Because like many other people I'm thinking about re-financing my home, I decided to get the "free" credit report that I'm ENTITLED TO. After all, it's MY information, right?
Using a link in an article on the CNN page, I went through the process of getting my free credit report from the big three credit companies, TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. You can order a report from each company, but you must register separately for each.
Do you think your CREDIT SCORE should be included in a FREE credit report? I sure thought so, but NONE of the three just GIVE you the number.
Is the credit score only a semi-useful OPTION, not really a necessary part of a credit report? No. It is not. To use TransUnion's own words, cut and pasted from their page..."Your credit score is an essential part of your finances."
This tiny number, which I NEED to know, the ONE number that REALLY tells me where I stand, a number that requires NO effort to provide to me, is dangled in front of my face like a doggy treat - making me beg for MY OWN INFORMATION.
That's right folks, an ESSENTIAL part of MY FINANCES.
So basically, they are giving me a crippled version of my credit report, and only by paying can I get the information I really need. It's like buying a car, then finding out that the KEY that starts the car costs extra for all the heavy lifting involved in handing it to me.
TransUnion charges $7.95
Experian charges $4.95
Equifax charges $7.95
Now even I am not so naive to think that the numbers of the big three will all be the same - even though they should all have access to the SAME information. And of course they're not.
I am going to pay for MY information, because the free report I am entitled to by law is useless without it. These companies, used by every major lender in the country have me (and you) by the throat, and what we don't know can hurt us.
Although this complaint is directed at ALL of the big three credit reporting companies, (accessed via www.freecreditreport.com) I single out Equifax's process as the most unpleasant due to the amazing slowness of their website. Plus, once I had jumped through all their hoops I was rewarded with an error screen that told me they could NOT provide me with my credit report due to some sort of problem - a fraud alert, or I was in the military, or some sort of freeze on the account - it wasn't specified.
I spent 30 full minutes on hold (via a secret customer service number 866-640-2273 that I got from www.gethuman.com, a site listing phone numbers and methods for bypassing automated hold systems of major companies) before being helped by a friendly enough customer service rep. I was told to go directly to Equifax's home page and log in under the name and password created during the session. Easy enough, but I got no answer why the website locked up the info, or why that fix wasn't listed on the error page.
Once on Equifax's site I got the info, but trying to print up the report choked my computer or printer, REPEATEDLY. After numerous re-boots and attempts to paste the info into MS Word. I tried to print ONE PAGE AT A TIME, and that worked (except a lot of the graphics were stripped out).
What I really hate is that we have to pay these companies to find out what they know, (or THINK they know) about us. This is not right.
Your free credit report is NOT FREE!
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