your credit reporting situation in proper intervals. Now if you want 24 hour 7 days a week monitoring, then try a real credit monitoring service like the ones above. That's the only reason anybody ought to utilize PrivacyMatters or CreditCheckTotal etc....for credit report monitoring and not for their free credit reporting services. 426480 2009-05-12T20:20:00-07:00 Daniel Yes.....FreeCreditReport dot com is pretty shady and the guitar playing guy in their commercials is pretty annoying as well (he's not even American, he's Canadian!) but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an outright scam. I actually use freecreditreport to monitor my tri-credit reports and thus far it's done its job. But then I wasn't using it just to get my free credit report or even my free credit score...I actually wanted to use the credit monitoring feature. So I guess it all boils down to what your expectations are. If you go in with your eyes closed thinking you can walk away with a freebie with nothing down and no trial commitment, then you will be disappointed. Yeah your credit report and credit score CAN be free, but you have to take part in their marketing game...which is you must sign up and then quickly cancel to avoid paying anything. It's really not that hard. Just sign up and cancel and you pay zippo fees. Same thing with your FICO scores...if you want the real FICO credit score...just visit myFICO.com or Equifax and take part in their ScoreWatch trial periods and cancel in time to walk away with your free FICO credit scores... 426550 2009-05-07T09:37:07-07:00 Holly Freecreditreport is a scam! How is it free when you have to pay money to get your so called free credit report. If it was really free....there would be no money needed, no contracts, and no catches or gimmicks. These sites are all online scams trying to get your money and laugh their way to the bank while you end up paying monthly charges on a credit monitoring service. I signed up for one of these freecreditreport offers - i think it was Privacy matters 123 and I winded up with a monthly charge on my credit card. It took me days to get them to remove the charge. Yeah I got my free credit scores and supposedly free credit report but it took too much effort. Beware it's not as it seems!! 426500 2009-04-12T16:07:12-07:00 Raymond Jakers, My apologies if I am somewhat long winded when it comes to writing these personal finance blog entries...I just like to pack in all of my thoughts about the subject... But in regards to your question, I recommend going through the official free credit report site at annualcreditreport.com first. It's the only official federal government sponsored free credit report site. Under federal law, all U.S. residents are entitled to a free credit report from each of the big three credit rating agencies (for a total of 3 credit reports from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian) per 12 month period. Sites like FreeCreditReport or CreditCheckTotal come in handy when you have completely used up your official annualcreditreport.com allotment for the year. So long as you cancel within the required trial period (may be as short as 7 days), you can truly walk away with your credit report free of charge (but ONLY if you cancel in time). This part is absolutely essential - you MUST cancel in time. The vast majority of people who call these trial offers scams are those who forget to cancel in time or those who failed to carefully read what they were getting into before they clicked the "I Agree" button. Maybe not in the past, but sites like FreeCreditReport.com do adequately comply with government mandated visual disclosure rules today...but perhaps such disclosure rules may tighten further in the future as needed to protect consumers. But are these types of free credit report offers somewhat misleading to most casual layperson observers? ...Perhaps. However, all free trial offer gimmicks of this kind are somewhat like that. But when used properly, they do yield truly free credit reporting freebies for those looking to game the system. 426530 2009-04-11T09:53:18-07:00 Jakers Ray, I scanned through the article, but it was sort of long and extremely detailed...but are you telling me that these free credit report and even free credit score sites like FreeCreditReport.com are perfectly legit? I had always heard that these may be credit report scams but I'm a little still unsure. Where is the most reliable place to get my free credit report without cost? Is it AnnualCreditReport or FreeCreditReport? I got my 3 free reports a while back...about 1/2 a year ago through the government site, but now they are telling me that I have used up my limit.... 426540 2009-03-30T00:53:50-07:00 Raymond Joel, Yes, always make sure you follow the terms and conditions of whatever free credit report offer you intend to pursue. The cancellation terms vary, but so long as you abide by them by canceling upon sign up or before the 7-30 day trial period, you should be able to avoid all unnecessary charges. The CIC Triple Advantage charged you indicated indeed came from FreeCreditReport. Glad you were able to remove the charge after some mild wrangling on your part!