Updated: Get Out of FreeCreditReport.com’s “Triple Advantage”.
This isn’t the first time, but now the State of Florida Office of the Attorney General is investigating FreeCreditReport.com. You’ll notice I don’t link to the site. This site, run by credit reporting agency Experian is taking advantage of the ruling that anyone can receive a free annual credit report from each of the three major agencies.
FreeCreditReport.com is not the website that offers free credit reports in conjunction with this directive. It’s misleading, and here’s the fine print on the site:
When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple AdvantageSM Credit Monitoring. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 30-day trial period, you will be billed $12.95 for each month that you continue your membership. If you are not satisfied, you can cancel at any time to discontinue the membership and stop the monthly billing; however, you will not be eligible for a pro-rated refund of your current month’s paid membership fee.
FreeCreditReport.com has been investigated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and has been required to pay a significant penalty. However, they apparently have been allowed to keep operating.
The only way to get your free annual credit report is by going through AnnualCreditReport.com.
Hat tip to Red Tape Chronicles for the news about the Florida AG investigation.
Email this article
Print this article
Share this article: Twitter | Tip'd | Facebook | Delicious | Reddit | Digg
About the Author
{ 118 comments… read them below or add one }
It seems to me the whole credit reporting industry is a scam for consumers. The big three aggregate your personal information then charge you to look at it!
The credit reporting services they provide are valuable to businesses. The industry should make their money off providing the information for these businesses but reports for consumers should be free of charge, 24×7x365.
You _do_ get one free check per year, by law, on annualcreditreport.com
They won’t tell you your “credit score”, but they will give you the “data dump” part of the credit report. For money, you can also get your FICO score (which is your “real” credit score and comes from the FICO people, and is a separate outfit from the three credit bureaus).
We always do the credit check on the day before our anniversary so I remember, er, both :)
Right. Note the distinction. AnnualCreditReport = good. FreeCreditReport = bad.
Actually, you can get three free credit reports each year from AnnualCreditReport.com, one from each of the major reporting agencies (Experian, Transunion, and Equifax). Put a reminder in your calendar once every four months to get the latest info.
Good info. I use ftc.gov to get my information on this.
We do them all three at once. I hadn’t thought about doing them one-by-one – it’s a good idea…
I’ve been trying to “unsubscribe” from the credit monitoring on the “free credit report .com “site since I read my first report and have gotten nothing but the run around! It’s nothing but a scam as far as I can tell. annualcreditreport.com is free and legally available to everyone.
Regarding some of the postings about FreeCreditReport.com, in my opinion it is a scam.
Ilogged onto their website out of cuiosity and, before long, the information I was asked to submit to do so resulted in a monthly charge to my credit card, even though I distinctly stopped short of ordering any services from them.
After I complained, they did agree to remove the charge from my account and credit it. I have yet to obtain the credit from them. Don’t visit the site, unless you want FreeCreditReport.com to take you curiosity for permission to begin billing you for things you have not specifically ordered.
I, too, have suffered because of the deceptive advertising and fraudulent inducement policies of FreeCreditReport.com. By the way, I, too, had to threaten legal action before my account was closed — and have since retained an identity theft atty. The site, by the way, is owned by Jeffrey Applebaum, Pres. and Co-founder, and operates under another dba RunMyMortgageCredit.com. Jeffrey Applebaum lists a 516 (Boca Raton, FL) phone # as his contact info. He feels that all his customers (consumers) are idiots — and does not honor a request to have unauthorized charges billed back. I think he is a MAJOR THIEF!
yea i got this thinkin it was free
i ended up gettin charged for 3 months whitout realzing it
so my freecreditreport cost me about 37 bucks
please this company needs to either do something about their misleadin title
or they need to be shut down
its ridiculous
imagine if i hadnt checked my accoun or imagine thousands nation wide who just wanna get their report and think that after that theyll have no worries
SOMEONE NEEDS TO STOP THEM even tho its 36 bucks for me
they have commercials and pop ups on the internet and online advertisments,
so i know thousands have been robbed blindly
someone
Free Credit Report .com has ruined my credit rating and the low interest rate I was getting on my credit card. We were doing some finance work and they suggested we use Free Credit Report .com for credit info. Using the link we did, we missed the fact that you have to cancel the membership within 15 minutes of using it. Of course you have to enter your credit card. We haven’t used a credit card for 6-8 months.
Our street mailing box had some security issues so we had all mail forwarded to a P.O. Box.
Credit card statements say not to forward. Because we weren’t using the card, we didn’t know that charges were racking up along with being late with the payments. Now our credit has been changed from 5.9% to 29.9% and our credit score dropped 50 points.
Never use a “FREE” credit service. Nothing in this life is free and could end up costing you for the rest of your life.
“Stupid ME”
thanks for letting me know the deal about freecreditreport.com.I sincerely hope that other people find out about this scam.
I called them just now, at about 945am EST. He initially tried to tell me I had signed up for this service, but I ended up getting my money back.
1) The person had an accent; I asked if he was in the United States. He replied, “Yes, we are in California”. I asked him again, “Are you personally in California? It’s 6:45am there right now.” He responded, “Yes, we are based in California. It is 645am right now.” Obviously, I deduced that it was a call center, probably out of South Asia, based on the accent.
2) I calmly told him that while the website appeared to clearly state the disclaimer language now, this was definitely not the case when I signed up for one credit report. I also noted that I had kept all the emails I received from Triple Advantage, and that none of these contained any disclaimer language.
3) I informed him that I merely wanted my money back. A google search of “freecreditreport.com” came up with a huge number of hits mentioning fraud. Given this, the unauthorized charges, and the emails I had, I was very confident that my local criminal authorities would agree with me, and not him, that fraud had occurred. I would be pressing charges if I didn’t get a refund. He told me that he needed to talk to his supervisor.
4) Voila! He returned and told me that “as a courtesy”, I was receiving my money back. I am definitely holding onto records of this, as these guys are snakes.
I was ripped off by these people, too. They charged me $54.40 within the first 10 minutes. When I called, the customer service rep, he hung up on me when I told him what happened. I called back, and the lady said I had bought two reports. I told her I had not and wanted my 30 day “free” trial period to be cancelled. She would not cancel it. When I threatened them with a class-action lawsuit, they finally cancelled it, but were not going to process this until the day after my 30-day “free” trial period ended, which meant they were going to charge me for the month.
I called my Attorney General’s Office and asked them to mail me a complaint form. They never did. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in Southland, CA. They told me they were closing my file, since the company chose not to respond.
I went to my bank and told them that I wanted to file an affadavit for fraudulent activity in my account, and wanted to fill out Federal Regulation E form, as they have to reverse the charges under this if it is within the first 60 days. They reversed the charges and they filed the dispute.
These people had a class action lawsuit against them in August of 2005, in which they had to refund people’s money and the FTC also fined them $950,000.00. They continued to practice deceptive advertisement ads. In Jan, 2007, they were fined another $300,000.00, by the FTC which is not considered a fine, penalty, or an admission of guilt. These people CONTINUE to rip people off. They go by experian, CIC, consumerinfo.com, CreditExperts, Credit Manager, CIC Triple Advantage, FreeCreditReport.com, and now it appears that they have a new website, FreeCreditReportOnline.com in which there is NO disclaimer, and they use the word “free” 14 times. It seems that no one wants to do anything about it because they are owned by Experian and they are one of the three major credit bureaus.
I went to “Congress.org” and I wrote my congressmen, the president, and had it posted for 30 days. I suggest that everybody else do this, as this is outrageous they these people are getting away with this!
Someone who is pro-active
YES, IT IS A SCAM!!!! I ALSO RECEIVED 3 MONTHS OF CHARGES THAT I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR , DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER , THEY WILL GIVE YOU ALL KIND OF CHARGES!!!! THEY NEED TO BE SHUT DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How to unsubscribe from FreeCreditReport.com:
I found this after more than 40 minutes looking at their website. In the “Site Map”, under “FrreCreditReport” -> “Contact Us” (https://www.freecreditreport.com/PM/Message.aspx?PageTypeID=Contact%20Us&WT.svl=contact&SiteVersionID=548&SiteID=100219&sc=667344&bcd=CreditBlondie), they have this:
“CANCEL MEMBERSHIP
If you would like to cancel your membership, for your security, please call our toll-free number at 1-877-481-6826.”
I hope this can help.
PCS
In regards to freecreditreport.com, they are a scam. They took my money without my permission. For those who they owe money to, call the Irvine Police Department Irvine, Ca and they got my money back in one day. They are great.
