Have you been tricked into buying credit monitoring services?

[breeze]

We have someone looking for consumer's experiences with this. There has been a lot of confusion because of some of the marketing. If you can contribute a story about your experience, please post it here.

[GEORGE]

ONLY TRICKS I HAVE GOT WERE...daily became 30 days

[mommy70]

ONLY TRICKS I HAVE GOT WERE...daily became 30 days

 

Ditto!

[Jean1218]

ONLY TRICKS I HAVE GOT WERE...daily became 30 days

Double Ditto!!

[AllWorkingOut]

I came THISCLOSE to falling for this with Transunion. Their website is the WORST. I went through Free Annual Credit Report but no matter what I did I couldn't get my report. It said "login error" and when I tried to put in login, it said "an error has occurred, contact customer service." Only Transunion then took me to a place with NO Customer Service Contacts but instead only selling their PAID credit check system.

 

I almost did it, but instead went through a LOT to contact T'Union to find out WHY I couldn't log in to get my FREE report (something their site talks NOTHING about -- they just plug the HECK out of their PAID reporting service).

 

Finally, the Assistant of the CEO DID call me back, deleted two baddies on the spot that she said weren't mine but instead were from a cardholder (I was just a signee on those two accounts) and gave me login info. She said sorry about the heavy sell but they don't have control over it and that the REASON I was frozen out of the system is because my account was so old that I never did fill out any login security questions when I opened up my acct a long time ago, and so the system couldn't verify I was me.

 

She asked me a few questions to ascertain I was me, and then we set up those security questions so I could get in. (She also unfroze my account, which had been locked due to my many attempts to get the free report).

 

I used the questions to FINALLY access my free report and voila! Finally, got it with those baddies already deleted -- yay!

 

BUT truly I almost, just out of frustration, PAID to get the report, which is probably what they want by making it IMPOSSIBLE to find out how to directly contact Customer Support.

 

Rather than fall for their ploy and pay, I recommend going to Consumerist.com if you have problems, call some higher ups until you get help getting your Report. IMHO, they push this PAID thing too heavily and make it ridiculously hard to just get your FREE one. But in the end, an actual human proved nice and super helpful!

[LadyJulia]

I felt totally tricked. Nowhere did it say that after a trial period I would be billed for services. I know better than to provide my credit card, but I did anyway because I really wanted to see my score. It gave me a PLUS score, whatever that is. I did see my credit report but the information was sketchy at best. So I called and cancelled and had to repeatedly say I wasn't interested in this Experian offer and it was finally canceled (well, I should have email confirmation within 24 hours).

 

It was definitely tricky and misleading. Still, I usually exit a website the minute I am asked for a credit card because I know it's not really a free offer, they just want you to sign up and then forget to cancel. So be careful!!

[deniserichardson]

I have heard from many consumers who inadvertently ended up with credit monitoring services when they were only trying to obtain their "free" credit reports. Many feel they were misguided or tricked by those offering "free credit reports" that are not free. You know the commercials, the ones with the many TV jingles, i.e. F.R.E.E. spells Free ring a bell?

 

Consumers report that canceling the service and stopping charges on their credit/debit cards has proved to be a difficult task -a much harder task than ordering the so-called free credit reports.

 

 

Has this happened to you?

 

When was the last time you saw a television commercial or a public service announcement advising you how to get copies of your "really" free credit reports? I don’t mean those catchy rhyming jingles singing “F.R.E.E. spells Freeâ€. I mean the legit place to get those no-strings and no-dollars attached, genuinely free credit reports. Never, right? The FTC recently created a video mimicking the fake "free" credit report commercials. I hope this FTC video finds its way on TV...

[georgeharrison]

[Melanie2009]

Can you be more specific about what you're talking about, breeze? The only thing that comes to mind for me is the free credit report services that sign you up for monitoring unless you cancel it.

[breeze]

Can you be more specific about what you're talking about, breeze? The only thing that comes to mind for me is the free credit report services that sign you up for monitoring unless you cancel it.

 

That's it!

