Free Credit Score
Reviews and Complaints

I logged onto freecreditscore.com a few days ago, but logged out before completing the process required to get the credit scores. Now they have debited by checking accout for $14.95.

SCAM! not free at all. Freecreditscore.com took $90.00 out of my account over a 6 month time period. BY THE WAY I NEVER SEEN A SINGLE CREDIT REPORT. If you like giving away money, trust this company.

I don't even remember logging onto this stinkin website. What is going on? What should I do?

Freecreditscore.com-This is one of those companies that offer a free trial membership but charge you before you have even logeed on to get your :free credit score: minutes after signing up for a free trial-I cancelled brcause they gave me info for someone else-when i called to cancel-i was told that they had already charged me 26.99 and that was nonrefundable-I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told there was not one available-Even though the number given showed it was from California-the rep told me they were based in the Phillipine Islands-they pose themselves as many different companies-and steal your info-i am in the process of finding out how to process a lawsuit that will devastate the one they had against them in 2005-they are thieves and scammers!

Comment has instructions for getting charge reversed by dealing with customer service:

The site is certainly deceptive. I feel I am generally cautious about online sites, and was proceeding warily thinking that I could get a snapshot of my credit information for free as long as I canceled my membership within 7 days. Even so I clicked on a button to get my report without realizing that would incur a charge. Doing so DID NOT take me to a confirmation page as should be standard for any online sales site, but offered me the 3 agency credit report, and a button to view it, having already charged my account $31.95. I DID NOT VIEW THE REPORT but immediately called customer service. The initial indication was that it was too bad, that I clicked on the button which I should have seen would result in a charge. I explained my displeasure, that I had not viewed the report, and dismay at the deceptiveness of the site. Only when I ASKED TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR, I was offered (by the initial agent) to be able to see the report and be credited about half the amount. When I said that that was NOT GOOD ENOUGH, I STILL WANT TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR, and answered additional questions, the agent put me on hold (as if to transfer) and then came back and said that since I had not viewed the report, her supervisor agreed to refund me the full amount.

The thing which is free is only the Experian report & score. I retained my membership long enough to get that, and then canceled right away. Hopefully I will discover a net charge of zero on my credit card.

If I may ask have you ever taken the time to throughly read their Terms and Conditions? This is what I always recommend to my clients BEFORE seeking counsel because you had to have agreed to the terms in order to begin the free trial period to obtain the product. If anywhere within those Terms & Conditions it states any additional fees for ANY reason, well it's unfortunate on your part because you had already agreed to those Terms. An attorney can't do anything to help you and claiming to be misled would be a dead topic. If you would have read the Terms BEFORE checking the box 'I Agree..." I'm sure you would have made a right decision and left the website altogether.

freecreditreport.com, and others like it, are 3rd party companies having the same capabilities as yourself as far as obtaining your credit reports & score. The difference is freecreditreport makes their money off unsuspecting individuals banking on the fact that 98% of these consumers WON'T bother to review the Terms & Conditions. The other 2% will realize that if a website is offering a 'free' service BUT asking for credit card information anyway, will move on and obtain their free report & score directly from one of the three main credit bureaus.

knowingly** not knowing

The EXACT same thing happened to me. Do not even bother calling their customer service line, they will tell you that you knowing clicked to see your 3 Bureau Credit Report, which you probably never even saw, and that you knew it would cost 31.95. The customer service people will then try to trick you into admitting that the charges are valid. I was on a 3 way call with my credit card and their customer service rep. I finally told him I was done talking to him (the freecreditscore.com rep), he "hung up, " but was really still on the line trying to listen to my private conversation with MY BANK. My Chase rep told me to not say anything and told him to get off the line. He finally did. I am disgusted. I have filed a complaint with the BBB, and disputed the charges with my credit card.

Dear Lenard,

Thank you for your helpful email. There are two issues that were not addressed. The first of which is that I cancelled my membership within the allotted trial period, yet was still charged for the next month. Secondly, it is a poor business practice to not more formally disclose to your customers that there is a charge associated with a service. When I called in about this, the CSR said that they would refund $10 of this charge, which never happened.

I can show you screenshots that when you first sign up for the freecreditscore.com service, there is basically no warning that ordering these reports costs 24.95. It is only after you are a member, that it is more obvious that this service costs additional moneys.

Lastly, your email response to me was a form email, not personally written to me. This suggests that I must be one of many writing to complain about this and will search the internet. In the very least, I will post my story to make sure that others do not fall victim to these deceptive business practices.