I work for freecreditreport.com it is not a scam. the website states in the same size font as the rest of the page. right on the front page that the first 30 days are free and you need to call and cancel before those 30 days are up or else you will begin a monthly membership charge of 12.95. because not only do you get a new report and score everyday they cover you with 50,000 dollars in identity theft insurance, they give you access to experian’s online dispute process, they monitor all three bureaus for you on a daily basis and send you out alerts so if things come up on your report you dont recognize you can dispute them before they can effect your credit. This company has helped me through so much , my son was diagnosed with leaukemia and the company did so much to help us through that troubling time. Our benefits are top of the line they gave me time off work for the hospital visits. and if not for them my son would not have got the treatment he received. he is still battling the sickness and the company is still right there helping me through it. it is not a scam. they give you a chance to call and cancel your membership before you are charged. nobody forces the 6 million people that sign up a year to sign up. and they definetely dont trick you. it does upset me that so many people do come out of this with a bad taste in there mouth but that is usually the result of those people being scared by other people who like to scream scam just to act like they know what they are talking about. it is a legit company. and many many employees and their families like mine. depend on their job there.
be shame with what you write
I think that’s wonderful that these crooks helped you so much with your son’s illness, but they do have the monetary means to do that with.
They refused to cancel my “trial” period until my “trial” period was over and I would have had to pay a fourth charge. I did not roll over and play dead like many people do who have dealt with these jerks, and I got my money back.
Problem is, they are STILL doing this, and even started a new website where there is no small print or disclaimer.
This story was recently on the news, as I reported it. Funny, seems like the man who worked for the FTC seemed to know what he was talking about when he (on TV) stated that they have fined these people over $1 million. With the thousands of people that they have ripped off, they SHOULD be able to give you good benefits.
well thing is there are over 2 million happy customers with the membeship, of course any place is going to try to talk you out of cancelling heck that is most people’s job you can always say no and get the confirmation number. by law the websites have to state the important information. the other site you speak of is probaly a knock off but not connected with the company that runs freecreditreport.com. they have legitimate monitoring alerts and virginia surety insurance gives all customers 50k in identity theft insurance. they arent taking money for nothing you get dispute process, id theft insurance, monitoring alerts unlimited access to your credit report and score and a fraud resolution team. and the info you get comes straight from experian. people could always just go to annualcreditreport.com and for free get all three of their reports once a year but people still choose fcr.com to get their score and transunion and equifax have websites just like fcr.com where they offer the same thing nooone complains about them yet they have the same thing “cancel before trial is over or you will be charged” if someone calls to cancel they cancel noone steals money from anyone usually people just don’t read before they put in payment type if more people took the time to read before putting in their payment type it would avoid all this mess not to mention if theyd take the time to call in. im not defending anything here im just saying its not a scam i wouldnt work their if it was a scam. its legitimate and has over 2 million happy customers. i am one of those customers if not for my triple advantage membership i wouldnt have noticed the alerts that let me know someone elses credit was mixed up for mine and i wouldnt have been able to dispute it like i did and fix my credit before it was too late. without the membership i would be lost
maybe the name should be changed to $14.95/monthcreditreport.com and then people wouldn’t have a big problem with it.
I signed up over a year ago and NEVER got any reports. When I did, I could not access the account to dispute the many inaccuracies. Pretty lane if you ask me! They had all my ex husbands BAD credit on my report that I NEVER was a party too. My credit is ruined and they JUST DO NOT CARE!
Employee: There are reports with the BBB of freecreditreport.com refusing cancellations during the trial period. Maybe they are old reports and the company or its customer service employees have changed their methods of operation, but between that, and their misleading advertising coinciding with the new law several years ago that established annualcreditreport.com, I’ll stick with the “real deal.” FreeCreditReport.com was *obviously* marketed to capitalize on the widespread news that the government was requiring the agencies to offer free credit reports each year. It’s no surprise that customers saw or read the news stories, then saw the ads, and linked the two. Customers signed up believing they were signing up for the free credit reports that the government mandated… and any information that would lead customers to believe otherwise was not easily located when signing up for the service, if it existed at all.
Gee Employee, If freecreditreport.com is not a scam then how come does the Irvine Police DEPT have a stack of complaints, the BBS, and the Attorney General is looking into filing charges against them again, they did 2 years ago?
I too believe I got duped. I was getting ready to buy a house and needed a credit report. I assumed FreeCreditReport.com would help me with that. They did not. I walked away unaware they would continue to bill me for something I knew nothing about.
I am cheap and I would not have signed up for anything before buying a house if there was significant and clear information about the program once you type in your credit card.
Sure, they can just say they have a disclaimer on their website. I think a ‘good company’ would want to retain customers with honesty, not deception. There should be a ‘Triple Advantage’ program that I can subscribe to to protect myself from inadvertent charges made to my accounts because of misleading marketing. Guess I’ll just chalk it up as a bad choice and continue not to trust anything that says ‘free’ as I grow in my distatste for this capitalistic society.
Am calling to cancel my trial membership right now, and have been on hold for 6 minutes. When the guy comes on, he attempts to talk me into keeping the free service for the full 30 days – for about 2 minutes, before I finally have to cut him off and tell him that I just want it canceled right now. Their plan appears to be trying to talk you out of it for as long as possible, hoping that you forget & don’t get it canceled within the 1st 30 days. Keeps putting me hold while his “system” has issues processing the cancelation. 12 minutes into the call, he finally tells me that I will get a cancellation confirmation email, indicating that my membership is canceled on 3/4/08. I ask him to confirm (3 times) if I will be charged 12.95 on my CC on, or after that date. He keeps answering, “yes”, so I ask again, “will, I, or will I not be charged anything on my credit card?” Now, he answers that I will NOT be charged.
For the employee who posted earlier about her sick child, I think it is great that this employer is doing what any employer ought to for their employees, in regards to benifits, etc.
However, if numbers that I’ve read are accurate & this is such a good deal, why would they only have 2 million members when 6 million people sign up each year. That is an incredible amount of churn.
In closing, if anyone out there wants to spend $156/yr to have their credit montitored for them, go for it. Howmany times do normal people need to get a daily update on their credit info? I’ve had one hard pull in the last 15 months
I will choose to use other tools, such as annualcreditreport.com 3 times/yr, or pop in and talk to local loan officers of my bank every couple months. Mine will pull up my info on the spot for absolutely NOTHING. When they have home, auto, and business loans with a client, they also have a vested interest in seeing that your credit is in tip, top shape.
I got this when i tried to look up the number to cancel my account.
“How do I cancel my membership?
If for any reason you are not satisfied, you can cancel anytime to discontinue your membership to Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring and stop the monthly billing. However, you will not be eligible for a prorated refund of any portion of your current month’s paid membership fee. To cancel, please contact Customer Care at
Site Attribute: [CancelPhone].”
Gee, that’s cute…
Ihave read these comments and will be phoning to cancel my intial 30 day trial period today (sunday) I will report back with my findings.
Regards B
well phoned and gave the excuse I was moving back to Scotland and the agent said my confirmation will e-mailed to me in about 2 hrs.
will report back
Regards b
So I called within the 7 day period today (I ordered the evening of March 4 and tried canceling this afternoon, exactly 7 days later but less than 7 days if you count from the time). the woman on the phone fought with me for a while about when I signed up and how it’s been more than 7 days. I finally gave up and said just cancel it going forward. She said that I shouldn’t do so because I’ll miss out on the remainder of the month’s services. It seems that once you cancel you’re done – so even though you won’t get a prorated refund, you don’t get the full month you’re forced into paying for. Even the porn sites online have better policies than that! Thus, my conclusion – freecreditreport.com is sleazier than internet porn.
What I’m wondering is, given the bs about it having already been 7 days, has anyone tried to dispute the charge with the credit card company? I used American Express and they’re usually good about such things, but I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort and whether there may be negative repercussions given the company’s connection to Experian. Will my credit score suddenly drop to 400 or something? Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised.
File a complaint with your State’s office of consumer protection. I just did after learning that they have a 7 day trial, not a 30 day trial. I honestly had no idea they were going to sign me up for anything until I found an article on the ripoff report.
And yes – I’m disputing the charge and am going to make the b*stards fight me for the money.
FYI, their contact info:
(877) 481-6826
If you want to dispute the charge, you need to fax your complaint to (949) 567-3858. Be sure to CC Experian and your states attorney general.
I only used Freecreditreport once, and was being charged for it over a year now! I called a lady 3 times to cancel and im still able to log in!!!!The only way is to threaten a lawsuit!!..
