A popular TV commercial, with a song and a name most people don't forget, urges consumers to check their credit report for free.
The idea is simple, if you want to avoid the pain of bad credit, you'll got to their Website and order your free credit report. The problem, however, is freecreditreport.com isn't free.
"Checking your credit report is probably the number one consumer tip that we give," says privacy expert Beth Givens, of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
Givens says everyone should check their credit report every year, but she says freecreditreport.com is not the way to do it.
"Given the name, Free Credit Report, wouldn't you think that it's free. That's their website name, that's what they advertise on TV incessantly. It's extraordinarily deceptive," Givens said.
Phil Higgins found out the hard way when he ordered his credit card report through freecreditreport.com and immediately started getting charged $15.95 on his credit card for a monitoring service.
"Well, I didn't think I'd get charged by the commercials but I ended up getting that monthly service fee," Higgins said. "You get your free credit report and then the next thing you know you see the charge on your bank statement and you have to call them and go through the whole ordeal of canceling the membership."
There is a Website where you can get a free credit report, it's not freecreditreport.com, it's annualcreditreport.com.
"Congress passed a law a few years ago giving people the right to do one free credit report a year," Givens said.
Annualcreditreport.com gives you one free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus with no monthly fees.
That's something Phil wishes he'd known about.
"I think I ended up paying for a couple of months."
The Federal Trade Commission is apparently not happy with the folks at free credit report, The government has even gone so far as to make its own ads making fun of the other ones.
The company told the New York Times that you do get a free credit report and score and they feel they've been upfront and fair; giving consumers the opportunity to become aware and comfortable with the credit reporting concept.
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