FreeCreditReport.com – Review

FreeCreditReport Review

This is a review of FreeCreditReport.com also known as Triple Advantage.

Pros: Tri merged reports

Cons: No FICO scores, expensive.  Once was a 30-day trial and has been reduced to a 7-day trial.

We’ve all seen the ads and we’ve all heard the jingle, now let’s review the product.  FreeCreditReport.com aka ConsumerInfo.com aka Triple Advantage is owned by Experian, one of the largest credit reporting agencies.  This business is reported larger than $500MM in annual revenue and they boast of their 20 MM consumers you’ve seen their credit report.

How does the product match up?  It’s pretty similar to other monitoring products, which all feature good side by side comparison.  In the video, you can see examples where some tradelines are not captured by all three bureaus, so this is helpful for spotting errors.  The online dispute feature is not, but I don’t usually recommend this, as doing offline dispute letters leads to a better paper trail.

What’s in a Name?

A lot, “free” certainly implies free and it is …for 7 days.  The domain is also eerily similar to the AnnualCreditReport.com website.  I am not sure how the other bureaus really agreed on this.  Experian must benefit from consumers who think FreeCreditReport is the government sanctioned website.

Is it worth the $14.95/month?

I prefer the path of getting all 3 FICO score reports first and then monitoring your Equifax FICO Score via Score Watch.  Why?  Well, let’s do a little math.

• FreeCreditReport.com:  $14.95 * 12 = $179.40
• FICO Complete: $47.84 + Score Watch $8.95 * 12 = $107.40 =$155.24

This is a way to save money and still get your FICO scores.  Of course, AnnualCreditReport.com is always free for the reports but the scores will cost you extra and you won’t get alerts.