[Guest Joseph C]

You need to be careful... legislation has been enacted that those nice people will really be superinteligent robots made of Coltan gathering information about us for our financial extinction. So the person we think is a nice person isnt a person at all... j.k

 

I signed up for IdentityGuard. I am seeing some items on my credit report. Pretty sure it says report updated every 3 months. Which is good, because i need to get stuff together to approach the bad items anyway. (About to e-mail Sprint... the CEO, lol. It is in another thread.)

 

I fugure, sure, why not. It does have all 3 bureaus information, not just one like "FREEEEEEEE CRedit Report.Com!" - Its not. And that site LOSES in comparisong.

 

PLUS score sounds like a FaKo. Id just rather have a FaKo than a No Score, like the actual free one. And when i closed the window that was it for my info for the whole year...

[Jamyn]

I felt tricked by "FreeCreditReport.com" (I didn't know about the real free credit report - AnnualCreditReport.com - at the time). I got my free report, and made sure I called them to cancel.

 

They sent me an email a few months later, telling me there was activity on my account, and that I should "click here" to see what had changed. I clicked, and by clicking the link, it renewed/restarted my account with them. I saw a bill from them shortly after on my credit card, and thought I'd be a simple matter of just explaining to them that I didn't mean to renew, and it was an accident.

 

I called their customer service and politely told them I didn't want to renew. The representative was condescending, rude, and outright told me that they were going to charge me, that somewhere deep in the terms of service it said they could, and there was nothing I could do about it. I explained again that I did not want service with them, and we went nowhere.

 

I called my bank and disputed the charge. I explained what had happened, and they were sympathetic. The charge was reversed by the bank, and while my bank representative was filling out the required dispute form for me, they mentioned that a lot of people have complained/filed chargebacks against FreeCreditReport.com (which is owned by Experian).

 

I believe all of this is intentionally shady, as it certainly feels like Experian has gone out of their way to mask their ownership of and association with the site, no doubt with the understanding that many people will be upset with the dirty tricks.

[chuckmanley83]

you have to watch out for those credit report sites. You better believe that everything they do is intentional.

[2monstersmommy75]

I made the mistake of ordering from freecreditreport.com and now a bunch of collections agencies are contacting me about really old accounts and update my credit report with activity from 2008 and last activity on the org. account were 2003 and 2004.

[NotLosingJob]

The first statement on the FTC website states:

 

AnnualCreditReport.com is the ONLY authorized source to get your free annual credit report under federal law.

 

Towards the bottom of the page it also states:

 

File a Complain

tThe FTC wants to hear from you if you paid for what you thought was your free annual credit report.

 

SPAM

The FTC also wants you to forward us any unsolicited emails you've received offering you a free credit report. Send them to spam@uce.gov.

 

AnnualCreditReport.com will NEVER send you an email solicitation for your free annual credit report or use pop up ads.

 

Sounds like so many complaints have come in that the FTC may soon pursue a method to shutting this practice down. In my recently jaded opinion about the entire credit industry, there needs to be some heavy legislation enacted to protect consumers from the pillaging going on. They already have my tax money and yours. Time to end the bleeding - with a tourniquet.

[smckay]

This is great stuff here!

 

I have to say myself that every time I see their(freecreditreport) commercial on t.v. I think I throw up a little bit. I was tricked by them many years ago and have since vowed to tell everyone I know the right way to go about their free annual credit reports. I wish someone with a lot of money would hire some very good attorneys and sue them for false advertising. How can they be called free credit report when you have to pay for something to get it???

[rs3rs]

Yeah, I had that exact same thing happen to me... I feel like an salamander now for falling for it... It's just you never see AnnualCreditReport.com advertised, I jsut figured FreeCreditReport.com was the place to go... I had the same thing happen to a family member. I guess that's how they make money, but I don't find it to be very honest.

[Marc Williams]

Order your credit reports for free at www.annualcreditreport.com. If something is wrong, dispute it and they will send you an new credit report. That is the most economical way to stay on top of your credit reports.

[JayStation3]

Well - I signed up for the one from free credit report dot com and was very disappointed to learn even though they say that you can monitor all three CRA's with "triple advantage" for 14.95 a month, then you sign up and realize you can only see the one from experian and you actually have to spend another 24 bucks to get all three....It had a free 7 day trial that, needless to say - I canceled the same day I signed up....

