Taking a page from companies advertising free credit reports, a number of firms are now promoting free credit scores, including the company that invented the FICO score:
No disclaimers in the ad. Nothing. Maybe it’s really totally free!
When you click the ad, you are taken to this page on the MyFICO site:
Still no obvious strings. No asterisk after the word “free”. Go ahead and click the picture to see it full size. There, on the bottom is the VERY small disclaimer that reads:
*MOUSE PRINT:
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION: When you order your free FICO Score here, you will begin your 10-day trial membership in Score Watch®. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 10-day trial period, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership. You may cancel your trial membership anytime within the trial period without charge.
The free score is only free when you sign up for a free trial, and if you fail to cancel that free trial within a short 10-days, you will be billed $14.95 monthly.
If you missed that inconspicuous disclosure and click to get your free score, you will be asked to part with a lot of personal information, including your date of birth, social security number, password, and full name and address — all before you are told on a subsequent page that you have to give a credit card number and it will be dinged $14.95 a month if you don’t cancel quickly.
FreeCreditReport.com got better about disclosure after the FTC went after them. And a new consumer law, the CARD Act requires better disclosure in ads promising free credit reports where you are really signing up for a trial of a continuing service. The law does not explicitly extend to offers of free credit scores, however. And therein lies the problem. Though general consumer law would require better disclosure, not until enough complaints get filed against “free score” offers, will disclosure likely improve.
Every four months or so I pull my credit report for free. This can also be a daunting task. As far as a FICO score you can get that any time you apply for credit or – as in my case – have established a solid relationship with my local credit union. I just go in and ask and they do it.
What would they do if I applied, and then used a virtual credit card number with a limit of $1?
They would NOT be able to collect $14.95 and would have to cancel it from their end …
I think any approach that denies them payment after you are told they will be charging you puts you in the hot seat. But they really should be more up front about the recurring charge.
Once again, trickery rules the day!
What the ad should say: Subscribe to Scorewatch (for $14.95/mo) and receive your FICO score as a free gift.
What the ad does say: Get your credit score for free (and oh, by the way, when you sign up to receive your score we’ll also enroll you in Scorewatch for $14.95/mo).
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
A high FICO score is no guarantee you’ll get the lowest credit card rates. If your FICO score falls, they’ll raise your card rate. If it rises, they’ll raise your card $limit but they will *never* lower your rate. Unless you switch cards, you’ll simply end up with a high-rate, high-$limit card. Meanwhile, the FICO people advertise that high FICO scores translate into low interest rates. Don’t you believe it. What a scam.
Yes, another win for virtual credit card numbers. I’d like to see them try to argue that I owe them money for a “free” credit score. “Oh, you signed me up for a trial using fine print. Please go ahead and cancel that for me. Thanks so much.”
To be clear, it’s not a good idea to sign up with a virtual credit card number and then forget about it. You sign up with the virtual credit card number and cancel within the 10 days. Then should the company be ethically challenged and try to charge your card anyway, they can’t. That’s the advantage of the virtual credit card number.