An extremely popular searched term on the internet "Free Credit Report" and the matching domain name FreeCreditReport.com® are taking a pretty big hit with a new law that was passed last Friday by the government.
The credit card reform bill signed into law by the president on Friday will not just put a stop to several unfair practices used in the credit card industry — it also targets misleading advertisements for phony "free" credit reports.
FreeCreditReport.com runs tons of catchy ads on TV singing its FREE credit report songs, when this really is not the case. You must sign up for a "credit monitoring" service first to get your "free" credit report. If you happen not to cancel what you signed up for in 7-days, you are charged $14.95 a month. So in a way it’s "free" but we all know many forget to cancel or to cancel.. it’s likely not that easy to do so.
Not only will you get charged $14.95 if you do not cancel, you are still handing over your "info" when signing up if you do cancel! That is something that is often overlooked.
So the new law requires sites like FreeCreditReport.com to include a new statement in it’s ads and also on it’s website that it is NOT the free credit report offered by federal law. I checked out FCR today and the statement is on it’s site.
Now if anybody really reads this statement posted right on the homepage of FreeCreditReport.com in plain sight, it is likely the person would not use FCR because of the statement and the link to AnnualCreditReport.com which is the Real free credit report by federal law.
IMO, since many do not read these things and the start of the statement still includes it’s "when you order your free report here" the whole thing can be deceiving.
It will be interesting to see if the commercials for FreeCreditReport.com keep playing with a changed disclaimer and new songs or if the site will fade into the sunset. It is very likely it will not fade into the sunset!
AnnualCreditReport.com was registered in 2004 and is registered at Godaddy.com! According to Compete.com, AnnualCreditReport.com get’s about 2.5 Million monthly visitors.
FreeCreditReport.com was registered in 1999. According to Compete.com, FreeCreditReport.com get’s about 2.9 Million monthly visitors.
I was just reading about that earlier today.
It’s a good step in the right direction and I’m impressed with a lot of the new credit card regulation that’ll be put in place next year. It’ll be nice to see credit card companies no longer able to take advantage of those with a poor credit score by ripping them off royally under the excuse that they pose a greater credit risk. Looks like customers got the last laugh
May 27th, 2009