I tried to purchase a credit report from FreeCreditReport.com for about $30. I couldn’t finish the registration on the website so I didn’t bother to continue. 2 months later I realized they had charged my credit card. I called them and they refused to provide a refund. So I asked them to just provide the credit report I had paid for, and they refused! A Jefferey Applebaum, who claimed to be the company president, came on the phone and was very hostile and rude. He invented a policy saying I waited too long to call. When I asked him to show me where this time limit policy was on his website, he couldn’t. Nonetheless, he was adamant that I would recieve no service and no refund. He even mocked and taunted me saying there was nothing I could do about it, so I might as well not even try. The way he was acting, I thought it was a joke, but this guy was for real. What a winner. Making millions by decieving and downright stealing. I hope the million they got fined was worth the $30 they stole.
I signed up with it just last night after being directed to from one of those survey sites. Thought I could just unsubscribe online, but alas. I then found this site and all the reviews, and called the number hidden here (https://www.freecreditreport.com/FAQ%2Easpx#contactus3) and was readying myself for a fight. I only waited on the line for less than a minute and got a southern-sounding woman, Wanda. She was actually really pleasant! She went into her “this is why you should stay with us” speil before I said anything, but that’s her job. I told her I signed up as a result of a survey site (true) and already have credit monitoring through my bank (true) and can monitor my credit score daily online with my credit card (true) and by the time I finished that she had already unsubscribed me. Said I’d get an email confirmation. Still haven’t gotten it, but it’s only been about 10 minutes. I’m a little worried it was TOO easy, so if I don’t hear anything by tomorrow, I’ll call em back. At least the initial experience wasn’t bad!
These commercials need to stop before I kill my television. They are by far the most poorly produced and annoying commercials that have ever aired. And when I think of how often they are on, at least 2 spots per hour over several networks, it’s obvious nothing about this can be free. The networks aren’t running them as a public service!
I have never contacted freecreditreport.com nor subscribed to their plan, nor do I ever intend. However, I can assure you that if you’re ever prompted for credit card information at any point in any business for anything “free,” you’re not getting something for nothing and it’s going to cost you in some way down the road.
My guess would be once you provide your personal information, they are making a windfall on not only charging you for some bogus monitoring of your credit, but generating even more revenue by selling lists of their subscribers and thus opening you to further obnoxious marketing and headache from everyone else out there who wants your money.
There certainly appears to be enough dissatisfied and misled consumers here where a class action law suit should be in order, with a cease and desist ruling justified for this type of operation under any alias or company name. If you feel you got screwed, don’t threaten a suit to these guys, just do it!
If finding your credit score is turning into a scam itself, the only message I see being conveyed is “don’t buy anything, ever…including from us!!”
Curious–I wonder if their own fraudlent charges show up on their own report they’re selling to you? Food for thought.
I too was mislead into signing up for my free credit report and was charged for 6 months of access. I admit to being careless — but only because I took the commercials at their word: “free” means, well, free. I was so easily mislead because I knew there was a place to go to receive my free credit report and voila! tv ads directed me to exactly what I was looking for, or so I thought. I am still pretty naive about tv ads as I thought there was some law about “truth in advertising” in the US.
Anyway, I did finally get out from underneath this and got a full refund for my money. The exact process I took is too long to go into here, but I did write an article and posted it at Associated Content: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/755285/freecreditreportcom_steps_to_getting.html?cat=3
if anyone is interested in all the steps I took to resolve the situation. I was so darn upset by it all that I wrote this article to help others in the same circumstance — I hope it helps someone else.
Thanks for the information from everyone. I accepted the fact that this site is worthless and just continues to charge people every month for nothing. I have since cancelled my account but I still recieve emails telling to login and check my report. I tried to unsubscribe to stop receiving emails but its not listed on their site or in the emails I recieved. I called 888.829.6560 to make sure my account was cancelled and it was. But when I asked to have all of my information removed from their database, they could not do it. They finally gave me information to their Customer Relation Group to contact them to have ALL of my Personal Information removed from their database.
I’m giving this to others, so that you can request to have your personal information removed from their database:
Customer Relation Group
PO Box 19729
Irvine, CA 92623-9729
Fax: 949.567.3858
Please call the toll free number first to get a reference number. The reference number is also located at the bottom of the email you recieved requesting to login again…
This is too funny… i actually cancelled my “account” a few weeks ago and did not receive any email confirmation… Then all of a sudden witht my phone call today asking to Delete my information, I received an email confirmation TODAY that my account is closed…. This is the email recieved:
We’re sorry to see you go! This email confirms that we have received your request to cancel your three-bureau credit monitoring membership. No further charges will be applied to your credit card.
Should you have any questions or feel that you are receiving this message in error, please contact FreeCreditReport.com Customer Care at 1-877-481-6826. For your convenience, our customer care center is open Monday-Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time. You can also contact us by email at Support@FreeCreditReport.com.
All the comments here lack personal responsibility. A big personal American trait nowadays. Listen, you are responsible for your own stupidity. If you give your credit card number to a company why would you start yelling scam when you’re charged a fee? This is ludicrous at best. Everything is there in the fine print, disclaimer, etc. You people who are claiming that a legitimate company is a scam and go running to the federal government are making government bigger, restricting others from a good service all because of your silly childish opinion that’s not even based on anything legal. You all have baseless arguments to stand on. So ridiculous and speaks volumes about the mental capabilities of Americans.
to the fake attorney above / / / / /
Um if this company is SO legitimate then way have they been forced to give refunds PLUS fined over 1.5 million dollars? Did they get fined for being such a respectable company? Great customer support? Timely cancellation?
or did they get fined for:
disrespectful customer service
Untimely cancellations
FALSE TV ADVERTISEMENT!! (against the law)
REFUSING TO CANCEL!!!!!! (probably against the law
FRAUDULENT CHARGES!!!!!!!!!!!! ( O YA BIG TIME AGAINST THE LAW)
If you say that the tv advertisements and fraudulent charges aren’t against the law then ya my first statement at the top is TOTALLY true i don’t have to be a big shoot attorney to tell you that im only 19 and know the law better than that
I had just this morning gone to freecreditreport.com I stopped filling out the “membership” form immediately when credit card info was asked for. Keep in mind, everyone, don’t give any financial info unless you are ordering something from a SECURE site-knowing you are going to pay for something. I have had problems with canceling from other companies, so I know what can happen. Am I ever so glad I decided to read this list. The reason why I went to freecreditreport was because I got a notice that some files containing private info was missing from Mellon Investors. Then I got sent to this site to make sure to help prevent ID theft. No way am I going to be charged by anyone for this..
I am just another customer scammed by freecreditreport.com. They now actually changed the policy to 7 day cancellation! So when I called 11 days after signing up they had already charged me and would not give a refund. As other people have reported the customer service was also very rude.
Called to cancell just a few minutes ago. I was very courteous as was the lady on the other end of the line. Went thru the awful spiel and was alerted to an incoming mail. hopefully this will all end soon.
FreeCreditReport.com uses the same business model as porn sites: lure you in during a trial period and then start charging when you don’t cancel in time. It’s completely legal, just shitty business.
Additionally, FreeCreditReport.com uses a different name on your credit card charge (AATrueAdvantage or something insipid like that). So, with several people using the same bank account it took months (and $70) before we realized we were being charged for our “free” credit report. These people are pure crap.
So far so good, got the confirmation email and have seen no further charges. Next month will be the moment of truth. If there are no further charges, the sham is over and over the phone is a proven way of stopping the charges. We will all just have to be more cautious in the future.
Contact them directly or visit them at their office location to get back the money they STOLE from you.
ConsumerInfo.com
18500 Von Karman Ave Ste 400
Irvine, CA 92612
(949) 567-3800
http://www.consumerinfo.com
Contact them directly or visit them at their office location to get back the money they STOLE from you.
well, i am a returning member at freecreditreport.com
i can say that i am satisfied with their services.
you just got to read the information on the website and if you have any doubts contact their customer service. the problem with us is that some of us just click, click, click and doesn’t even read what we are signing up for. read the important information at their website saying everytime you order a freecredit report.. blahblah.
just read.
I checked my checking account statement today and noticed two charges from Triple Advantage, both $14.95. Did a Google search or two and ended up on this page.
