People are breaking their necks to get their credit checked. AS IF we all don't know if we have good credit. Take this simple test: Do you pay your bills? Then you have good credit!
But if you're really hung up on finding out, by all means, go to these websites, enter your name, home address, social security number, charge acct. numbers, mortgage data and significant debts. Send all that off to some website of unknown provenance, and count on the people at the other end evaluating you as a credit risk. For free! Because surely, these people are not interested in making money off this, and they don't have to worry about their own credit ratings. So, why not send in every iota of personal information to them?
What could go wrong?
It reminds me of the car and truck commercials we hear, touting some Plymouth dealer who buys cars from the factory and then sells them "below factory invoice!" So we are to believe that these altruistic automotive entrepreneurs buy a Sport Fury from the factory for $20,000, say, and sell it to you for $17,999 because they like you so darn much! And then when you go to the car lot and talk to the salesperson, asking how they can make any money selling cars for less than they paid for them, the answer comes back, "We make it up in volume!"So if they lose a couple thousand on every single car, they make it up by losing a couple Gs on a couple dozen cars?
Math majors, help us out here!
1 comment:
Back when we were in the throes of various real estate transactions I actually did freecreditreport.com. They're the outfit whose commercials feature the folksy band that plays the company's bluegrass-style jingle in various unexpected venues. (Haven't seen them in a while, come to think of it.) They did as advertised, gave us our credit reports from all three services, for free. Then I noticed a mysterious $12 monthly charge on my credit card statement. Turned out freecreditreport.com was doing a monthly check "just to make sure no odd changes happened to your credit rating," and charging us $12 for their vigilance. Small print in the original agreement, doncha know. Once this was explained to me I immediately told them to cancel the service. I was transferred to the "retention" department. I had to endure a sales pitch which tried to convince me of the dangers of going without the constant vigilance of freecreditreport.com. I told them to put a cork in it and cancel. They did. I'd do it again if I needed to, and simp;y immediately cancel the monthly service, now that I know that's the deal.
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