Free Lunch

In this day and age something for nothing is almost too good to be true. When I was in college the bar across from my dorm offered free lunch. Two things were wrong. The lunch was usually so salt intensive that you had to drink. And the beer was most assuredly not free.

So I was somewhat skeptical when I found out that you and I can access our complete credit history for free.
This happened because the big credit report company Exprerian tried to use an old scam called Bait and switch. They promised a free credit report then ended up charging thousands of people $79.95 for free reports. Our Government caught them so now three of the big credit reporting firms owe all of us a free report.

You can get yours at annualcreditreport.com. It’s a process that will take about ten minutes and when I did it I met with varying degrees of success. You can order free reports from Experian, Equifax and Transunion. You will be offered all sorts of extra services costing more at all of them. Just say no.

I got on the Equifax site right away. And it was pretty accurate; it just didn’t know the right name of the company I work for now.

Transunion wanted all sorts of id. It took me about 10 minutes to get past those questions at one point getting a message that if I gave one more wrong answer I would be spanked. Transunion had me working for some company I did work for but that was seven years ago. They also had my birth date wrong but everything else was aok, as the astronauts used to say.

The credit reporting company that started this whole deal? Experian? Their website was down. No doubt that Million smackers that they had to pay to settle the charges has cut into the web site repair fund.

If you do this, and you should, be aware that a thousand and one thieves are lurking out there. There are imposter sites with sound alike names abounding. Type carefully. You can get to the site from the government’s web site , www.ftc.gov.com, or use www.annualcreditreort.com or call them on the phone. 877 322 8228.

It’s something for nothing.

And it’s not a free lunch.