I called this number to cancel my account and get a refund (877) 481-6826
First thing I did was ask for the name of the person I was talking to and her employee ID number. I told her that I wanted to cancel my account and get a full refund. The lady said that she would cancel my account but I could not get a refund. She said that this automatic subscription is stated clearly on the web site, blah blah blah blah blah. I told her that I wasn’t going to stop until I got a full refund. She then offered me a one month refund. I told her that was great, but again, I am not going to stop until I get a full refund and I wanted to speak with her supervisor. She put me on hold to talk with her supervisor, then voila, I got a full refund.
For me, they weren’t that bad when I actually called. Just don’t let them try to convince you that you do not deserve a full refund. Just keep demanding a full refund and hopefully they will do it.
I also had two months’ of charges to Triple Advantage before I was able to cancel. Phone calls didn’t work because I kept getting put on hold or rerouted to somebody else. So I faxed a letter to 949-567-3858 telling them to cancel immediately and if my credit card was billed after the date of the fax I would file complaints with the BBB and my state’s attorney general’s office. The next day, I received an email verifying my cancellation. I’m saving the email and if they continue to charge my card, I’ll follow up with more formal complaints.
FYI, I was able to successfully dispute the charges with my cc directly.
So…..here i am. Having read all of the comments above, and also having just completed my “registeration” at that bullshit web-site, i feel like a complete ass. Needless to say, i have quite the battle ahead of me (by the sounds of it) and i’m not looking forward to it! I cannot get over how utterly screwed everyone is getting, and even-moreso how i still see that jackass on the TV playing his stupid ass guitar and advertising this death trap! Not happy. …Not at all. Best of luck to all who were bent over by FCR.com
Jax: You have a good chance of being able to cancel without problems if you cancel now, before they charge your credit card.
I too signed up by mistake following a link from annualcreditreport.com First of all the score they give you is useless – it isn’t a FICO score. It is next to impossible to cancel membership. This is a ridiculous scam being perpetrated by a so called credit agency, Experian. We need to put an end to this. Please write your local congressman. The more people we contact, the sooner we can put an end to this outrage
Deceptive bastards.
DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE.
If you have already signed up call 1-888-829-6560 right away and cancel!
Yep, read the fine print!
I just signed up for the FreeCreditReport service unwittingly and can verify that they are scamming. When I signed up on the phone the rep told me I had 30 days to cancel; but when I call to cancel after 20 they tell me that I had 7 free trial days. I go to the website and the website has changed to reflect this new policy. I insist that that was not the deal when I signed up, so be very wary, these guys will do anything to scam you….and now I am worried that perhaps my financial info is not even safe with these guys…who knows what they do with it.
They know what they are doing. They do not provide proper access to cancellation information or procedures. They purposefully make it so you have to work to find the number and take the time to call.
I threatened to goto the state attorney general and they refunded my money as a “courtesy”.
freecredit report is a very good service because it keeps me regulary keep in track of my credit standing. and i strongly disagree that this site is a scam because it was clearly stated that before you submit your order you will be billed if you dont cancel your account within the trial period.
ITS JUST A MATTER OF READING AND UNDERSTANDING!!!
It is in fact a scam because I haven’t ever been to the website and Im getting charged for use of the website. I have never been there, never will go there and in fact the commercials bug me. Its the biggest scam ever.
If they actually would honor your request, and cancel your “subscription”, this would not be a scam. But they don’t.
I canceled the day after I got my report. But lo and behold, they charged me anyway. I noticed it two months later on my bank statement. So I called and said I wanted my money returned, and to cancel me immediately.
The response, believe it or not, was that they were not at fault. They had SOLD my “account” to another billing agency, who billed me without my consent.
I informed them that it most definitely WAS their fault, and I never authorized them, or anyone else to draw money from my bank account. I told the girl on the phone that I would start a class action lawsuit if my money was not refunded immediately, and that got their attention.
I got my money returned a few weeks later. But I still reported them to the BBB.
I just signed up for this a few minutes ago and then of course I started reading all the negative things about it. Everyone already knows how misleading they are so I won’t go on about that except for one thing. On the website it tells you that if you want to cancel within seven days you can. What it doesn’t tell you before you sign up is that you have to wait for an access code in the mail before you can log in. The access code takes seven to ten business days to come. How can you cancel your membership if you can’t even log in. The ploy is that “you can cancel anytime” but without being able to log in you will automatically be charged for the month, even though you are just waiting for your access code. If you have signed up recently (Within the hour) you can probably call and cancel without any problems. I just called and of course I was transferred but the second person was very nice and told me I would receive a confirmation e-mail within 24 hrs.
Also, I’m not sure what the membership fee was (most on here say $12.95) but it is currently $14.95. Of course when i went to cancel she told me I would get an extra 23 days on my membership (big surprise). Please tell as many people as you can NOT to sign up and if you do call and cancel then make sure you ask for a confirmation e-mail.
I just checked my e-mial and guess what? Even though I just called to cancel (the nice man said he would send a confirmation e-mail) they sent me an e-mail saying “Thank you for choosing to continue your membership!!!”
Well I fell for this also, I signed up on 10-10, good thing they imediately started to spam me, I called them and cancelld my “membership” within the first week, coninued to get spammed by them, I have saved a few emails were I replied to them stating that I wanted all my personal information and email address deleted from their server.
anyway today I find out that the SOB’s charged my account $12.95 anyway even after cancelling.
I just got done filing a complaint with the Irvine police department, tomoorow I call the bank as soon as they are open.
I’ll post the results when I know an outcome.
if all else fails I found out their address, and they are close.
a basebal batt with a peice of cardboard on it makes for a good protest sign.
they also go by this name.
experianinteractive.com
18500 Von Karman Avenue
Suite 400
Irvine, CA 92612
949-567-3800
i think freecreditrepot.com(CIC TRIPLEADVANTAGE) is not a scam..they do provide a credit report to their customers and the good thing about it is that they do monitor their customer’s credit report in a regular basis so if there are significant changes that may posted to their experian credit report they will be get updated..ofcourse customer’s should pay for the services that company is doing for their own good..that’s their business..wht do they expect? just got it for free? oh common,you should read the terms and condition if you dont want to be billed!
how can you get a a fico score when you know that the website is selling a vantage score? you know why? bcoz it was developed by TU,EQ,EX..it’s like buying a pizza to mc donalds when u know that they dont offer that..read please..:)
Got a reply from the BBB today, sems these people have several aliases.
here is the info the BBB provided me.
ConsumerInfo.com
P.O. Box 19729
Irvine, CA 92623
Contact: Fosmire, Robert
Phone: (888) 888-8553
WIll do an intelius search today and get this guys home address. and phone.
Hi,
My wife went to freecreditreport.com for a “free credit report”, but she thought stopped shot of signing up for anything. A couple of months later I saw a series of credit card charges in the name of
AP9*PRIVACYMATTERS123
AP9*PMIDENTITY.COM
AP9*YOURSAVINGSCLUB
Over a 3 month period they made charges to our Credit Card to the tune of $278.00 for as I see it “absolutely nothing”.
I had no idea who these people were or why they were charging my credit card. Had no contact details.
I called my Visa Card and they cancelled the card and disputed the charges and as I did not know how to contatc the companies involved they also gave me the telephone numbers related to the the credit card charges.
888 840 6301
877 993 6264
877 820 7107
I called the 1st number and got through, they asked me if someone had been to “freecreditreport.com” my wife said yes she did, but she told she definitely did not sign up for anything, just requested the free credit report (which she never got). Anyway they did say they would return all the charges. And I have emails saying they are doing that.
So as you can see this is definitely a SCAM web site. Keep away from it and never , never put in your credit card details….
I was surprised how relatively easy it seemed to get results from VISA and from AP9* etc etc, whoever they are.. Mind who knows maybe its not quite over yet? Anyway I’ll have a new credit card issued and hopefully away will go the chance of them charging anything further.
I found it funny that “employee” said that no one forces over 6 million people a year to sign up, then in their next post said they have over 2 million happy customers.
2 million out of 6 million are happy? Doesn’t that say something????
I signed up for a freecreditreport and found a charge on my bank account. I called to speak to someone, who was obviously not within the US as well, and asked that he cancel my account. After talking over to me and speaking to me in a condescending tone, he again told me how wonderful the service was that I had purchased. It might be wonderful, but I don’t have the money for that as a student right now and I can’t afford all these “WONDERFUL” things I guess. Anyway, during the conversation I repeated interrupted him to tell him that I really did want to cancel my membership about 15 times. He talked some more before I asked him if he had canceled my membership and he said that it was my option. MY OPTION??? I can only hope that when I calmly stated again that I would like it CANCELLED that he understood this time.
