Who Owns Free Credit Report.com?
Categories: Credit Reports
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After listening to the annoyingly catchy commercials and radio jingles, I began to wonder if it was a stand alone company. I won’t link to the website because it offers a ’service’ that you can get for free.
However, if you visit the About page, you quickly learn that this is not a stand alone company. The website is owned by a company that was setup by Experian. Experian is one of the credit bureaus.
When you think about it, it’s a genius play. The US government tells the credit bureaus they have to allow consumers access to one credit report per year. To offset the cost of this (and to make additional profit), Experian sets up a for-profit website that offers essentially the same service for a monthly charge. Sure, there may be three people in the United States that can honestly need to spend $15 per month to have consistent access to their reports. The average consumer, not so much.
On top of that, Experian’s commercials for the website, and obviously the name of the website, make it seem like a free service. That seems like a scam to me. It isn’t a free service. The first month is free, then those pesky monthly payments begin.
This also explains how a single website could run a bunch of expensive radio and TV commercials. I can’t attest to the profitability of that company within Experian, but I’m guessing there are a lot of people out there that are signed up and don’t even know it. So don’t use free credit report.com. Instead, use the actual free service from Annual Credit Report.com. You can also check out Master Your Card’s 5 steps to a DIY “Life Lock”.
