FTC Amends Free Credit Reports Rule

[Anonymous]

FINALLY, freecreditreport.com, while not a scam, but VERY misleading, will be put down for good.  For anyone that would speak in defense of FCR.com, take a look at their website on the Wayback machine and you'll see that a few years ago, they were even worse than they are now.  Several years ago, there was absolutely NO indication of your enrollment in the credit monitoring service on the page until the final confirmation, and it was in a pop-up, which means a lot of people's anti-spam software prevented them from ever seeing it.  The payment information page used under the guise that they needed to "confirm your identity" if I recall correctly.

"I don't think that we should have to pay the credit bureau to check or monitor our credit report"

It costs them money to have people monitoring it, and also to develop software for the aspects that can be automatically monitored.  You can't ask them to do it for free, this would put places like MyFico out of business.  

[Anonymous]

The score you are getting from TransUnion is a Vantage Score. Vantage scores range from 501 to 990.  I was told it is not a true Fico Score. True Fico scores are from 300 to 850 per Equifax. That is the score most Banks and Credit card companies use. True Fico score's are at least 100 points lower than Vantage Scores. I demanded my money back from Trans Union because I can't use that score for anything.

[Anonymous]

I agree with most everything here, and I was duped by the annualcreditreport.com site.  They charged my credit card then wouldn't refund my money.  The card company made me call annualcreditreport.com to ask them to credit my account, and of course they said "No", so I called the card company back and told them I wanted to dispute it.  Within a week I got a notice from the card company saying the charge was removed.

Just ONE of my angers concerning all this is that there are several "DIFFERENT" FICO scores!....depending on what you are trying to do with your credit.  Look, the credit reporting agencies are making money selling OUR information!  And we have to pay to see the information they are keeping on us!  Garbage!  We should be able to see our credit reports at least once a month.  AND, FICO scores should be standardized (ONE SCORE fits all!).  And we should be able to get our FICO SCORE for free along with our free reports.

Write your Congressperson and let them know how you feel.  How are we supposed to work on and fix our credit if we don't know the results of what we are doing?  Without a TRUE and SINGULAR FICO Score, we have nothing to gauge our credit by.

[ajburt22]

Sorry Peach, not sure which "google" you use but the US Postal Service is in fact a Government Agency.  By no means is it a private business, and ultimately they aren't even in the "business" to make money... just sustain.  Mail Carriers (and others) are Government employees.  

[Anonymous]

Reading this thread was very interesting. However, I can't agree on the .gov desigantion as "annualcreditreport.com" is not run by the government. The site was implemented and is maintained by the three credit reporting agencies as part of an agreement between them and the FTC that was the result of complaints of them failing to allow access to credit report information by the person whose credit worthiness was being reported upon.

As for the comments about the post office, it is still part of the executive branch, but is run as an independent organization. The Post Office Department was changed to the United States Postal Service in 1971, the Postmaster General was removed from the President's cabinet, the organization was changed to management by a governing board, the employees are paid according to collective bargaining agreements - although they retain civil service retirement , there are no longer political appointees as local postmasters and they no longer receive funding from Congress.

[montanadem]

Thank goodness!  I don't know how many times I have had to battle past the advertising to get to my credit report.  This new law is a great addition to the current regulations.  Thanks to the legislator that proposed this new rule!!!

[Anonymous]

It is great step to make it less confusing for the consumer.

[voidman]

I know couple of friends who have fallen for the free credit report and they think that the credit score is same as fico credit score.

One of them pull a credit "score" and thought that his credit score is good in the rage of 740ish. With that he went to purhcase a car who pulled his fico score which turned out to be in 660ish and offered him car loan at 15%.

I would say he was a victim of freecredit report. He fell for the free part.

[Anonymous]

I went through annual credit report which led me to the Transunion site.The report was free. I paid $7.95 to get my score, which now i know was a FAKO score. After some personal investigating i noticed a very small "sm" following the Transunion emblem. Typing ...Transunion... the little "sm"  wasn't on the direct site. So this may be a heads up for others as it was for me. I just wish somehow paying for those FAKO scores would be illegal. 

[Anonymous]

You got a "credit score" not a FICO Score. As amatter of fact when you see the range of 501 - 990, it's a Vantage score that is used today by only a few lenders. Completey misleading and of little value to determine where you stand credit wise with a lender. Mod Cut!

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