Beyond the annoyance of outsourcing, I just wish they would sent out a little “Remember your free trial? It expires tomorrow” email so that I had a chance to cancel it, even though I didn’t realize I had signed up for it. Of course, that would dent their income so why would I expect that?
I received a full refund today, this company is playing the odds that most people wont take the time to report them to the better business beureu, the majority of their customers/ victims just bend over and take it, and do not file any complaints, this is how they stay in business.
I got my credit report, and it ended up costing them money,
I got my 12.95 refunded, and I have had their people on the phone for a couple hours total over the last month, I plan to continue to call them a few times a week just to make sure my account has been cancelled.
their parking lot also makes a great place to dump debris after trimming trees.
I signed up for the freecreditreport.com website. I was trying to cancel within the 7 day limit about the 5th day in. I was on hold for an hour with these people with no one picking up to answer my call. I finally called my credit card company and they were able to get someone on the line for me within 10 minutes. Had to say no, no and further more no to their sales pitch but was able to cancel. When I asked for a cancellation number the lady gave me her employee id number. She said I was cancelled. I don’t think they will try anything shady because my cc people have record of me calling wanting to cancell. So my suggestion is call your cc and get them to get thru to these people. It isn’t right when they say you can cancel within a certain number of days and then have you phone call go unanswered. They shouldn’t be allowed to do this.
SCAM. “Dear mr emploee with sick kid”. You and yuor family were taken care of by the $ being stolen from people that are being upded into thinking they are receiving a free credit report. no one gives a cr*p that FCR.com has a bunch of computers “monitoring” credit reports on daily basis and al lthe good things yuor employees allegedly “do” bu tare just a list of computerized taks being done by software.
no one needs a “membership” for a 1-time credit report, nor do they need to be billed $15/month for your software to “monitor” credit reports on my behalf.
bottom line: “Negative Consent” is ALWAYS a scam, Negatove consent is when a slimy company will willingly steal a consumers $, unless the consumer tells them in advance to “don’t steal my $”. If the consumer fails to stop the slumy company, they simlp ysay “cool, they weren’t looking, so lets’ start taking their $”.
just looked at that frc website for any disclaimers, here’s what i see:
7 days to cancel trial “membership”
Also, what kind of legitimate organization has a trial membership of 7 days to ge tan idea o fa service or product”. Is 7 days any kind of legitimate time period for a trial ?
FRC is saying “if you don’t tell us in less than 6 days from this very moment, WE ARE GOING TO BE RIPPING YOU OFF HA HA HA!”.
DISCLAIMER SHOULD BE PRONOUNCED BROADLY, and maybe the “free” in small print. It’s so obvious how deceitful this is. no one goes to FRC with the intent of signign up for any kind of membership. they want the free eprot that was offered. FREE. IF FRC can’t provide it for free, then they sholdnt be offering it for free. total freakin’ scam all around.
I just called to cancel my membership and had to wait for 30 MINUTES until a customer service agent would help me. Now, I guess I will wait to see if a charge gets placed on my card? I hate places that make it nearly impossible to cancel!! If I were you, I would avoid this site!!
YEP. YEP. YEP. I have also learned the hard way that Freecreditreport.com is nothing more than yet another out of country internet scam.
My ordeal is no different that all those listed, BUT if you read this DO NOT FALL FOR IT. And if you do?? Well be prepared to deal with a web site that is usless and only redirects your questions to to a phone number that will never ring through to a person, make you wait (at great length) to speak to anyone at all and then if your lucky enough to speak with anyone that speaks english, hope that the person you are talking to does as you ask after they list off the half dozen reasons why your credit is inaccurate or this is a 5.00 a month off sale… etc and cancell your “free trial”.
As noted in above, the credit world is a total scam. Its geared to people that care about what they have and have built in their lives and take advantage of the trusting.
My advice, as I have just learned myself, FINALLY…. stay away from ANYTHING on the internet that requires you to sign up or pay in advance, ANYTHING, even your own credit!!!
God Bless.
Wow I feel like a dumbass. I signed up, read the fine print and everything, planning on cancelling after I got my credit score. The site (FCR.com) made it as hard as they could to cancel. there is no reason they couldn’t have put a button in your account to automatically cancel it as soon as it is clicked. Doing so would save them time. But they try to get you to go over that trial period so they can steal a few bucks from under your nose. Now that I know how hard it will be I am geared up for a real fight for my money.
it really is amazing how many intelligent Americans cannot read the regular 10 font print paragraph saying they are going to be charged if they dont cancel the membership placed right beside the order button. people are in too big of a rush to read ANY print on ANY website before signing up.and who in their right mind would enter in their OWN credit card information on the computer and EXPECT NOT to be charged! it would clearly ring a bell to look for ANY dollar amount in the paragraph on the first page and the same paragraph is pace where you enter your credit information the charge of 14.95,and in the terms and conditions .ALL WEBSITES HAVE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.IF ANYONE TOOK THE TIME TO READ WHY THE CHARGE OF 14.95,IT IS FOR 24 HOUR MONITORING ON YOUR CREDIT INFORMATION FROM ALL 3 CREDIT BUREAUS,YOU AR SENT ALERTS OF ANY ACTIVITY BECAUSE OF IDENTITY THEFT PLUS MANY OTHER BENEFITS .A SCAM??? I THINK NOT!
Hey employee:
you can stick it. Your company is out to exploit the allure of the word FREE as well as the relatively recent requlations that allowed consumers a free copy of their credit report. Your website and your TV commercials are a bait (on FREE) and a Switch to a chargeable service while spedning 99.95% of your promo message focusing on FREE, with a tiny .05% of your TV ad mentioning “requires membership in Triple Adv”, also without dsclosing ANY price of any membership. Nah, you sc*mbags are pushing FREE message on people and your HOPING that they don’t pay attention to the .05% part of the message at the very end of the TV commercial, OR the fine print BURIED in your website.
If your compan ywas righteous and/or ethical OR even remotely interested in consumer welfare, you would BROADLY announce the membership requirement and price on the TV commercial AND the website.
Don’t go blaming your company’s scheming bait and switch tactics on consumer ignorance, as you and the lawyers and your FRC owner know exactly what you’re exploiting.
LAstly, if it was TRULY a bonafide trial period for the service, you’d allow more than 7 days for cancellation. Nah, you guys are ful of it and sholdn’t even be allowed to stay n business.
There is NOTHING “free” about a your service if it rquires a fee based membership.
Put the kool-aid down and you’ll see that FRC.com is just a pig with “Free-flavored” lipstick.
Dear Employee: While I somewhat agree with your statements — It’s true, in this day and age none of us should expect anything for “free”. And, you do have clearly outlined on your Web site the terms of the sale.
However, it is absolutely ridiculous in this day and age that anyone should have to wait on a phone line for 30 minutes….for anything!!! Get a better customer service department or make your cancellation process automatic. That is what is annoying about your site. Your customer service is a joke!! Don’t offer a trial period and then make it a complete hassle to cancel. Hopefully you can pass that information along. Have a nice day.
Hi,
My wife got tricked into in the same way, ie: into a default signing up for all those scam services when she thought all she was requesting was a Free Credit Report. I finally noticed various charges on our credit card that I could not relate to anything I rmemebr purchaing. SoI phoned up our credit card fraudline and disputed the charges at the same time requesting replacement of the old credit card so they could not charge it again. The credit card company were very helpful and pulled up all similar charges over the last 6 months and disputed those for me as well. Anyway the different service those scam artists had enrolled us for, over about 5 months managed to rack up charges on our Visa card totalling to about $571. At the time we had no idea what the Visa charges were for so I had to go to credit card company for contact details and they gave me the phone numbers. It finally clicked when I linked the charges to FreeCredit Report.com
So I phoned one of the contact numbers, amazing, I got through immediately and said we totally unaware how we had signed up for these services and I asked for all my money back, they agreed politely and gave me a reference number for the call. I was not hoping for much, but to my surprise about 6 weeks later I got all my money back as they reversed all the charges back to the Visa card account. We live in Florida and I read that FL had fined them heavily. Maybe that was a determining factor? So if you get no satisfaction from calling the contact numbers the Credit card company gives you then I suggest you report them to your States business agency for deceptive trading.
Open your eyes, folks…
The first thing I saw when I went to Freecreditreport.com was a dollar sign out of the corner of my eye.
Clearly stated in about three conspicuous places on the site is the language stating EXACTLY why you are listing your CREDIT CARD NUMBER. DOH!
Learn how to read, cry babies…
Dear Read:
What are you talking about? Learn how to write. Your comment doesn’t even make sense.
