Free yearly credit report North Platte

Consumers are also getting tricked into paying for basic credit reports before obtaining the ones they can get free, as mandated by the federal government in 2003. The only place those free reports are available is at AnnualCreditReport.com, run jointly by the Big Three (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax (EFX)). Yet, dozens of websites affiliated with the bureaus falsely imply that they can also distribute the government-mandated free reports.

At FreeCreditReport.com, ConsumerInfo.com, PrivacyMatters.com, Free3BureauCreditReport.com and other similarly named websites, free trial offers and package deals abound. The most ubiquitous: pitches for free credit reports and free credit scores if you subscribe to a "credit monitoring" service that alerts you each time a lender checks your credit history, says Robert Mayer, a University of Utah professor who has analyzed two dozen such sites free yearly credit report North Platte for Consumer Reports WebWatch.

"The word 'free' is used so freely that it really has no meaning in the context of these types of sites," Mayer says. The profusion of websites hawking credit reports, credit scores and credit monitoring to consumers have one thing in common: They all sell data supplied by the Big Three. The bureaus are the drivers behind a blizzard of consumer promotions for free yearly credit report North Platte credit reports (a record of how you pay your bills); credit scores (a calculation of your creditworthiness, based free yearly credit report North Platte on your credit report); and credit monitoring (a monthly subscription service, which credit experts say is of marginal value). free credit report band Thanks to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, each bureau must supply free yearly credit report North Platte every consumer with one free credit report a year.

But while meeting the minimum requirements of this federal mandate, the Big Three have been energetically tapping online shoppers for hundreds of millions of dollars of fresh revenue and profit. By selling credit data via websites that free yearly credit report North Platte use "free credit report" and "free credit score" as inducements to sign up for credit monitoring, which has become a cash cow. No surprise that the vast matrix of websites pitching credit data to consumers engenders befuddlement.

Even industry insiders free yearly credit report North Platte say it's all too easy for consumers to get flummoxed. "There should be more education about what you receive and how to free yearly credit report North Platte navigate the various sources of information," says Mark Catone, senior vice president of First American Credco, which processes credit reports. official credit report free Experian, for instance, sells to consumers at Experian.com and at six other sites.

Experian spokesman Don Girard says that selling to consumers at websites using different names "is just creative marketing." TransUnion, privately owned by the billionaire Pritzker family of Chicago, operates TrueCredit.com, the site where free yearly credit report North Platte Wendy Temple bought her TransRisk credit score, as a wholly owned subsidiary. Another major subsidiary, TransUnion Interactive, distributes consumer products via dozens of free yearly credit report North Platte independently run websites, company spokesman Steve Katz says.

These include PrivacyMatters.com, free-credit-reports.com, Credit.com, Free3BureauCreditReport.com, FreeCreditReportsInstantly.com, speedycreditreports.com and SpendonLife.com, Katz says.

Equifax alone sells consumer products primarily through its eponymous website, Equifax.com. "Our approach has always been to take the high road," says Steve Ely, president of Equifax's Personal Solutions. Joel Winston, the FTC's associate director of privacy and identity protection, credits the bureaus for free yearly credit report North Platte improving their public disclosure statements in recent months. But he says the free yearly credit report North Platte FTC remains "very concerned" about any lingering confusion. free credit report form

"The principle we're upholding is, you've free yearly credit report North Platte got to make clear what it is you're selling," Winston says.