 

The one I like is the one from Transunion. Truecredit.com seems to be pretty good so far. The only fall back is you can only get updated reports for EX & EQ once a month (basically when you pay for the next months access)... You can how ever pull your TU report once every 24 hour period. It also gives you all three scores. All for 14.95 a month. Not to shabby at all...

[Eah]

I too fell for this - but I filed a complaint with the BBB and ended up having all of the money I spent on the monthly charges refunded to me.

[inu27]

there all a sham and wow did i fall for it. The first time around I really found it to be useful because i was able to view all three. But then noticed the second time it was a waste and the ficos were way off from what other agencies such as mortgage brokers were telling me.

[B4d_JuJu]

The wording these guys use in their adverts is very deceptive and can get you if you don't watch it. Like you never find out how ofter you can pull an updated report until after you sign up. I too tried Identity Guard and they stated nothing about updating your report every 90 days.

[av8bjockey]

I felt totally tricked. Nowhere did it say that after a trial period I would be billed for services. I know better than to provide my credit card, but I did anyway because I really wanted to see my score. It gave me a PLUS score, whatever that is. I did see my credit report but the information was sketchy at best. So I called and cancelled and had to repeatedly say I wasn't interested in this Experian offer and it was finally canceled (well, I should have email confirmation within 24 hours).

 

It was definitely tricky and misleading. Still, I usually exit a website the minute I am asked for a credit card because I know it's not really a free offer, they just want you to sign up and then forget to cancel. So be careful!!

 

Ditto for me as well. And you must cancel it within a few days otherwise they charge you. And the only way to cancel the trial is to call them because they want to get you on the phone to try and fast talk you.

[Toy Lady]

I used to do audits and one company wanted me to sign up for FreeCreditReport.com and Identity Guard. Identity Guard was buy the first month, get the next two for free so I stayed with it since I got my first month refunded for doing the audit and got paid a fee for doing it. A few things I noticed about both:

 

FreeCreditReport.com does sign you up for their Triple Advantage or whatever it's called. I looked at their TOS carefully and it said that the credit monitoring service (or whatever it was at the time, it's been a few years) wasn't available in NYS. That's where I was and that's what the fee was for. So I didn't think I was enrolled. After seven days, I got charged. Called up, she didn't want to refund but when I pointed out what their site said, she did. I felt tricked but at least I got my money back.

 

I was happy with Identity Guard for a while. Of course, I wasn't doing much with my reports at the time. Just planning to start the repair (can you say procrastina...eh, I'll finish that thought later. ). I did get to see what's on my report and it's close to what's on the actual CRAs' reports. However, when I recently looked to see how often we can pull our reports (I signed my dh up too), it stated on their site every three months so I sent them an email as my dh stating I wanted my new quarterly report pulled since it hadn't been done since March. He got the following reply back to his email:

 

"Your membership began on 3/9/09. Your first Quarterly Credit Update will be sent to you 120 days from that enrollment date. Thereafter, you will receive Quarterly Credit Updates every 90 days."

 

On their website it states you can get a new report every 90 days. Not an update every 90 days after the first six months. What's the point in that? I've since learned from this group about different companies that allow you to pull daily or monthly reports. For the same price, we might as well switch. Of course, Identity Guard is sending emails telling him why he shouldn't cancel. Whatever.

[Nexxus6]

I was foolish enough to believe their hype last year.

After I saw my bank statement for the next months charge I did some research and found out I had signed up for their monthy monitoring service. I tried to telephone them but kept getting the message "the number you are trying to reach cannot be completed from your area." ???

The next day I went to my credit union and canceled my current debit card and ordered a new one.

About 2 days later I got an e-mail from freecreditreport.com stating that they were having trouble processing my monthly charge.

I kindly told them that I was no longer interested in their service. Haven't heard from them since.

From now on I check out every company at ripoffreport.com and see what experiences other people have had. I wish I had done this with freecreditreport.com. Live and learn.