Are "Free Credit Reports" REALLY Free?

You've seen the ads on TV and heard it on the radio. You've seen it countless times everywhere you travel on the internet.

Get your FREE credit report! NOW!

In fact, sometimes it sounds a little like you can always get a free credit report anytime you want it. Great! But are those ads entirely correct in the way that you maybe understand them? Yes you CAN get a free credit report and yes you should know your scores BUT you can only get a free credit report in one of four ways.

1. According to the FTC The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months. During the year you must pay for any additional reports you request from these agencies. Remember, credit reporting agencies are "for-profit" companies, most publicly traded and trying to make income in various ways which include selling you your own report. You can order your free annual credit report online at annualcreditreport.com, by calling 1-877-322-8228, or by completing the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mailing it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. The website is managed by Central Source LLC on behalf of Experian, Transunion and Equifax. Remember, you are entitled to one report per agency per year without any other products being offered to you.

2. Under federal law, you’re entitled to a free report if a company takes adverse action against you such as denying your application for credit, insurance, or employment and you ask for your report within 60 days of receiving notice of the action. The notice will give you the name, address, and phone number of the consumer reporting company that reported the harmful information on you. You have the opportunity to ask them why your were turned down for credit by asking for a free copy of the report your creditor received when you applied for credit.

3. If you have filed an investigation of items on your existing credit report, the credit reporting agency has 30 days through federal law to investigate your challenges and respond with the results with a revised report. Again according to the FTC "when the investigation is complete, the consumer reporting company must give you the written results and a free copy of your report if the dispute results in a change. (This free report does not count as your annual free report under the FACT Act.) If an item is changed or deleted, the consumer reporting company cannot put the disputed information back in your file unless the information provider verifies that it is accurate and complete. The consumer reporting company also must send you written notice that includes the name, address, and phone number of the information provider."

4. Finally and most importantly you can obtain a free credit report as a condition for signing up for other private services with free trial offers. Be aware that the free trial offers and your report remain free IF you remember to cancel BEFORE the trial offer is over, otherwise you will start being charged for the membership service. You may also be limited to only one of the reporting agencies when you might want all three. Look closely at the offer you receive.
Not all offers are bad but some offers are better than others for your situation. These can be good information for you, the consumer. We are not advocating that any offer is without merit or a good investment of what is charged for the advertised service but we are wanting to make you aware that the old axiom is ever present, there are no entirely free rides or products and a free credit report is one of those in some cases. You are, in effect through purchasing an attached membership or product, paying for a credit report.

Credit Reports are a product to sell just like furniture, cars, office supplies, etc. It's one of the many revenue streams to keep the reporting agencies in business. YOU and information about you are someone's revenue stream. Most everything you do financially is being sold at one time or another. Your personal financial information is sold sometimes with your permission as in the case of financial applications you fill out and sometimes without your knowledge and permission, as in the case of marketing companies buying your information for the purposes of selling you products or services in which you may be interested. This is merely the American way of sales and marketing, also known as free enterprise. The key to coping in this free enterprise world is to be a discriminating and informed consumer making all your decisions good for YOU.

You need to be aware of the merit of the product you are buying. Don't buy the product just because you get a free credit report. Buy it because it is something you feel is worth the investment with an added value. For instance, if you sign up for a "trial" credit monitoring annual subscription such as the Triple AdvantageSM Credit Monitoring program from Experian® shown below, you are receiving a free Experian Credit report and score and a trial credit monitoring membership for 30 days, but at the end of 30 days, IF you do not cancel the membership you will begin to be charged $12.95/month for this Experian based service. What you do get is unlimited free access to your Experian ONLY credit reports and scores as long as you keep paying the $12.95/month. In addition you also will be sent alerts which tell you when someone has accessed your report, updated or changed.

For those who are looking for the best monthly monitoring program ,the best buy seems to be the Free 3 in 1 Credit Report and Score with a free trial to the Equifax Credit Watch™ Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring and Score Power®. While only giving you one score based on your Equifax report it will monitor all three reports on a monthly basis.

Get Your FICO® credit score (one score based on Equifax), a FREE 3-in-1 Credit Report, plus unlimited access to your Equifax Credit Report™
30 day free trial of three credit bureau monitoring
Alerts you within 24 hours of key changes to your 3 nationwide credit reports
Interactive Score Simulator to show you how your actions may change your score.

For those who want one time credit scores based on each of the three credit agencies we suggest My FICO Deluxe. you can also save an additional 20% if you type in the letters "CPPSAVINGS" in the promo code when checking out. Click the "Shop" link and fins the MY FICO Deluxe package.

For those who want to start off with three scores and continue with monthly monitoring of activity of all three reports we suggest you get the initial reports through My Fico and then supplement the monthly reporting of all three reports through the Equifax report.Currently there is no ONE source for both these needs.

So the answer to whether credit reports are REALLY free is yes AND no. Once a year you can get a report at each reporting agency entirely free without any strings attached, you can get a free report if you are turned down for credit and you can get a free report after you have requested an investigation. After that, we haven't found an offer yet that didn't have another "paid" required purchase attached to it. The value of the purchase for you personally will determine whether the added investment is truly worth the cost.