@kbell wrote:
In my email inbox today was the August Blue Flash newsletter from American Express that says Amex Blue cardholders can get a complimentary credit report & score from Experian. Is this a new benefit for the Blue card or has this been the case for awhile? Either it's new or this was the first time I bothered to read the Blue Flash email. I know Amex Clear cardholders can already get a free report. The free credit report is not a big deal; plus, the credit score from Experian is merely a "Plus Score" based on a 330-830 scale. Still, the complimentary once a year credit report/score has its entertainment value.
my concern about this would be that it's a backhanded way of getting Amex to get you to try out their CreditSecure service, which they hawk to no end, and at least I don't find I need to keep track of my credit.
after accidentally having signed up for freecreditreport.com's monitoring service when trying to get my free annual credit report and only realizing it when it appeared as a recurring authorization on my citicard (despite me having changed the credit card number in the meantime), I decided to cancel both my membership with this and forget about creditsecure or any other such recurring monitoring services (I had signed up for a trial membership at the time).
I got a 15 minute lecture from the CSR on identity theft when trying to cancel. needless to say, I had neither the time nor the inclination to hear it. I easily signed up for a free trial membership and hoped cancelling would be just as easy. This is never the case, which goes to show you that the free trial is never actually free.
