Why Pay FreeCreditReport.com, When You Can Get AnnualCreditReport For Free?

July 25th, 2007 Davis Posted in Marketing, Search |

Over the last few months, I’ve seen a ton of freecreditreport.com ads on TV and on the net. I’m not sure if there is a seasonality to the credit business or if the ramp up in ads is just a new push by their parent company, Experian, but it’s clearly working. For the month of June, Nielsen Net Ratings estimates that FreeCredit had 3.3 million unique visitors.

On top of the number of unique hits, their average visit was over 9 minutes long. To help put these numbers into perspective, the site was able to generate 3 times as many unique visitors as Google finance and was able to capture 4 times as long of an impression as About.com.

Considering that they charge $40, for all three reports, this looks like a good racket to be in on. What I can’t understand though, is why anyone would pay anything, when the credit agencies are required by law, to provide you with a copy of your report anyway. All you have to do is go to ANNUALcreditreport.com, input your information and in less than five minutes, you’ll have easy access to your credit history. No messy credit card charges, no auto renewal, just one free copy on demand, from each agency, once a year.

When you log into the site, you’ll have the choice of looking at any or all, of the three credit agencies. If you are considering taking out a loan or making a big purchase, I’d definitely check all three. If all you want to do, is keep an eye on your history, instead of paying FreeCreditReport $12.95 to give you unlimited access, set appointments on your calendar, to check a different agency, every four months. This enables you to keep a quasi-close eye on your credit, without having to pay Experian $150 a year, to make sure that they don’t screw up.

If you haven’t checked your credit score in a long time, I’d take advantage of the real free report and make sure that things still look OK. There is a lot of identity theft out there and it’s important to fix things quickly, so that it doesn’t threaten your access to capital in the future. There are also many interesting little details in the report, that make it worth checking out.

When I looked at my most recent report, it was really fascinating to look at all of the different addresses, of places where I’ve lived. In total, they are tracking 23 different locations for me, but I know that they are missing at least 2 places where I lived off the grid. Since I will be moving in 2 weeks, it should put my count at 26 shortly. Some people prefer to stay put in life, but my philosophy has always been that a rolling stone gathers no moss.

While AnnualCreditReport doesn’t get the sexy “free” domain name or the marketing budget of a company like Experian, it is a much smarter way to keep track of what businesses know about you. You may not be able to stop companies from reporting on your every move, but you at least have some rights for making sure they get the details right.