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  • Report:  #835083

Complaint Review: Freecreditreport.com

Freecreditreport.com FREEcreditreport is NOT free and they use skatchy tecniques to get your money, Internet

  • Reported By:
    Chris — Palo Alto California U.S.A.
  • Submitted:
    Tue, February 07, 2012
  • Updated:
    Thu, March 29, 2012
*Consumer Suggestion: Always read the fine print BEFORE giving your credit card out! *Consumer Comment: What are you talking about? *UPDATE Employee: READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

How much would you expect to pay for your credit score at www.FREEcreditscore.com ? Strangely enough it is NOT free or it is free with very strict conditions =)

This service is by www.experian.com, one of the three credit agencies that are supposed to serve citizens and corporations. By law all these agencies are supposed to provide a free credit at least once a year.

In reality Experian is a company that needs to maximize stakeholder value and to do that they are not opposed to using questionable techniques like the one described here: 

- http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Forced_Continuity  The user signs up for a free trial on a website, and in doing so they are required to enter their credit card details. When the trial comes to an end, they automatically start getting billed for the paid service. The user is not given an adequate reminder, nor are they given an easy and rapid way of cancelling the automatic renewal.  If you forget to call they charge you. And they do not refund your fee even if you call them. Someone wrote that in order to have the fee removed you need to ask to talk with a manager and threaten to write a bad review.

- http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Roach_Motel The "Roach Motel" is a broad category of Dark Pattern that subsumes most types listed on this site. Put simply, a Roach Motel makes it very easy for a user to get into a certain situation, but then makes it hard for them to get out of it when they realize it is undesirable. In particular www.freecreditscore.com website is active 24h a day and very easy to access. To cancel you mandatory membership you need to call in business hours go through 30 minutes of waiting or more on the phone to talk with a customer representative.

The service that they provide for the membership is of questionable value. Pretty much they let you see your credit score when you want and you get notified when it changes. This cost you about $180 a year! For me this is a ripoff in itself.

What can you do to protest and maybe get them to change their sneaky policies? These are my suggestions:

  • Be sure that you cancel your membership. They will try to convince you that you should not. Just be firm and tell them that you want to cancel.

  • Then ask for your money back. They will say no. Call the customer service (1-877-300-2506) a few times. Serving your call is a cost for them. Eventually they will prefer to refund you the money than keep talking with you. Keep calling, ask to talk with a manager, give them a piece of your mind, tell them that you are going to write a review on RipoffReport.com or another similar website. Tell the people at customer care that they should be ashamed to work for a company that tricks people in getting a supposedly free credit score and then they charge you $15. Tell them to talk with their boss and invite him/her to report to the company and change their policies. 

  • Write of your experience and maybe put a link to this page and post it on your blog, on Twitter or Facebook. Be sure that as many people as possible can read it, and be warned about it.

    Finally I am not saying that you should click on the adwords on Google but I want to be sure that you know thatwhen you Google phases likes free credit score if you click on the ads at the top with green background about freecreditscore.com will cause Google to charge probably around a $1 to Experian because you clicked on their ads. 

3 Updates & Rebuttals

meagen

cameron,
West Virginia,
United States of America

READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

#4UPDATE Employee

Thu, March 29, 2012

I have a friend that works for freecreditreport.com and I really get sick of people saying bad stuff about it. so here is something to think about.

1. they do charge 1 to see your experian credit report. The 31.95 is for all 3 reports and scores.

2. It states in the terms and conditions that you will be automatically put in the paid membershit if you dont cancel in 7 days. Your sent an email on day 5 with the number to cancel.

3. the customer service is open 8am-10pm easter time 5 days a week 10-8 on the weekends.

4.Yes, when you call they do try to get you to stay with the membership because its is helpful they dont only give you the report and scores they also monitor your credit day to day for changes and notify you my email/text standard text fee do apply.

5.If you call in and are nice and say sorry I forgot most likley you can get a refund if you call are nasty your not going to get it.

6. The company understands that stuff happens sometimes but you agreed to pay if you forgot so really they dont have to provide a refund

and last but not least

7. READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE YOU ACCEPT THEM ITS ALL IN THERE IN PERFECT ENGLISH.

so in conclusion to everyone that feels they have been ripped off they didnt rip you off you just didnt read what was right in from of you and got click happy. Sorry that you was charged 31.95 because you got click happy they have to eat the money it cost to provide the reports and scores.

John-IR

United States of America

What are you talking about?

#4Consumer Comment

Wed, February 22, 2012

I used freecreditreport.com for all of 9 hours, even though I was only able to find my credit score, which I wanted, the only crime committed was the lack of user friendly interface on the site itself. My experience went like this:

I set up an account in 5 minuets on their site, when doing so I could clearly read something similar to "7-day trial, you will be billed $15.00 dollars and its non-refundable if you forget to cancel", in 15pt font.

I bit the bullet and decided to cancel in the morning anyways...

I got my information, they charged me two times, once for $1.00 and again for $29.95, these fees were because I clicked on a link to read all three of my reports, which they do not offer for free and they told me the charges. I however did not click on submit, I instead hit the back button before I thought they would charge me.

This morning I called them, I was connected immediately with a person from customer service who not only refunded both transactions but also cancelled my account in all of six minutes.

I understand other people may have different experiences but mine was flawless and I would do business with them if it were not for the expensive price. 

Southern Chemical and Equipment LLC

Sarasota,
Florida,
USA

Always read the fine print BEFORE giving your credit card out!

#4Consumer Suggestion

Tue, February 07, 2012

Nowadays, you really have to pay close attention to anything that requires the input of your credit card number, especially "free" offers.



Common sense would tell you to ask yourself one question when you encounter a "free" offer. That would be: "How much is "free" going to cost me"?



Common sense would also tell you that businesses cannot survive if they are giving things away for free.



The ONLY online source to get your free credit report that is required by law once per year is at:

www.annualcreditreport.com



Also note that the free credit report does NOT contain your credit score. If you want your score, you must pay for it.



And, the terms of that free credit report offer are very clear right there on the enrollment page, and again when you actually press the "submit button. Then, you get a confirmation email which also spells it out for you.



So, in reality, all you have to do is pay attention, and mark the free trial end date on your calendar if you think you may not remember it.



It really is fairly simple.

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