You see the offers all over your screen when you try to surf the net, the banners advertising free instant credit reports from some online service or agency. When you click on them and read the small print, it turns out that you need to sign up, create a profile, give a password, and volunteer your credit card information before they allow you to see your credit report. That does not sound like free to me. Free usually connotes something that is given in exchange for no consideration, thus the term free.
On the face of it, free instant credit reports seem like a good way to finally see what your credit score is and so many people fall prey to the scam and sign up, not knowing that they are signing up for a monthly service that will charge them a hefty fee each month. It will come out automatically from their checking account if they gave a debit card number or it will show up as a charge on their credit card statement if they use a charge card. Either way, they will be paying for something that they thought was going to be truly free.
The worst thing is that they will continue to charge you the monthly service fee until you decide to call the company and cancel the subscription. This is easier said than done. These online companies that offer free instant credit reports do not readily give up their phone numbers and when they do they severely under staff them so that the disgruntled caller may have to wait hours in order to get a customer service representative to help them. These customer disservice representatives will argue and try and do everything they can to dissuade you from cancelling your account. If you stick to your guns however they must obey and cancel the account. If you catch it early enough into the first billing cycle, you may be able to get a refund, though most companies object to giving back any of their hard swindled funds.
The best way to get free instant credit reports is to go to the online sites of the three major credit reporting bureaus themselves. These are Experian (www.experian.com), Equifax (www.equifax.com), and Transunion (www.transunion.com). These sites offer actual free reports, though many times these will not include FICO (Fair Isaac Company) scores. These three bureaus have also gotten into the free instant credit reports game and you need to be careful and read the fine print before you order your supposedly free report. Just make sure that you dont give up your credit or debit card number and you should be alright.