If you searched the web for a free credit report, you would find countless amounts of websites out there they claim they will get you your free credit reports. They have commercials and all sorts of ads all over the place. What is causing all these companies to want to give away something for free?
If you look closely, these sites aren’t exactly free. They claim it is free, but they have a sneaky way to get some money out of you if you aren’t willing to look at the fine print.
They will give you free copies of your credit reports, but at the same time, they will sign you up automatically for a trial period of their credit monitoring service. Usually the trial period is seven days. If you don’t cancel within that 7 days, they will charge to your card. This is why they usually question you for your credit card information when you sign up.
I‘ve heard people say that it’s simple and you get the same thing when you sign up through this service than if you signed up somewhere else and didn’t get place on a free trial. I say, why sign up for something and waste time entering your card information and calling to cancel the service when you can avoid that altogether?
Many people will say that you should always read the fine print carefully before you sign up for anything. This is right, but that doesn’t make it right for a company to try to trick you. They should advertise their service right along with the free credit report. The free credit report should be the bonus, not the other way around.
In fact, this could end up discouraging potential customers. Someone who might have signed up for the service through honest advertising may not sign up because they were frustrated with being automatically enrolled in something they were unaware about.
Sad to say, marketing takes many different forms and use many different tactics. You should always read the fine print and make sure you know what you are getting into before you sign up for anything. If they as for your credit card information for something that says it’s free, find out why.
It doesn’t sound that hard to sign up, get your free reports, and cancel the service, but you can even more easily get your free credit reports without signing up for anything. Check the links below for more info.