Thursday, February 26, 2009

Annual Credit Report

By Samantha A. Bow

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?

Most of these sites are not free. They say they are free, but they have a plan to squeeze money out of you one way or another. They boast 'free credit report' all over their site with usually just a small paragraph to the truth.

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 ask you for your credit card information when you sign up.

The problem with this is that they don't advertise their credit monitoring service nearly as much as the free credit reports if at all. They take advantage of the free credit reports now available to get you to sign up for their service without even realizing it. If you sign up and don't notice it, you wouldn't know to call and cancel the service within 7 days.

It is true, you should always read the fine print and terms of service before you ever sign up for anything, but you also shouldn't need to be tricked into something. Is it really necessary to be so slick in order to get you to sign up for a service?

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.

Ultimately, you need to understand that some companies will use unfair marketing tactics. Always read the terms of service before signing up for anything online. If something says it is free and then asks you for your credit card information, find out why.

Sure, you could just get your free reports and then cancel the service, but there is a way to get it 100% free with no hassle. Just check out the link below to find out how.

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