Thanks for your time,
stefan

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: support@freecreditscore.com
To:
Subject: Re: Customer Care and Billing Issues
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:25:16 -0500

Dear :

Thank you for writing, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

According to our records, you recently ordered either a 3-Bureau report and/or Plus Credit Score for $24.95 from our website FreeCreditReport.com, viewable for 30 days. The product you purchased is not included as part of the membership. It is a separate item available at an additional charge. When you authorized us to obtain that product from one of the credit bureaus, they charged us for delivery of that information.

Further review of our records indicates we mailed the product you ordered to the email address we have on file for you and that it was accessible to you on FreeCreditReport.com as of March 10, 2010. As we delivered the product you ordered successfully, and as it was accessible for the specified 30 days, we are unable to grant your request for a refund.

Thank you for being a member of FreeCreditScore.com.

Sincerely,

Lenard Albert B.
Customer Care Team

--- Original Message ---
From: >
Received: 3/30/2010 9:09:31 AM Central Standard Time (GMT - 5:00 )
To:
Subject: Customer Care and Billing Issues

To whom it may concern,

I saw the link for your service while shopping for homes. I followed the link and signed up for the service. While signing up, I was offered to print my credit score, which seemed like an excellent option. I followed this option and did receive a pdf printout of my scores. A few days later, a charge of 24.95 showed up on my credit card. I phoned to inquire about this within my trial period and was told that I would have clicked on something accepting a 24.95 charge to print this out. As a physician, I pay very close attention to detail and can assure you that there is no such warning or indication that while choosing the service of printing out the credit scores that would one would incur a 24.95 charge. I then asked my account to be cancelled and was told that it would be done so immediately and I would accrue no further charges. However, in checking my card now, I was charged for another month's service on the same day as my trial ended and though I had already cancelled.

As a company involved in billing and finance, there seem to be very suspect practices going on at freecreditscore.com. I am about to phone my credit card company to have this charge investigated and removed given that I cancelled during my free trial period and was specifically told that I would incur no further charges. Moreover, pending what happens now, this company has lost me as a future client when these services would become useful to me.

I hope that someone will take the time to respond to this as am hugely disappointed by the way that freecreditscore.com has acted.

Sincerely,

I wanted to find out my credit score so I made the mistake of checking out the "free" 8 day trial on freecreditreport.com. I was one day late of canceling my trial, so I paid $14.95 for the months membership. I accept full responsibility for that charge as it was entirely my fault for not canceling. I received a confirmation number stating that after the month was over, I was no longer liable to pay a fee and my membership would be canceled. I figured I would at least try and look at my report since I had already become a member for 1 month. The tab to read the reports read "Click here to check your reports" so I did and thought all was ok. Two days later, freecreditscore.com charged me $29.99 because I opened the tab to view my credit reports! I did not authorize that charge on my credit card, did not get a warning that I was going to be charged $29.99, all I did was click a tab and boom, $30 charged on my American Express! I want to warn everyone NOT to sign up for the free trial, it is misleading and bad business. Freecreditreport.com is also affiliated with freecreditscore.com so beware of both sites!

Worst company ever. Scam is in the name, the more you say free does not reduce the hidden price of 30$. Theirs no conformation that they are going to charge you either. Representives were rude, and attempted to dismiss me multiple times. Over all a terrible expierance.

They are a total Scam. I ordered my FREE CREDIT REPORT and then...when the screen popped up - they had charged me $31.95. I will never use this site again. Buyer beware!

I also have been charged for the 3 credit reports and did not see there was an additional $24.95 charge for this I also canceled me membership on the 7th day of the 7 day 'free' trial but was still charged $14.95 that month, it took 20 minutes on the phone to get the $14.95 credited back in 7-10 business days. I believe I could have missed some type of fine print about the charge to see all 3 reports but this company is still not deserving of part of my paycheck. I will not do this again.

I try to contact them to cancel my membership, and the 2 numbers they post on internet are not working. Anyone has a working number of this site ?

My complaint with this horrid company has nothing to do with the fact that they charge. I was glad to pay the monthly fee for what I THOUGHT was an accurate representation of my credit score. I confidently applied for a loan recently because I had been diligently checking my credit score with this service. Imagine my shock when I was told by the lender than my credit score was a full EIGHTY (80) points less than what this service was reporting to me. The lender said the score was provided by guess whom, EXPERIAN. So it made absolutely no sense to me. I gave them a call and they cheerfully said..."The score we report is a PLUS score, there are all different kinds." So I asked why isn't it called "freepluscreditscore.com"?! I promptly canceled and I DARE them to charge me another dime. DARE!

