There are a few different credit report sites in the vein of www.freecreditreport.com and www.truecredit.com that offer what they advertise as free access to see your credit reports. The truth is the access is not free as much as it may seem at first glance. You, as a user on their sites, will actually have to register with the site and submit your own personal credit card information at the start of your free trial session. If you do not cancel within a certain amount of time, you will get charged for the use of the site. Even though some of these sites are going so far as to put ‘free’ in their domain name, they aren’t really free if you use them for more than 7 days or so.

Whether or not you see this as a scam is in the eye of the beholder. Some people may not have a problem with supplying their credit card information, even if they do so just to use the site for a supposedly free trial. Other people may not want to give out their information. Some people don’t want to give away the information because it is private and they may question the security of web sites in general, but other people are concerned that they may not cancel their trial in time. Some people may inadvertently end up paying for one month (or more!) of the ‘free’ credit report site if they do not pay strict attention to their trial period. Even being just a little bit late to cancel means that you are late and you will have to pay.

Some sites are easier to cancel than others, which can add to the stress of these sites. In some cases, people can simply send an email in order to cancel their membership. Other sites require their customers to call in order to cancel the subscription. These credit report sites may not be attractive to people who don’t feel they need to know their credit status on a consistent basis; for those who do, such sites can save them time and money!

The Federal Trade Commission has made information available on their website which advises that consumers are due a free annual credit report from the three major credit bureaus. This true free credit report site can be found at www.annualcreditreport.com. Keep in mind – the report is only free once every twelve months. If you need your credit report to glance at occasionally just to make sure everything is in order, this is a great option.