HEINDRICK SO

I mentioned this before in my Credit FAQs , but I thought I’d pay special attention to this misconception about your entitled free credit reports. Thanks to heavy advertising, a catchy tune, and a great domain name – it’s quite easy to mistake [freecreditreport dot com] as the source for a free credit report. (I refuse to give them a link)

The website is actually owned by a Experian Consumer Direct, a subsidiary of the credit bureau Experian. The site advertises a free credit report, and offers you a 7 day trail for their Triple Advantage monitoring system. Unfortunately, by enrolling in the trial, customers find themselves receiving a monthly bill of about $14.95/month.

The Real Deal

Instead the website everybody is looking for is www.annualcreditreport.com as they truly give you three free credit reports from each bureau annually.  It’s unfortunate they didn’t own the domain [freecreditreport dot com], but if you’ve had experience in Web technology and domain names, you can see how owning relevant domains is so important.

I wish there would be commercials for these two websites in the form of Mac Vs. PC guy to clear up this issue, but for right now, word of mouth will have to do.  Actually, since receiving so many complaints,  [freecreditreport dot com] has put a disclaimer on their homepage stating the recurring monthly fees of the Triple Advantage Program.

So pass this news to friends and family, email it, and bookmark it – it sounds strange, but do not go to [freecreditreport dot com] for your free credit reports. Go to www.annualcreditreport.com

P.S.: A nice way of taking advantage of your annual three free credit reports is to obtain one every four months so you can stay current throughout the year.