Have you ever seen the advertisements on the web and perhaps in emails offering you a free credit report? Have you ever wondered whether they were indeed free? The short answer to this is that yes they are indeed free, but there is a catch, an important one and one about which you should be aware before signing up for that tempting offer.

The companies offering you that tempting free credit report all seem to have very slick web interfaces, and they do seem to be happy to spend lots and lots of money on advertising. Why would this be if all they are doing is giving away something for free?

The answer is simple. The offer of the free credit report is to tempt you in. What they really want to do is to get you to sign up to their monthly credit report subscription service. The free credit report is the old-fashioned trial period. In accepting their offer they require you to sign up and provide all your details, including payment details, as if you were indeed joining their subscription service. They do this so that in order to prevent yourself from finding yourself as receiving a monthly credit report you actually have to opt out of the service you have already signed up to. What they hope is that you forget to do this and fail to notice the payments, or that the effort required in order to cancel the service is too great at the particular moment when you realise you need to take action.

Think about it. Once you are subscribed to receive your monthly credit report service their on going costs almost cease. You become extremely profitable for them - the monthly cost of providing you with your revised report, most probably by email is negligible. You also become a customer who they are able to bombard with cross-selling opportunities. It is the fact that each customer is so profitable that allows these companies the freedom to spend so much money in advertising and endeavouring to tempt you in.

So, if you do need to get hold of your credit report and do not wish to pay then by all means I recommend you take advantage of the free credit report, but if you do then do so with your eyes wide open and don't forget to cancel that unwanted subscription at the end of the process.