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Because of the importance of credit availability on many people’s lives, having access to the credit reports created by the three major credit reporting bureaus has become an integral part of financial planning.  The information on a person’s credit report has the ability to affect many different parts of a person’s life, including their ability to secure housing, their employment status, and how much they will pay for different types of financial products. 

The information in these credit reports is so important that the federal government has mandated that each person will be able to receive one free credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus for free each year.  These reports can be obtained all at once or at different times of the year so that the person can monitor for any changes during the year.

A Free Credit Report Can End Up Costing A Lot

Although the free credit reports are mandated by the government, many people have found that the credit report that they have requested has ended up costing them money.  In many cases, this is due to them making a request for a free credit report on a website other than the website endorsed by the government and unwittingly signing up for credit monitoring or other services provided by the company that runs the website.

The confusion typically results from the similarities in the names of the websites offering free credit reports.  The government supported website, which is the only one that guarantees the free credit reports required by law with no strings attached, has AnnualCreditReport.com as its web address.  Websites selling credit monitoring or other services while using the offer of a free credit report as a lure to draw in customers often use web addresses such as FreeCreditReport.com, MyFreeReport.com, or CreditReport.com.

These other websites offering free credit reports will attempt to entice the person into enrolling in services that can cost between $9.99 and $39.99 per month.  These fees are charged directly to a credit card number provided by the requestor as part of the requirements before the credit report can be accessed.  These services are generally offered as a free trial for a specific time period, but these companies know and are counting on the fact that many consumers will forget about the end of the trial and be billed for a couple of months of the service before they get around to canceling the subscription to the service.

It is important to verify the web address of the website you are on before submitting any personal information to obtain your credit report.  If you are not on the government endorsed website, then there is a good chance that you will be required to sign up for a service and provide a credit card number for billing before you are allowed access to your credit report.  If you comply, that free credit report can cost you plenty of money.