Thanks! Have a great day!
it’scalled deceptive advertising. IT’s deceptive on all fronts, by leveragign the govt regulation of free annual credit report into a hook to mislead consumers into a “free” report. There is NOTHING conspicuous about their website other than FREE.
Why not call it “$14.95creditmontoring” instead?
BEcause FreeCreditReport is designed to intentionally mislead consumers. IT’s dishonest from the start.
freecreditreport.com offers only a 9 day trial period. I signed up on feb 13, checked my score and went to cancel and found it very hard to find the section where to cancel. I ended up finding out that you have to call their phone number and cancel it. So thats what i did on feb 16th. which is well within the 9 day trial period. THEN i get a confirmation email and this is what it said:
“We’re sorry to see you go! But we would like to thank you for choosing FreeCreditReport.com® as your credit monitoring provider.
This e-mail confirms that we have received your request to cancel your membership. We are currently processing your request, and this change will take effect on 2/22/2009.
No further monthly membership fees will be applied to your credit card.
Rest assured, you will still have unlimited access to the many features and benefits of FreeCreditReport.com until 2/22/2009, when your membership expires. At that time, you will receive a final cancellation confirmation e-mail.”
SO basically it takes them 5 days to process your cancellation. So that cuts your 9 day trial period down to a 4 day trial period.
FREE CREDIT REPORT .COM IS A SCAM FULL OF A BUNCH OF CROOKS TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HARD WORKING AMERICANS.
A couple very quick tips on canceling your service with “Free Credit Report”:
Call 1-877-481-6826 Monday-Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Pacific Time)
Find something to do while you wait for the rep to come to the line; they will make you wait the obligatory 5-10 minutes. Explain that you want to be removed from whatever services they have you signed up for. They will ask for your social and Mother’s maiden name.
Next, they will ask you WHY you want to cancel. Never answer why during this call. Every time they asked me a “why” question, I politely said, “Please remove me from the [service], please.”
The rep will pull up your account, and drone on for several minutes about how important checking your credit continually is. If you believed that you wouldn’t be reading this, so just ignore or you could try interrupting. I just read email while the rep babbled.
They’ll close with, “So you can’t afford $7.48 per month?” or some such. That’s a “why” question so just say, “Cancel me, please.”
Lesson learned: read the small print when dealing with Credit scum bags and do some research on sites such as this one.
Good luck.
it is all your fault if you are charged do not blame my company which is one of the best companies in America for the service we provide, we will MONITOR your credit so you can know right away if you are being scammed. THIS SERVICE IS NOT A SCAM you know what you got your self into when you signed up unless you were in such a hurry and did’nt read the find print. THIS COMPANY IS THE BEST COMPANY I HAVE EVER WORKED FOR they treat us well and give good bonuses even in these tough economic times and in these times more than any other it is important for people to have this service available to them and you want to take it away??? how about my kids whom I have to feed and cloth? obviously you dont care about them at all or my livelihood and just so you know MANAGEMENT WILL NOT ISSUE FULL REFUNDS AT ALL FROM THIS POINT AND THAT IS BECAUSE OF YOU INTERNET CRY BABIES AND ALL YOUR POSTING so you will not expect a refund except for one month because that is all we are authorized to do and those of you who say we are scammers well YOU ARE THE ONES TRYING TO SCAM US BY GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING so consider yourself lucky to be getting such a great service for only $14.95 per month and stop crying
To the Employee,
A friendly response to try to help you understand.
1. Many unethical companies treat their employees well. Just because you are happy doesn’t mean your company is doing something good.
2. You are getting a good bonus because your company is making a lot of money, not because it is an ethical company. Just because you make a good wage and provide for your children, doesn’t make what your company does right.
3. It is true that your business is not illegal. But it is unethical. The law prevents crime. It does not prevent unsavory business practices. Your company has had to pay back over $1,000,000 in past law suits because the Federal Trade Commission accused you of misleading customers. When your customers feel misled, and you call them ‘cry babies,’ it shows how little humanity there is in your business practice. Just because what you are doing is legal, that doesn’t make it ethical, and that doesn’t make it nice.
4. Good businesses give refunds to customers who dislike their service or made an honest mistake in making a purchase. Many people trust businesses to be forgiving and friendly. When I accidentally buy the wrong product, or if I purchase something that I don’t like, I can return it and get my money back. Businesses do this as part of better business policy. Your business makes refunds extremely difficult or impossible, so that people who mistakenly made a purchase feel powerless to get their money back. Customers do not deserve to be losing hundreds of dolalrs to your company. Just because they make an honest mistake, doesn’t mean you have to make them pay for it dearly.
5. The people who are writing on this message board are not trying to rip off your service. They did not know they were being charged, and they would gladly not have the service they accidentally signed onto in the first place. Many of them say they tried to cancel their service only to be charged anyway. Just because you are charging them for the service, does not mean they were aware of it and wanted it.
6. Eventually, this type of business activity could become illegalized. I hope your children grow up to join businesses that are built by honest people to provide good products, friendly service, and an understanding approach to business relationships. Just because their parent is involved in an unsavory business, does not mean they have to be as well.
FINAL POINT: Take a good hard look at what’s going on in your company. Take an honest look and really thinkg about it. If you can still look yourself in the mirror every day without being sick, if you can sleep at night without wondering, “Could I be helping to trick thousands of people out of millions of dollars in total?”–then that makes you the living proof of what is wrong with our country. What a terrible human being to have to run into, and to be raised by.
i just read your comment as well as the post you commented on. WOW what has this world come to? People bickering and saying nasty things to eachother. TERRIBLE. I think we should ALL take a look into the mirror and ask ourselves the simple question – are we acting the way our lord would want us to act? religious or not – you have to have some morals. This is not personaly to you but to anyone and everyone who may read this. what happened to decency and RESPECT
This is so funny!!! you crack me up!!!!! so I added some comments to your rantings
EMPLOYEE February 21, 2009 at 11:16 pm
it is all your fault (yes I turned on my computer) if you are charged do not blame my company ( how can I be charged by your company if they don’t charge me???) which is one of the best companies in America ( the company is based in America but are you?) for the service we provide (who says this??? you ? what report says this?), we will MONITOR your credit so you can know right away if you are being scammed(your report is off by so many points this report is useless) . THIS SERVICE IS NOT A SCAM you know what you got your self into when you signed up unless you were in such a hurry and did’nt read the find print.(why is it in fine print?? …to decieve) THIS COMPANY IS THE BEST COMPANY I HAVE EVER WORKED ( I really don’t care if it is the best company you have worked for) FOR they treat us well and give good bonuses ( bonuses for talking to the consumer and misleading them) even in these tough economic times and in these times more than any other it is important for people to have this service available to them and you want to take it away???( on by the way ther real free credit report is sponsored by the U.S. Govt so that is the best) how about my kids whom I have to feed and cloth?( really don’t care ??? how about mine…do you really give a rats ass about my kids…nope!) obviously you dont care about them at all or my ( you got it) livelihood and just so you know MANAGEMENT WILL NOT ISSUE FULL REFUNDS AT ALL FROM THIS POINT ( nope if you get the BBB or a govt agency involved they WILL refund it) AND THAT IS BECAUSE OF YOU INTERNET CRY BABIES AND ALL YOUR POSTING (WAAAAAAAAH!! we post because of your underhanded way of doing business) so you will not expect a refund except for one month because that is all we are authorized to do ( so now you own Experian??? how can you make such legal decisions, I got all of my monies back so this statement is as false as this whole post you previously did) and those of you who say we are scammers well YOU ARE THE ONES TRYING TO SCAM US BY GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING ( hey I have an idea….use 24 font maybe bold and in RED and tell potential customers of your deceptive practices and charges up front) so consider yourself lucky to be getting such a great service for only $14.95 per month and stop crying…(ha.hahahahahahahaah you stop crying….you will be unemployed soon if enough people know of your deceptive practices) have a great day ….also I bet you aren’t even in the U.S. you must be in an outside call center. Have a great day my friend….remember the more people (consumers) you piss off the smaller customer base you have!!!! you are doing such a great job at keeping it that way!
OH BY THE WAY the band in the commercial lip syncs :)))) just as phoney as this report!!!
Cheers!!!!!
John!
then let’s just say that your ADVETTIZING CAMPAIGN is a scam..designed to MISLEAD consumers….it’s intentiional and fraudulent. YOUR ADVETISING is a scam designed to mislead…anfd the rip consumers off until they realize that they’ve been scammed. …and you all know it.
