Just saw a (horribly produced) ad last night for freetriplescore.com, the latest in a long string piece of crap “free” credit score sites. As Chris Walters noted when he wrote about it, for the most part it’s a ripoff. But maybe there’s a way to pull a fast one of you own and get a free credit score…

In the middle of a chunk of smaller print explainer next to the signup page, you learn that their name should really be FreeTripleScoreForSevenDays. The deal is you get charged $1 to make sure your credit card works, then you get your credit score from all three bureaus. Starting on or after a 7-day trial, you get charged a $29.95 monthly membership fee for continuous access to your credit score.

So if you cancel ahead of time, you really can get your scores for free. They’re of course banking on most people forgetting to cancel. At least then it says you can cancel at any time. I wasn’t able to find any online complaints from people saying they had difficulty canceling. I would still check my credit card bills afterwards to make sure they didn’t somehow forget to stop billing me… anyone who advertises something as “free” when it so very isn’t should not be trusted.

There’s also a few less “dangerous” ways to get a free credit score or something like it. CreditKarma.com gives you roughly your TransUnion score for free. MyFico offers an estimator as well. Here’s 4 other ways to do it, too.

APPENDIX:

The important part of the FreeTripleScore text:

To activate your trial membership to Privacy Matters 1-2-3 you will be charged/debited a $1.00 refundable processing fee and then you can immediately take advantage of the exciting savings Privacy Matters 1-2-3 has to offer! After your 7-day FREE trial period it’s just $29.95 per month for Privacy Matters 1-2-3. Remember, you can call Privacy Matters 1-2-3 toll-free at 1-877-993-6264 within the first 7 days to cancel, and you will not be charged/debited.

The ad:

PREVIOUSLY: FreeTripleScore.com Will Cost You $30 Per Month

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