Free Government Credit Report - Some Important Things To Consider

The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, requires all three of the major credit reporting agencies to provide customers who ask for it one free government credit report every 12 months. The three agencies are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Together they have set up a website specifically for customers who want that free annual report at www.annualcreditreport.com .

Many other sites are available that appear to offer the same information, but if you read the small print at these sites you will see that they actually charge for it. Most of the sites charge every month, and most people who fill out the forms at the unofficial sites do not realize they are agreeing to pay a monthly fee for what they receive.

One of the sites that generates lots of publicity is www.freecreditreport.com . This site has a clever and humorous advertising campaign aimed at young people.

The television ads show the misadventures of a musical group of lovable losers who don’t get what they want because they didn’t visit freecreditreport.com. The leader doesn’t get a good car; he works in a seafood restaurant dressed like a pirate; and he lives in the basement of his wife’s parent’s house because he never asked her about her credit before he married her.

The ads are funny, but if you visit the site and actually read the small print (it’s there---in very tiny, hard-to-read blue letters on a darker blue background, to the left of the good-looking smiling blonde holding the bright orange FREE! sign) you will see, right there in blue and blue, the disclaimer that accepting their “free” credit report will cost you $14.95 a month, to be charged directly to your checking account unless you tell them you don’t want it.

You won’t tell them you don’t want it, because it will be months before you notice it on your checking account, and once you do notice it will be another couple of weeks before your bank figures out who did it and gets the money back for you.

Save yourself this drama but visiting the correct site, www.annualcreditreport.com . Knowing what is on your credit report is worthwhile. If you have some negatives, you will know how to avoid getting even more. If you have items on the report that are not yours, you can dispute them by notifying the credit reporting agency within 30 days. If the dispute does not come out to your satisfaction, you can leave your own side of the story right on the report, and lenders will see that. Sometimes it does make a difference.

Another good reason for knowing what is on your credit report is identity theft. Sometimes the first indication that something is wrong is a strange item that turns up on your credit report; something you won’t know is there if you don’t ever look at it. When someone steals your identity, they often start to take out loans in your name on your good credit, and then they default on the loans. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the US.

Finally, whenever you are offered a “free” service or product online or at a store by someone you have just given your debit or credit card information, decline the offer. Nine times out of ten it isn’t a free item at all. It may be a free trial, it may be “free” with delivery and service charges tacked on; it may be an outright lie. If you say yes, it can be a nightmare getting the charge off of your bank account.

One popular discount chain gives out “free” magazine subscriptions to customers who buy $50 worth of merchandise with a VISA. The “free” magazines are then charged to the card, and when the customer calls the cancellation number, they get a recording that makes it very, very difficult to tell if the charge was cancelled or renewed.

So if a website wants to know too much about you in order to give you their “free” product or service, just leave. Too much of a free thing can get really expensive!