I’ve been seeing too much of the TV ads during commercial breaks for hockey games featuring that doofus with the electric guitar, the ads flogging Experian’s so-called free credit report service. The report is free, if your idea of “free” is $180 a year, billed monthly. It’s a well-constructed weir designed to snare unsuspecting consumers into something called Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring.
You are entitled to a genuinely free credit report, one per year from each of the three reporting bureaus, through https://www.annualcreditreport.com. You’ll have to click past a couple of promotions for paid add-ons, but everything is opt-in. Or you can request your report by phone or hard mail.
Each report shows credit-related activity (the formats vary across bureaus), but not your FICO score. You still have to pay for that; see Jennifer Bartlett’s recent roundup of information. Fair Isaac Corporation is revising its scoring system as FICO 08, and it’s not clear when those scores will be available for fee to consumers.
Get more information about free annual credit reports from the Federal Trade Commission. And ditch the jerk with the Fender.