Credit Reports: Smart or Scam?
As smart consumers, we’re encouraged to keep a close eye on our personal credit score. And even if we don’t, others we do business with will. When making major purchases, like a house or car, when looking to rent an apartment, home or office, you can bet the owner is interested in your credit score. According to AnnualCreditReport.com, your credit score “is a complex mathematical model that evaluates many types of information in a credit file. A credit score is used by a lender to help determine whether a person qualifies for a particular credit card, loan, or service.” Additionally, keeping a close eye on our credit rating may alert us to possible fraud if the reports we’re seeing don’t jive with our true financial management.
After hearing the commercial jingle on TV for FreeCreditReports.com, it seems that getting your credit report should be easy, and FREE. And, per new rules amended by the Federal Trade Commission on April 21, 2010, that should be even truer. These rules require that any advertising for a free credit report must also include a disclosure statement notifying consumers that they have a right to a free credit report and, supposedly, were put into place to avoid confusion about offers that appear to be free, but that, in reality, require that you spend money on a credit monitoring service. I decided to check it out for myself.
So, this is how it went:
I surfed to http://www.annualcreditreport.com, a service provided (supposedly free of charge) by the three largest credit bureaus in the US – Transunion, Experion and Equifax. I decided to run one of my three yearly allotted reports. I chose Transunion (it being the top of the list). I began the seemingly simple process by answering questions on the secure site. About 15 minutes later, after having to get a verification call from Transunion , I received a full report. But wait, where was my credit score? Ahhhh…..that’s where they get you. In order to get the score (which is one of the main reasons I did this exercise), I had to click another link that took me to a new website requiring me to fill out an additional form, input my credit card information and agree to a $14.95 per month service which would begin after a 7 day trial period. Since there was no other way to get the score, I opted to fill out yet ANOTHER form, and hit “agree” to the fee-driven service. Immediately after getting the magic number, I searched the site for a way to cancel. Lo and behold, a customer service phone number was all that was available. I made the call, was put on hold for the next available service rep, then was asked MORE security /identification questions. I requested that my new account be cancelled. The service rep began a series of questions about why I was dissatisfied with the service, doing her best to save the sale. Explaining that I really only wanted my credit score and wasn’t interested in credit monitoring services didn’t seem to make sense to her until I politely asked that she simply cancel my account.
I’m a bit baffled and am not sure that AnnualCreditReport.com got the memo from the Federal Trade Commission. Getting the report was fairly easy, but should getting the actual score be this difficult? If you move forward with getting a score, just be forewarned that you’ll likely need to subscribe to a monitoring service, even if you end up canceling your subscription.
