Am I over doing this?

[Anonymous]

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@Medic981 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

There is nothing wrong with signing up with all of the free sites to get many copies/updates to your credit reports.  The more data you have and the more frequent the updates the better.  I stress reports, because many of these free sites provide VS 3.0 scores or cute "fluff" charts/graphs that can be misleading and manipulative.  If you focus on the reports, you'll be just fine.

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@Anonymous of these sites exist to tout credit products. @Anonymous mentioned "misleading and manipulative" information which is there to get you to click on something and make them money.

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It makes you question whether anything is really free.

[Anonymous]

I'm waving my hand up in the air over here because I surely do it too. I love getting my updates and going over them with a cup of coffee in the morning.

[Anonymous]

I agree with those who warn that the “free” monitoring services that provide non-FICO scores are there to earn money for their advertisers. Knowing that though, they can and do provide a service in the monitoring of various aspects of our credit. If we use them wisely and recognize them for what they are, they are another tool in the tool belt that we can take advantage of and use to our benefit.

[Anonymous]

100% true above.  The problem is when you think about the percentage of people that use free tools like CK that come to forums like this to learn more about the pros and cons of such a service, it is extremely low.  Maybe 1%?  I'd say that 99% of people out there that use tools like CK take everything they say as being 100% true and accurate.  It's actually very unfortunate, because these then 99% of the population (or however one quantifies it) are walking around very misinformed and mislead.  They believe that their "credit score(s)" which aren't FICO scores are in fact the same scores a lender would use and will even refer to them as their FICO scores when of course they are not.  They'll wrongly believe the fluff charts/graphs provided and think their payment history is perfect when it isn't, that their age of accounts are low when they aren't, that their number of accounts is too low when it isn't and that their utilization is in a great place when it's not.  Being misinformed and mislead causes many of these people to make poor credit decisions, such as unnecessarily applying for credit cards and loan products that they don't need.  This is great for CK, but often terrible for those that bite.