1. Freecreditscore.com advertises a "free" credit report, however when you go online to order your "free" report you
ARE REQUIRED to sign up for a trial membership (see below, exhibit A). Although they state you may cancel,
they're BANKING on you forgetting, at least for a month's worth of fees, and last time I checked that didn't denote
free. Did Merriam Webster misdefine "free" or have the customer service reps at freecreditscore.com drank the
kool-aid? The reps are extremely defensive!

Exhibit A:
When you order your free Score here, you will begin your trial membership in Triple Advantage. If you don't cancel your membership within 9 days, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership. You can cancel your membership by contacting us at any time and stop the monthly billing; however, you will not be eligible for a pro-rated refund of your current month's paid membership fee.

2. Should you choose to dispute the charges, good luck, they've taken you for your money & you're not getting it back!

3. Guess who is the mother company for Freecreditscore.com, you had to see this one coming? (see below, Exhibit B)
You may be surprised that one of the 3 Credit Bureaus, Experian, owns Freecreditscore.com and take a look at
their other internet properties.

Exhibit B:
an Experian® company, Call Us Toll-Free: 1-877-300-2506
Internet properties include FreeCreditReport.comSM, FamilySecure.comSM, Affiliate Fuel, ClassesUSA.com®, PriceGrabber.com® and LowerMyBills.com®.

4. Yes, while it is true that Freecreditscore.com is not a credit bureau, they are owned by one of the credit bureaus,
Experian (see their statement below in Exhibit C about not being able to forward your dispute correspondence to
"the" credit bureau. Wow, not even yourself, if you're the reporting entity? They make this statement, almost as
if "they" have no knowledge of how to contact either of the 3 bureaus! Transparency please, you're ONE of them!

Exhibit C:

Report Disputes
Please be aware that FreeCreditScore.com is not a credit bureau and cannot accept correspondence in regards to credit report disputes, security alerts, or credit report freezes. We are also unable to forward correspondence to the credit bureau.

It makes you wonder, why do reputable news outfits (i.e. The Today Show's, Jean Chatzsky and other financial experts) advertise for a company with such questionable business practices? As the rep at their toll-free number extolled, "we are a for-profit business, Maam!" Well of course you are, you just advertise one of your resources as "free" when it should be, if you are an ethical business, "free when you sign-up for a trial membership at $14.95 per month!" I'm just saying! The mere questioning of their business practice, incenses their customer service reps.

signed up for $1.00 credit check and keep being billed for 19.95 and have never been able to check credit score to this day.

Set up a "free" 7-day trial with FreeCreditScore.com. After setting up my free trial, I decided to order a copy of my 3-bureau credit report with scores from all three for $24.95 (I was considering doing a mortgage refi, but wanted to check my scores, etc. first before contacting a lender).

* First problem: the site only allowed me to view the three credit scores, but not the three credit reports, so I called FreeCreditScore.com's customer service. I was told by the gentleman that there "is a problem with our website" and that I should check back in 24 hours.

* Second problem: Twenty-four hours goes by, they've debited my bank account for the $24.95, however I still have NO access to the three credit reports, just the three scores.

* Third problem: In the meantime, I contact a lender regarding doing a refi, he completes the application, runs my credit, etc. At this point I find out that my ACTUAL CREDIT SCORES (from the report the lender pulled) are approximately 40 points LOWER than what is being reported by the FreeCreditScore.com website for the SAME credit reporting agencies. So, now it looks like I may not even qualify for the refi, even though I would have had the scores been what FreeCreditScore.com is reporting.

* Fourth problem: I call customer service again, this time to demand a refund of my $24.95 since 1) I still have not received the three credit reports and 2) their credit scores are completely inaccurate. I speak with a pleasant woman who first of all tells me she thinks this is MY computer's fault (um... really?) and that I should wait an additional 24 hours and check back (really? for an instant service in today's world I need to wait 48 hours??). Next, when I demand to have my money refunded and my trial service cancelled, she states that she can only refund $10.00. At this point, I ask to speak to someone who can refund my entire $24.95. She places me on hold, and when she comes back she states that they will refund the full amount, but it will take 7-10 days (hmmmm... took them less than 24 hours to debit my bank account for it, but a week or more to refund it? lame). She then attempts to "sell" me on the benefits of paying for a full membership to the site, which, by the way, she will give me for 50% off the regular price (are 'ya kidding me???). I declined.

In summary: BEWARE! Even if you sign up for the free trial just to view your credit score, it's probably not accurate anyway, so don't even waste your time.

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.

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: [email protected]
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: <[email protected]>
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,