Okay. well if your 1495 service is so effing rgeat, that you should advertize it as such..as a 14.95 service that is great…and not mislead consumers.
EQUIFAX has caught on to your act now too..and are doing “FREE FICO REPORT”….for the same misleading reasons that EXPERIAN is misleading consumers also.
Both are misleadnign scams
I went online just out curiousity. I was told I would receive a code to use on computer through the mail and set up an account. I never received the code but my credit card was charged for the amount of $14.95 and I never ever received a report! THIS IS THE GOOD PART! When I called the phone number off of my credit card statement THEY wanted my SS# and my credit card# and my HOME ADDRESS! Do you think that maybe something is wrong??? Not only that but the phone number on my statement is NOT the same number that is on the web-site. SOMEONE IS OUT TO GET US! BE VERY CAREFUL! THIS IS SUPPOSE TO BE FREE..MAYBE FOR THEM!
Hook-line: There’s only one place to get your free credit report: annualcreditreport.com. You still have to avoid ads and up-sells, but they won’t try to trap you into an agreement and they don’t ask for your credit card number.
This happened to me also. Of course I refused to give any personal info. I was then told that they could not find an account under my name. I then asked how they could charge my debit card if I didn’t have an account!!. Something is very wrong here.
I purchased the “free credit report” through freecreditreport.com “FCR.com” and decided to keep the monitoring service for awhile to see how it was. It was good at keeping up with everything. I went to a local bank to get a small loan and the credit score they gave me was 90 points lower than my experian through FCR.com. The score that the bank provided me was from Equifax through Kroll Factual. So I decided to order the the other two credit reports from Equifax and Transunion through the FCR.com website. The scores it gave me were very close to the scores that it gave me from experian and still 90 or so off from the banks score. I then made phonecalls for the next three hours to Kroll Factual, FICO, Experian, and Equifax. Kroll and Fico were definitely the most helpful. I learned that there are hundreds of models to base your credit on. FCR.com got my info from Equifax and Transunion but based it on their own module or formula . I also learned that no known creditors use that same formula. A large percent of creditors use FICO and dont even know it. The score you get from FDR.com (freecreditreport.com) does not give you a fair representation of your credit score. It would help to use the monitoring service to make that number go higher, but the actual score does you know good but allows them to gimmick you with TV to get your money. I guess the lesson I learned is there are hundreds of modules that can be used to dictate your credit score, most of which are close in their scoring. Before viewing your credit score to make a purchase check with the finance office you are using and do some research. MyFico.com is a good website for info on how to lower your score. myfreecreditreport.com is a scam if you are relying on your score but there monitoring service can be useful.
LeeMac: The only way to get the real, actual FICO scores used by Equifax and Transunion is to buy them from MyFICO.com. Consumers are no longer able to buy their own Experian credit score. If you apply for a loan, you’re entitled to a free look at your credit score from whatever source used by the bank. Also, the only place to get the truly free credit *report* from all three bureaus is annualcreditreport.com.
So it appears that after canceling my service (which went smoothly, thank God, it seems most people had a great deal of trouble), I noticed that $1 was charged to my account (granted, I only had $1.69 in it, so that’s probably all they could get) for a credit report. To anyone who’s experienced this before, should I call and try to preemptively avoid charges that may occur when I have more money, or would it likely end at this? I can suffer the loss of $1 for falling for signing up in the first place, but I’d be seriously irked if I lost, say, $571 like another gentleman.
Also, yeah, this junk sucks. Not even cute.
I knew about the enrollment in Triple Advantage so I decided to look at my credit report and cancel immedialte. I called the number to cancel. The operator tried another sales pitch. I interrupted and said very firmly “Cancel my account, please.” Before I hung up, I asked several times if the account was cannceled. The operator replied “Yes sir, you won’t be charged.”
A few months go by… I was charged 4 times. I called and went through their whole refund process and I got my FULL refund of 59.80.
Keep in mind, this company has been fined by the FCC and has over 2,600 BBB complaints. It’s all a scam. If you try to defend them, you probably work for them. I canceled and they continued to charge me. That is robbery.
If you want more details on my experience and how I got my full refund, see my story at: http://ootie.blogspot.com/2009/03/freecreditreportcom-is-scam.html
Be patient and don’t get angry at the operator. They know you’ve been ripped off.
I was looking for my free annual report and was brought to this site. I entered all of the information it required. I was then prompted that if I continued I was going to be charged for this account. I declined.
I finally found annual credit report and was happy. Until I saw my bank account the next day. They charged my account even though I never entered or excepted charges.
This withdrawal put me negative in my account and I am incurring overdraft fees out the a** daily.
I read one comment where they stated this was not a scam…….with this many people having issues… I’d say it is a scam.
Do not put in your information even if you do not except the charges they will charge you.
I wish I had found this site sooner and saved myself from getting scammed by “free”creditreport.com. I should take some of the blame for not being observant enough to notice the charges on my account until almost 4 months later. I am very frustrated, as I distinctly remember avoiding checking any boxes committing me to any charges. What a rip-off. I have cancelled my account and am hoping to get my money back.
Okay, so I completely agree that this website is deceptive. I just signed up to see my score today…and then I also cancelled the membership today, so no problem with the free trial period issue. The operator was actually really nice and fast, too. I figured she would give me some line about how I had to call back tomorrow because my info wasn’t in their system yet, but nope…she just found me and cancelled the accnt. I got her name and operator number in case of future problems.
Anyhow, that being said, my issue with the website is that the front page leads you to believe you’ll get reports from all three agencies if you sign up for the trial period. You aren’t told that you only receive Experian until you’ve signed up. And, at that point, if you aren’t careful you could easily click on the link to request all three without realizing you have to pay for all three without any free trial period. Also, the ads for all three on every single page of this website are obnoxious. As soon as I realized this was really only for Experian, I made the call to cancel. What crap svc. I feel really sorry for anyone who doesn’t pay attn and ends up paying 14.95 per month for one crappy report.
If you’re going to pay for these monitoring sites, shell out five more dollars per month and go for CreditCheckTotal…I used to use them and they seem much more above board and you get all three reports and there are no BS advertisements everywhere. All of these credit check sites are vampires, but some are definitely worse than others…freecreditchecktotal is definitely one to avoid.
may i ask who in their right mind would put in ccard information expecting something for FREE. I recently signed up to see my credit report and score at Freecreditreport.com. I was able to read the “IMPORTANT INFORMATION” right next to the button you click to “sign up” and view your report. I did read that if i wanted my FREE report that I am entitled to once every year I could go to AnnualCreditReport. I also read on the main page of FCR that what I was signing up for a trial period (like many sites out there) and if I did not want to be enrolled into a monthly membership I could simply cancel within the trial period and not get charged. I also READ that it not only gave me access to my report and score but it ALSO monitored all 3 bureaus. letting me know if ANY activity was going on and ALSO provided an Insurance Guarantee if I was ever a victum of IDENTITY THEFT. After reading the FTC.gov site I definitely want to have my credit protected. Did you know that identity theft is the leading crime affecting millions of people. This has been going on forever but nobody talks about it. I would be pretty PISSED if someone stole my identity and all i could do was file a police report and not get my credit back to good standing. I feel that it is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to know whats going on with our credit being that credit determines what home your able to buy, the vehicle you can get, and not to mention all the credit cards/department store cards. BE RESPONSIBLE – READ – AND INFORM YOURSELF BEFORE SMASHING A COMPANY THAT SEEMS TO WANT TO HELP. I do understand that it cost to have a membership at Freecreditreport.com, Creditchecktotal.com, triplealert.com and so on but dont you pay a large sum of money for CAR INSURANCE (legally you have to have this to drive) every month. now even if you dont get into an accident (knock on wood) you DONT get your money back. Now are we knocking down doors cursing at these insurance companies. lets go back to the most basic rule our parents taught us. think before you speak. inform yourself before you judge. I know this site is here to bitch about the company but i deserve to put my two cents in as well. my intention here is inform others.
Let me guess you work for them right???? yea I thought so :)
So, what’s even worse, really, is that the scores you get from FreeCreditReport.Com don’t mean anything.
I signed up…paid, knew what I was paying for, and got it. I am now the proud owner of a detailed credit report, and three credit scores (all very similar).
Unfortunately, the numbers that FreeCreditReport.Com provides on behalf of Experian, TransUnion and Equifax are not necessarily the numbers that any of these agencies will report to a lending organization. In fact, despite the fact that FreeCreditReport.Com had an Experian credit score for me of 659, Experian reported 0 (yes, zero) to my bank. The lenders can ask for any model they want, and most of the time, it’s not going to be the model that actually includes everything.
