Dear Liz: Why are companies allowed to advertised “free credit scores” when they’re not really free? They want you to give them a credit card number, then charge you a dollar, and if you don’t call them within seven days to cancel they will charge you $14.95 a month for a credit monitoring service. That’s not free.
Answer: No, it’s not, but these companies profit from people’s confusion about scores.
Many people think we have a right to a free credit score, but we don’t. What we have is a federally mandated right to see our credit reports, which are different from our credit scores. Reports list your credit accounts, whether you’ve paid on time and whether you have negative public records, such as a bankruptcy or foreclosure. Credit scores are three-digit numbers compiled from those reports, but your scores aren’t a part of your reports. The only place to get your free credit reports is http://www.annualcreditreport.com.
If you’re being offered a free score, it’s almost certainly got strings attached like the ones you described, or the score isn’t the FICO score commonly used by lenders.
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