The score I got was 100 points off. Even the credit score is false. There is no way they are legit. I checked with the 3 major credit dept. and they all had about the same score. Check freecreditscore.com and it shows a score that is 100 points higher. Interesting. Thought they worked with the 3 companies.
If you don't have the money in your account for them to charge they will try it everyday till it goes through.

I was told that my membership with freecreditscore.com was canceled, as I called within the nine days; however, it wasn't and I was charged $14.95. I called today to cancel again and now we will see what they do.

I was also charged the 29.95 and it does not appear that I can get it back. What a rip-off

My name is Tracey Mitchell and I Got identity hawk and free credit score on March 28, 2011. I soon discovered that both programs were not what I intended and I subsequently cancelled my account via a live representative. I was assured at that time that my account was indeed cancelled. However to my surprise, I have discovered that my credit card account was debited on April 1, 2011. I'm highly upset regarding this matter and believe that fraudulent practices are involved. I would like for this situation be rectified immediately and my account credit with a refund. Your prompt attention is this serious matter would be greatly appreciated. I will be following this e-mail with a telephone call with a live operator first thing Monday morning. This is very serious and I'm very upset with these developments.

Tracey Mitchell

If there is a class action lawsuit I would like to be a party to this, because they scammed
me also.

I was prompted on mint.com to check my credit score. I was to be given a free credit report and then charged $12.95 if I did not cancel in 7 days. I cancelled 20 minutes later, but was charged $29.95 as they said I upgraded my account. I believe this is 100% fraudulant. When I called, they said that I had indeed upgraded and refunded me 1/2 of the cost without question. This is extremely fraudulant as I never upgraded anything.

Those sites are scams and should be avoided! So sorry this happened to you. :( Always use the site I supplied above and report these others to the Federal Trade Commission.

They did the same to me and I NEVER requested any Credit Report from any of these companies! Never!

They also charged my account 3 times in the same month using the number of my new Check Card (got it 3 weeks ago), I just contacted my bank and requested a New Card. I am not sure how they got my card information...

Also not sure how they are doing this but I got 2 unauthorized transactions from CREDITSCORE.com and 1 from FREECREDITSCORE.COM in the same month...

I will prosecute Them tomorrow!

If you live in the US you can get you credit score once a year for free, it's a federal law. Follow these instructions.
Q: How do I order my free report?
A: The three nationwide consumer reporting companies have set up a central website, a toll-free telephone number, and a mailing address through which you can order your free annual report.

To order, visit annualcreditreport.com, call [protected], or complete the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA [protected]. The form is on the back of this brochure; or you can print it from ftc.gov/credit. Do not contact the three nationwide consumer reporting companies individually. They are providing free annual credit reports only through annualcreditreport.com, [protected], and Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA [protected].

You may order your reports from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies at the same time, or you can order your report from each of the companies one at a time. The law allows you to order one free copy of your report from each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies every 12 months.

This is what happened to me and I never, I said NEVER requested a credit report from any of these companies.

They also charged my account 3 times in the same month using the number of my new Check Card (got it 3 weeks ago), I just contacted my bank and requested a New Card. I am not sure how they got my card information... but I got 2 unauthorized transactions from CREDITSCORE.com and 1 from FREECREDITSCORE.COM in the same month...

I will prosecute Them tomorrow!

P.S.
I just checked the whois database for both domains and they all show the same info, summarizing, same owners:

Consumerinfo.com, Inc. - DNSAdmin@consumerinfo.com
18500 Von Karman
Irvine, CA 92612
Phone: [protected]

The same thing happened to me signed up for the "free" trial, called and canceled it after 3 days. The CSR told me that I would not be charged, then the next day I was charged 32.61. I called and had to speak to 2 people and a manager to get a refund which I still have not seen. This website is a COMPLETE SCAM BEWARE.

I also called for the free trial period. 4 days after I started my 9 day trial my card was charged 29.95 plus the 1 dollars that was to start the trial period. I only agreed to the 1 dollar charge til I was sure about it but ended up paying the total of 30.95 which in returned caused me to have insufficient fund that I was counting on. After cancelling my trial period 4 days into it they assured me that my card would be refunded. This cancellation was activated march 19th 2011 but I still have not seen any refund of my money. What can be done my money limited as it is.

