Cory Burell

So cruising CNN this morning I catch the blurb on the attack on “Free Credit Report” websites getting cracked down on by the government. Everyone has seen the guy singing on the roller coaster, singing at the parties, and my personal favorite was the guy singing about his girlfriends bad credit in the basement of his mothers house.

I’m so torn on these commercials for numerous reasons. For one I think it is fantastic that someone in this weird way has brought credit education out. People now hear the word credit and think of their reports and not just a card to swipe. There is a huge complexity within this economic climate when it comes to credit. Joe Scmoe 5 years ago could walk into a store and get a store credit card with a 540 score, numerous inquiries, and 85% utilization. This past climate has brought the credit world to its knees. Defaults, write0-offs, and collection companies are the norm these days. Now you can walk into your hardware or clothing store with a 700 score, 4 inq’s and 20% utilization and be denied. Last week I went on a little app spree since I had an itchy trigger finger after going kona (no apps) for 6 months because of the mortgage process. I have B*’d all my inqs off tu/eq, frozen ex, and my utilization was a 1%. With my scores an app spree should be approval, approval, approval. Now in this climate I reached my 5th app and popped some denials. After getting the notifications I had exceeded allowable inq’s (4 on tu LOL).

Anyways……back to the subject. These companies are an obvious rip off and finally someone has done something about it. If you are intelligent you realize when someone asks you for a credit card number its just not free, but some people just aren’t that smart. You have these poor folks caught in poor economic times being told they can’t get a job, credit, or rent an apartment without great credit. While most of these statements could be considered true they are very well aimed and are probably catching the defenseless left and right.

Basically the scam is you sign up, get your free reports which don’t even present you with an accurate Fico score (fako as its called) which could be 100 pts off either direction, show lil to no accurate information about your credit, and then charge them monthly afterwards for “credit monitoring” for more inaccurate information.

Well the gov’t has stepped in and for once I’m actually in shock of a well aimed gov’t intervention. I mean its always blown my mind that you can’t advertise cigarettes on TV but getting some poor sucker to hand over 100′s of dollars to these scams is ok.

Heres the kicker though. Just like the credit act that went into effect recently these companies are getting a huge buffer to “adjust”. These requirements won’t kick in until 9/10 so you can still check this lies out for another 6 months. Great job on that one. You can scam for another 6 months but after that you’ll have to put a disclaimer up that its not really free lol. I would have thought after the backlash of the credit act the people in DC would be slightly more aware of how people get screwed harder and harder. You think people were expecting rate jacking/closures because of an act that was meant to protect the consumer? Nope, but when you give months to devise ways around laws you should.

Right now my prediction is that the companies boost monthly rates from 19.99+ to 39.99+ to “monitor” your credit. AWESOME for those poor people who need protection now.

On a side note people if you want to check your reports hit me up. I’ve got codes for 30% off of www.myfico.com. This is one of the few sites that will give you more accurate info on your credit+real tu/eq fico scores. You can no longer buy a EX fico score so if someone says you can they are full of crap and you need to run. Also fyi the actual free reporting site is www.annualcreditreport.com . You receive a free report every year thanks to uncle sam or you can send a request to ex/tu/eq based on categories like credit denial and receive a free paper copy.

And on that note everyone have a happy safe Easter holiday weekend.