March 16th, 2009
Federal Credit Reports
Have you seen the cutesy commercials where young adults who have had their credit score damaged sing about the terrible apartment or job they are stuck in? If you watch television, you likely have seen these FreeCreditReport.com ads. And if you’ve actually tried to get your credit report or score from them, you’ll find that there is nothing free about it. You have to sign up for a $14.95/month credit monitoring service to receive your credit report. Consumers advocate groups have long complained about these ads and the website given the fact that there is nothing ‘free’ about it.
Under Federal law, you have a right to receive a free copy of your credit report, which you can get from http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com. In addition, the FTC has developed two commercials to get the message out and empower consumers to get their credit score. You can watch one of them above. These FTC ads are very similar to the Freecreditreport.com versions, from their low budget look, to having garage bands playing catchy jingles about your credit. Even the website names are easily confused. These similarities will make it difficult for the average consumer to see the difference but is a step in the right direction to educate the public.
While AnnualCreditReport.com offers a free way to obtain your credit score, but you are limited to only one report per year per bureau. However, you can supplement this annual report with CreditKarma to track your score on a more frequent basis, as well as run different scenarios using our Credit Simulator. This will help you stay on track with maintaining or repairing your credit to the highest level possible.
