CIC Triple Advantage Complaints - Signed up for service I never received and did not want or need!

421 days ago by Deanr [send email]

This is not an uncommon scenario and as much as we may dislike it (and I DO!), it's not a scam. It's an Internet variation of the old "fine print in the contract" game.

When you visit the FreeCreditReport.Com site to get your free report, there's a nice, bright, large, colorful, eye-catching "Get Yours Now!!" button to get your report and on the side in a hard-to-read, smaller print, blue-on-blue, designed-to-be-overlooked text sidebar are the terms. This lets the company fulfill it's legal requirement to present the terms (and it's far better than the usual asterisk and tiny print method) but maximizes the chances that you won't read the terms. It's not illegal. It's not even really immoral (although I'd certainly agree with the practice being morally ambiguous!) because the terms are right there next to the button. They're just made deliberately hard to notice and read.

Unfortunately, all the posters claiming "I didn't authorize this!" in fact DID authorize the charges by applying for the free report. They just don't realize that they did because they didn't read the terms - and the companies make it deliberately hard to find/read them.

In the Internet Age, we have gotten accustomed to 'quick-clicking' our way around a website and not reading the fine print associated with those clicks. Legally, though, we are electronically signing a contract with those clicks. A smart person will read the entire page, follow links and LOOK for the fine print. How many people have ever read their favorite website's privacy policy? Yet the vast majority of sites tell you right there that they will use your name/address/email to send you advertising and will sell your info to other companies so that they can send you advertising, too! And then people complain about the junk mail/spam.

The point is, folks -LOOK FOR AND READ THE TERMS!! OF EVERYTHING!!! This online game of "Gotcha!" is very common - FreeCreditReport.Com is far from the only company doing business this way. Most of us wouldn't dream of signing a paper contract without reading it all the way through, yet think nothing of clicking merrily away on a website; electronically signing a contract without reading it through. Don't just blame the companies - the consumer is at fault, too. Yes, the fact that your "free credit report" also entails signing up for a credit monitoring service could be much more clearly presented but the bottom line is "Caveat Emptor" - "Let the buyer beware".

Oh, and lest a reader think I'm being holier-than-thou, I learned the hard way about the online "Gotchas!": I ended up paying $180 for a year's site subscription that I didn't want but had legally committed to. That company wouldn't nicely cancel the contract or the charges and the end game was "You clicked, you accepted the deal. You pay."

BTW: You can get your - really and truly free - annual credit report from www.AnnualCreditReport.com. It " is a centralized service for consumers to request free annual credit reports. It was created by the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. AnnualCreditReport.com provides consumers with the secure means to request and obtain a free credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies in accordance with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act)". Check it out!

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CIC Triple Advantage Complaints - Signed up for service I never received and did not want or need!

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