The (extremely polite and patient) CSR at Experian told me the only reason I’d need to know my credit score was “personal curiosity”, and agreed with me that I’m SOL.
It seems it worked…The credit reporting agencies made all of us consumers believe we should know our credit scores. Too bad we all fell for it, since it’s pointless information. Capitalism is working!
I just found out this morning that $12.95 was being taken out of my account every month since June 2008. I was really shocked because $12.95/month is such a small amount that people don’t see until later that has been scammed from them by these companies. I’m going to look for a way to fight this. I’ll never sign up for anything “free” online ever again. I don’t know how these people sleep at night. God will punish them for scamming so so many people. There are people struggling just to eat in this poor economy nowadays. And those are the people they target because they fool them into thinking it’s “free.” I believe that justice will prevail soon and people will be compensated for the money and whatever problems these companies have inflicted on innocent people.
I’ve had the same problem as everyone else, with the misleading website and fine print, etc. I was charged 12.95 just like everyone else but managed to get a full refund (well, the customer service rep agreed to it, now I’m just waiting for the update to my statement)
SOLUTION:
While the situation is obviously extremely frustrating, the solution wasn’t really that hard. **First of all, when dealing with over-the-phone customer service representatives, it never pays to lose your shit and freak out. Remain calm while on the phone and try to be polite no matter how strong the urge is to start screaming at the dumb dumb on the other end of the line. Call the number provided on the website under “CONTACT US” 1-877-481-6826. The representative will bullshit you for a while about how when you read the terms of service, you agreed to the trial period and payment thereafter. Just keep insisting on the fact that you never agreed to it. Eventually she said she cancelled the account, sent a confirmation email, but cannot authorize a refund. At this point, ask for a supervisor. I was put on hold for 5-10 minutes and when she returned to the phone, she said that she went ahead and escalated my claim and a full refund will be processed within 7 or however many business days. DONE. Good luck to you all.
I called to cancel my membership and was also talked to for a long time. The man was trying to get me to keep it. he even offered me half price for the first year and it took a lot for me to get him agree to cancel my memership. FREE creditreport.com…REally???
Free Credit Report is a TOTAL scam!! I signed up and then they said becasue their website was down I could not get my report and that they would email me when it came back. They wait 7 days to allow you access and by then they charged your card. They lie when you call them . I will never go back or reccomend them to ANYONE
– credit report.com they stole my money!
They totally sucks, they charged me with all the title on their website of “free”, and with tiny words of those non-refundable things. And the charge will NOT appears within 7 days of your “order”, so when you realize it, the so called “free period” is passed. What is scam!!
Do not be cheated again!
Well, I too think that this “business” is a scam. I have been charged $14.98 for services that I did NOT order!!. I had ordered services through one of the credit reporting agencies and did NOT use this company! When I called them to find out what was going on, I was asked for my social security number! I refused to give this to them so they asked for my debit card number. I also refused to give them that. They said that they could NOT find an account under my name and address. After asking them why I was charged since I didn’t even go on to their website to order services,I was told that I must have ordered something from them somehow. I asked how that was possible since according to them I don’t have an account. I have decided to close my checking account and open another one so that they cannot do this to me next month!! Also the States Attorney’s office for the state of Maryland will be notified!!!. I am disgusted with this company.
FREE CREDIT REPORT.COM ha what a joke!
I signed up for their “free” offer because it said you can cancel “anytime”. As soon as I got the report, I started looking for a way to cancel it. I finally found a number on the faq page for cancelling and called it. It turns out that “anytime” means anytime during their business hours (Mon – Fri 6 – 6 and Sat-Sun 8 – 5 PT). I called again the next morning and it was a completely automated system to cancel. They still offer you a couple of options to continue your subscription like extending your free trial period or giving you a 50% discount for six months, but option three was to cancel completely. Within five minutes, I received an email confirming my cancellation.
I’m glad that I did not run into the problems that others here have seen. At least, not yet. I will watch my bank account for any charges from them. What I do find interesting is that you can enter your SSN, address, credit card information, etc. online, but for “security” reasons you have to call up to cancel. I guess their website security only works during the enrollment process.
Well I just received my credit card statement and was$24.95. I had checked my credit report, then cancelled in a couple of days. I was told on the phone that i asked to upgrade for all 3 credit reports. I was not ! So, first thing in the morning I am reporting these low life sum bags to BBB.
Please advise how you reported them as i am in the same boat as you are.
Did you ever get this resolved?
Thank you,
Kaylena
Yeah freecreditreport is horrible. Experian has gotten many people’s identities mixed up and mines included. They were never able to find me on experian causing many credit reports that were run to come back negative, only when the other two credit companies could find me. In order to fix this problem with experian it delayed me a month, saying i would get a letter to confirm my account. I had to finally call and get the whole thing straightened up. Of course, that also took time and in the end i was charged the month usage, when i only activated it within a week. After calling them to resolve this, which they denied, and claimed that my account was active the day i requested it, despite not being able to access it. I made this point to them that, I was unable to access my account and you can clearly see that, they still refused to refund me. Frustrated i abandoned hope in dealing with this company and their operators who couldn’t speak english clearly.
It’s a SCAM i tell you.
They sent my report 3 days after I cancelled, which was 15 minutes after i tried to get my erport and was advise and assured i would not get charged. Come to find out they charged my credit card the following day. What is that? I called and spoke to a supervisor and she advise me that i would have to write a letter to a different department and gave me a PO Box or i can fax, but i can’t call, because they don’t have a number you can contact someone and try to get your refund. Apparently they don’t offer a refund to many people and that my case was an exception, but i would have to write or fax. I bet you that the PO BOX and fax number given to me will most likely be open just to be open and not a place you can get your money back. They will most likely sit on your letter or fax and wait until you forget about it! Simple money for them, isn’t it? I’m am impaled by how it was handled, but then again this is how SCAMS are handled!
Is there anyone out there who knows and is able to point me in the right direction in trying to dispute a wrongfully charge on my card????
freecreditreport.com + no english speaking reps = SCAM, SCAM, SCAM, SCAM
Hi, my name is Laura and I am an analyst at Balestriere Lanza, a trials and investigations law firm in New York. I saw your post on expressing a desire to be contacted if any potential class action law suits against Free Credit Report were in the works. Our firm has been investigating Free Credit Report’s potential misconduct for several months and would be interested in hearing more from you about your experience. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience at laura.sayler@balestriere.net or at (212) 374-5400 x 133.
This must be how freecreditreport.com pays for their commercials. I had the same experience – I went on their website , tried to cancel and was told over and over again that there is no refund available for the $14.95 they charged. THIS IS HOW THEY PAY FOR THEIR COMMERCIALS!!! With $$$ they get for doing nothing for their customer. What a scam.
The TRUE ASSURE FREE CREDIT REPORT IS BOGUS THEY GET YOU TO SIGN UP SAYING FREE AND THEN AFTER 3-7 DAYS THEY WITHDRAWL AMOUNTS UP TO 49.95 OUT OF YOUR ACCT UNTIL YOU NOTICE AND CALL & THEN THEY HASSLE YOU ABOUT YOUR REFUND AND MOST OF THE TIME DON’T GIVE IT TO YOU AT ALL!!!! THE AGENT THAT ANSWERS THE PHONE WILL TELL YOU THEY CAN ONLY REFUND 1 MONTH AND THEN THEY GET THE SUPERVISOR WHICH TELL YOU THEY CAN ONLY DO 1 MORE AND THEY HAVE 2 SUBMIT FURTHER REQUEST TO COPORATE WHICH IN TURN SEND YOU AN E-MAIL SAYING THEY CAN NOT REFUND THE MONEY ITS YOUR FAULT YOU SHOULD READ WHAT U SIGNED UP FOR!!!! I WORK THERE AND TRUST ME DO NOT USE ANY OF THEIR SITE THEY HOOK YOU THRU FREESCORESTRIO, ANNUAL DREDIT REPORT, FREE CREDIT REPORT.COM, TRUEASSURE AND SEVERAL OTHER CODE NAMES THEY USE TO ROB YOU!!!! BEWARE!!!!
Jason’s solution works for me. they finally say they will refund my first charge $14.95. But i am still fighting to get my second charge which leads me buy three credit score report. that report make no sense at all. the credit score is useless. be careful for this site.
This is the biggest scam ever save your money! they will take money out of your account with out your permission and then it is hard to cancel membership.