Free Credit Report Dot Scam

Posted by: Wendy on July 17th, 2009

I can hear it now, my mom saying “nothing in life is free.” Well that may or may not be true, but in this case she was right. After hearing the freecreditreport.com commercials over and over again I decided to check it out. So, as expected I gave up my personal information in order to receive my credit score and after a few minutes of doing this it did give me one. I was content with the score and ready to move on. As with many other sites that are trying to make a profit you are offered a membership before leaving the website. Personally I had no use for the membership they were trying to sell me and did not completely understand what this membership was useful for. So I chose not to sign up for anything else, left the site and did not think about it again. I had gotten my free credit report.

That was about a month ago and I had completely forgotten that that five minutes of my life ever happened. I was reminded of it however when I was going through my monthly checking account statement. To my surprise there was a charge of $16.14 from freecreditreport.com. I racked my brain trying to think of what I could have possibly done wrong on this “free” website. I decided not to let it go for fear of getting charged anything else so I called the 800 number listed on my statement. According to the seemingly nice man on the telephone there was some fine print I had neglected when signing up for my credit report. Apparently there is some catch that you automatically sign up for their membership when getting your credit score. He tried to explain to me that you have to go back within three days and cancel this membership. Of course the first thing I asked was for my so-called membership to be cancelled. While cancelling this membership I had to listen to why it was such a good deal at least two more times. After very politely explaining that I had no use for it, he did cancel my membership. In their defense he was also able to remove the $16.14 from my account after offering me 50% off if I wanted to become a new member.

After all was said and done there was no harm done, and everything did get refunded to me. I am just writing this to warn you girls about using this particular site. Also keep an eye on your credit card statements and checking account. I’m sure that this website has made a lot of money from people who might not notice a $16 charge. So be careful!!