I had signed up for the "free trial" for freecreditscore.com, only to realize it's not "free". I was charged like $2. Not a big deal there, but the real scam starts when I called to cancel my trial, of course they tried to upsell to me, I denied any offer, but the CSR offered me a free month, which at the end of the free month, my membership would be canceled automatically, so I took it. This was not true, for I was charged $14.95 for another month. I called them back to find out why they did that, and to get a refund. They told me that it was not canceled. I told them what the CSR had told me, and they had no explanation for that, and said that the money could not be refunded. Anyways, long story short, this web site is bogus, its a scam, and I would recommend that NOBODY even sign up for the "free trial".

This is what happened to me and I never, I said NEVER requested a credit report from any of these companies.

They also charged my account 3 times in the same month using the number of my new Check Card (got it 3 weeks ago), I just contacted my bank and requested a New Card and of course cancelled all these unauthorized transactions. I am not sure how they got my card information... but I got 2 unauthorized transactions from CREDITSCORE.com and 1 from FREECREDITSCORE.COM in the same month...

My bank said that they had many similar cases this month and these folks use others websites as well. They are having the same problems here, in the UK and many other places. They usually charge $14.95 and most of the cases you never requested it.

All I know is that I will prosecute Them tomorrow!

P.S.
I just checked the whois database for both domains and they all show the same info, summarizing, same owners:

Consumerinfo.com, Inc. - DNSAdmin@consumerinfo.com
18500 Von Karman
Irvine, CA 92612
Phone: [protected]

how about the fact you had to give a credit card - that should have been a red flag in itself. shame on you.

I asked for the $1.00 7 day free trial to get my credit score and they proceeded to charge me $29.95 and I did not obt for that service. I only agreed to $1.00 and once I saw my credit score I called and cancelled the 7 day free trial and I knew it cost me $1.00 but they told me I had been charged for the upgrade of $29.95 which I did not request. There was a place I checked No Thanks when it was offered as I did not want that service. I was told by the people that they could not refund the charge even thought I had cancelled my 7 day free trial and they would not refund me my money. I did not want this service and did not ask for it. They are trully ripping people off as I have seen this from others on this site. Can you help?

Tried the 9 day free trial and pulled up my credit reports. the website claims you can view your reports for free. I was charged $24.95 to view my credit reports. When I called to see why I was charged I was directed to one of those infamous "boiler rooms". I was told they charge that fee to view your reports. They did cancel my trial membership but my money is gone.

I was quoted $1 then charged $29.95 which I did not authorize!

My name is Tracey Mitchell and I purchased identity hawk and free credit score on March 28, 2011. I soon discovered that both programs were not what I intended and I subsequently cancelled my account via a live representative. I was assured at that time that my account was indeed cancelled. However to my surprise, I have discovered that my credit card account was debited on April 1, 2011. I'm highly upset regarding this matter and believe that fraudulent practices are involved. I would like for this situation be rectified immediately and my account credit with a refund. Your prompt attention is this serious matter would be greatly appreciated. I will be following this e-mail with a telephone call with a live operator first thing Monday morning. This is very serious and I'm very upset with these developments. Thanking you in advance for your prompt resolution in this matter,

Tracey Mitchell

I am a freecreditscore.com member and value the service. What you're saying doesn't make any sense b/c freecreditscore costs $14.95 per month after the trial. It does way more than just tell me my score.

I looked into it and you probably signed up for FreeScore.com. That's the one that offers 3 scores and is $19.95. I'm a bit of a stickler, so if you're going to complain, make sure you know the name of the company you're complaining about, FreeScore.com.

annual credit report . com is the real website for the free one.
annualcreditreport.com

please complain that the name is misleading.

yet there was something on screen showing you their site is "not free" despite the name-- so sue them. (or sue yourself for clicking on it anyway)

The Credit Reporting companies have the free one usually somewhere on their homepage (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion) -and you can always get a free one when turned down for credit or once a year.

that might help their misleading choice of name, they should have named the company: CuteCommercialsCreditReport.com that would have been more accurate, less deceptive, and less misleading

Agree, that companies that provide a "free" product or service with enrollment in something should disclose that requirement. Freecreditscore.com does just that. In the same spirit of your post, please see Exhibit A, taken from freecreditscore.com's main page.

Exhibit A:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
When you order your free Credit Score here, you will begin your 7-day trial membership in Triple Advantage®. If you don't cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period*, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership. You may cancel your trial membership anytime within the trial period without charge.

I think that clears things up.