I bet you have seen the commercials and heard the jingle, but don’t be fooled. There is nothing free about freecreditreport.com. The website is run by Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus. Every time I see or hear one of those commercials I cringe a little bit inside. I don’t like to think of all of the people that are going to get ripped off, and not know any better. Please keep reading to get the true story.

The commercials offer you a free credit report while telling the story of some poor smuck who didn’t know about his credit report or credit score and suffered the consequences of his foolishness. I have already gone into great detail why your credit report and credit score are really important. He sings a catch tune telling the audience how his wife’s bad credit forced them to live in her parent’s basement, how he drives a clunker because he has bad credit, and that he has to have crappy jobs because of his bad credit. Many in the audience connect with the character helping make the website one of the most popular for credit scores.

What they don’t tell you until the very end of the commercials is that you can only get the free credit report and score by joining a trial membership of Experian’s Triple Advantage. After 7 days you are on the hook for a $14.95 monthly fee until you cancel your membership in Triple Advantage. This is the classic bait and switch. Experian is making a fortune from all of the people who forget to cancel their membership. I am sure there are thousands of members who just forgot to cancel and will continue to pay for the service without even knowing it.

Triple Advantage is a good service if that is what you want to apply for. It lets you see your credit reports, credit score, and what entities are checking your credit. This is a great service if you are worried about identity theft or are trying to increase your credit score. My problem is that they advertise it as a free credit report, when it really is a membership in a credit monitoring service.

Doing a search for freecreditreport.com complaints brings up thousands of websites where consumers are complaining about the not really free credit reports. This really all stems from a law that was passed several years ago where the government made the three credit bureaus make available one free credit report each year. The problem is that the website is actually annualcreditreport.com. Many people have heard of this law and assume when they hear one of these commercials that this website is where you get your free credit report. Don’t be fooled. If you would like to join a credit monitoring service a try, join Triple Advantage. But if you just want your free credit report go to annualcreditreport.com.