In August 2005, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had settled with Consumerinfo.com, Inc.. The FTC charged that the company had deceptively marketed free credit reports in violation of federal law. According to the FTC complaint, Consumer info, which does business as Experian Consumer Direct, drove consumers to their www.freecreditreport.com and www.consumerinfo.com websites using deceptive radio, television, email, and Internet ads that promised free credit reports' and a bonus-free trial of a credit-monitoring service. The ads made claims such as: FREE credit report online in seconds!!!
The site failed to adequately disclose that the consumer would be charged $79.95 if they didn't cancel the service within 30 days. Many consumers thought that the company was requesting a credit card number only to verify their identity for purposes of accessing the credit file. As part of the settlement, Comsumerinfo was required to pay reparations to deceived consumers and refrain from deceptive and misleading claims about "free" offers. In addition, the settlement required the Company to pay $950,000 in ill-gotten gains.
As a side note, the website www.freecreditreport.com is still heavily advertised. Don't get caught with your pants down.
You should know that the only mandated free credit report site is www.annualcreditreport.com. Other sites that claim to offer free credit reports are often subscription services with a "free trial period."
Note: While these credit reports are free, the report is an individual report from the requested agency. A combined report from all three credit bureaus or a free joint report with a spouse is not available. Accordingly, a married couple will need to request six credit reports to obtain their complete credit report information without a fee.
Whenever something is FREE take a close look before you leap.
