 "Get your free credit reports!"
"Free credit reports from all three credit reporting agencies!"
"Three credit reports in one!"
Sound familiar? It is true that you can get a copy of your free credit reports, but where?
When faced with this question, most people would
instantly google the keyword "free credit report." Though, that would
only result in 150 million different websites links all purportedly
offering free credit reports.
Now, the question is: Are they really free?
How do you know they're not actually phisher
sites that are out to scam you by making it appear that they are
legitimate websites offering free credit reports? Only to find later on
that they've been using the "free credit report" bait to lure you in so
they can steal information from you.
After getting the information from you, they will
then sell it to third party scammers and con artists who will use them
for who-knows-what sort of crimes, including identity theft.
The reality of the matter is that there is only
one legitimate website that offers free credit reports to consumers.
And that is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - approved
AnnualCreditReport.com.
The Real Deal
Most Americans don't know this but the US
Congress has passed an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or
FCRA for short. The law itself was passed in 2004 but the clause on
free credit reports being made available to the public was only added
recently.
Essentially, the amendment contains a provision
that permits every citizen of the United States to get one free copy of
their credit report from each of the three main credit reporting
agencies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
So far, the website offers free credit reports to
consumers in the western, Midwestern, and Southern states of the US
only. As to why this is so, the reason given was so that the crush of
traffic may be rolled out and to avoid taxing the free credit report
site server too much.
If you do not live in the Midwestern states, you
can also check the time table provided as to when free credit reports
are going to be available for your state. Those in the Northeast, for
instance, had their copies available in September 2005.
What You Need to Know Before Ordering a Free Credit Report
In order to get your copy of your free credit
report, the AnnualCreditReport.com will need the following sensitive
information from you:
- Name
- Address
- Social Security Number (generally no more than the last four digits)
- Date of Birth
All these will be used only to verify your
identity and to protect you from any identity thieves posing as you so
they could get copies of your credit reports.
The procedure is fairly simple and takes only
minutes to finish. Remember to order your free credit report only from
the AnnualCreditReport.com to make sure that the copy is really free.
Do not try to order directly from the credit reporting agencies as they
may charge you for your credit report.
Note that you can only get a copy of your free
credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com once every 12 months. For
other sources of credit reports, you can check any of the three major
credit reporting agencies.
These agencies are in fact private companies so
they may charge a small fee when you request them for a copy of your
report. The only exceptions are if you:
- Have been denied credit in the past 60 days
- Are unemployed
- Are on welfare
- Believe your credit report contains inaccurate information due to fraud
FTCs Consumer Alert on Fake Credit Report Sites
The FTC has released an alert in response to a
recent wave of free credit report scams to hit the Internet. Consumers
are advised to be wary of credit report sites that turn out to be fake
sites using high-tech scam called "phishing."
A phisher site is one that imitates a legitimate
web page, copying all its contents including its logo and identifying
marks, in order to fool people into believing that they are accessing
the real site only to be sorry afterwards.
The phisher site will generally be a log in page or will contain a form which a user is encouraged to fill up.
After getting the user's details, the site will
re-route the information to a third party server that stores all these
illegally procured data to be sold later on to identity thieves,
scammers, and con artists.
Sometimes, phisher sites are introduced to a consumer through spam mails that contain links to these phisher sites.
Other times, these phisher sites are accessed
through a clever mix of techno-babble, employing malware such as
spyware and browser-hijackers, so that when a user types in the URL of
the real website, the malware will pick up on this and re-route you to
the phisher site.
There are so many ways that you can get
victimized by phisher sites purporting to offer you free credit reports
only to turn out to be no more than fertile grounds for scammers to
defraud you. Follow these tips provided by the FTC to fight against
these insidious individuals:
- If you get an
email credit report, do not reply or click on the link, if any.
Instead, contact the company by phone, or visit a website you know to
be genuine.
- Never take credit report emails at face value. Apply a healthy dose of skepticism every time you open your mailbox.
- Be cautious of email coming from a domain other .com.
- You
can check whether a company's phone number and address are valid by
using websites like Switchboard.com or Anywho.com. These sites provide
tools to verify phone numbers and addresses.
- Misspellings
and grammatical errors are dead give-aways of scam sites. Look at the
company's web address. Sometimes, scammers use a misspelled version of
a legitimate company's name to visually fool you.
- Be aware of links that re-direct you to a different web address.
- Check sites like Whois.com to find out who the owner of the site is.
- Websites
that ask for unnecessary personal information, such as your PIN for
your bank account, 3-digit code at the back of your credit card, or any
passport information.
- Don't
panic, if the website asks for additional piece of information for
verification purposes. All legitimate sites will respond this way to
avoid giving a copy of your credit report to a third party.
- You
will know if the website is secure if it displays the lock icon on
the browser's status bar. Furthermore, "https//" in the URL also means
the site is secure.
- Always watch your mailbox and credit card statements for any unauthorized charges on your account.
If you have fallen victim or stumbled upon any of
the illegal activities above-mentioned or any other suspicious
activity, do report it to the FTC and the US Secret Service.
If you have a copy of the actual spam, you can
send it to the Los Angeles Electronic Crimes Task Force at (remove the
spaces) LA.ECTF.reports @ usss.dhs.gov and to the FTC at uce @ ftc.gov.
More Tips on Free Credit Report Scams
There have been reports of consumers receiving
emails purporting to be coming from AnnualCreditReport.com. The website
does not actively seek out consumers and invite them to order their
free credit reports online.
In fact, the FTC strongly cautions against
ordering credit reports online as this may raise the risk of having
someone steal your details.
Though, if you find that the convenience of
getting your free credit report online far outweighs the risks
involved, then follow these tips to avoid becoming an identity theft
victim or victim of any other fraudulent acts:
- Do not use
publicly accessible computer when ordering credit reports. Do so only
if you are totally sure that there are existing sufficient safeguards
to prevent information theft.
- Watch
out for "shoulder surfers." These are people who watch or even
photograph the information you enter on a computer in a public place.
- Do
not store any of your sensitive information on the computer, even if
you only do it for the time being and delete it afterwards. The
software used by hackers and spammers are very high-tech and have the
capabilities of stealing information as soon as they are entered.
- Your
right to get copies of free credit reports does not include a necessity
to purchase or subscribe to any services. You may opt to do so, but you
are not required to spend money to exercise your right to a free credit
report.
- Be careful when you
type in the address of the website. Even one mistyped letter can take
you to a fraudulent website run by hackers and scammers.
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