Pages

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

A Free Credit Report With No Strings Attached. Honest

The word “free” appears in super-sized letters a couple of times at the top of TransUnion’s website. Consumers, the company says, can get their credit score free with just a couple of clicks and also get a credit report for the low, low price of $1. To fully appreciate this bargain, it’s important that you ignore the much smaller text near the bottom of the page. It tells consumers they will be enrolled in a credit subscription service that costs $17.95 per month unless they actively cancel the “trial” within a week. TransUnion is not alone here. The big credit bureaus, including Equifax (EFX) and Experian (EXPN), have been using the lure of a “free” credit report to coax consumers into these subscription services for a long time.
On Wednesday, startup Credit Karma began offering a full credit report that is truly free. It is letting consumers pull a free report once a week, if they so choose. After you sign up, there’s no pricey subscription service to cancel or onslaught of nagging e-mails to delete. “Getting your credit report has been a bit of an antagonistic process,” says Ken Lin, the chief executive officer and founder of Credit Karma. “Our goal is to make things easier so that it’s three clicks and you’re done.”
Founded in 2007, Credit Karma made a name for itself by offering consumers a free look at their credit score and then layering easy-to-digest information around that data point. It would tell consumers where they stack up against other people, plus ways they might improve their credit score. The company analyzed the data of all its users and occasionally presented them with offers for credit cards or auto insurance plans. The hope was that Credit Karma’s smarts would save consumers and businesses time and money by finding them good matches. The plan has worked well enough for Credit Karma to pull in more than 25 million users, turn a profit, and bring in “hundreds of millions in revenue” this year, according to Lin.
Moving from providing a free score to a full report is the latest ploy to reach even more consumers. Credit Karma is, in fact, paying TransUnion for the reports and then funneling them to consumers for free. The more people Credit Karma can sign up, the more offers it can show and the more money it can make taking a tiny cut of whatever deals it closes. “We make a lot less per user than the credit bureaus,” says Lin. “But you can build great services by being more innovative and get to a big company approach without having those large margins.”
Thanks to federal regulations, consumers in the U.S. can receive one free credit report per year from the three major bureaus through AnnualCreditReport.com. What Credit Karma is proposing is more of a continuous service in which consumers get their reports a few times per year while learning techniques to improve their scores. The better their scores, the better offers they receive from lenders and insurance companies. “Our goal is to get you to the site when it matters,” says Lin.
Vance_190
Vance is a technology writer for Bloomberg Businessweek in Palo Alto, Calif. Follow him on Twitter@valleyhack.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for your writing .The blog idea too follow able . get free credit report

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are Equifax is provided to you free of charge, is supplied by Experian, and equi.However, you need to pull manually each from the website of each company.In addition, you will need to go through the ordering process as if they purchased the product from the site, but you do not need to enter your billing information of this free ($ 0.00) transactions.

    http://www.freecreditscoreimprove.co.uk ,

    http://www.freecreditscorereportonline.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  3. online free credit score uk Check this kind of inaccurate information, are reported in your credit bureau, it has been deleted it from your credit report. This alone, there is a possibility that a major impact on your credit score.
    http://www.freecreditscorecheckuk.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  4. Packers and Movers bangalore http://packersmoversbangalorein.com/

    Packers and Movers chennai http://packersmoversbangalorein.com/packers-and-movers-chennai.php


    Packers and Movers delhi http://packersmoversbangalorein.com/packers-and-movers-delhi.php


    Packers and Movers hyderabad http://packersmoversbangalorein.com/packers-and-movers-hyderabad.php


    Packers and Movers kolkata http://packersmoversbangalorein.com/packers-and-movers-kolkata.php


    Packers and Movers mumbai http://packersmoversbangalorein.com/packers-and-movers-mumbai.php

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kurt Warner returned under center a while back. He was intercepted 3 times and sacked four . Visit arfplayer.com page and Download WEbex recorder from there.

    ReplyDelete