by Nicolette S

Created on: February 21, 2009

The song is catchy-a little too catchy. It gets stuck in my head for precious minutes, claiming space in brain cells that surely could've been put to better use for learning Latin or memorizing the lyrics to ABBA songs. If only that remote control with its mute button wasn't so far away!

"Freeeee Credit Report Dot Com!"

Or far worse, the song that spells it out: "F to the R to the E to the E to the C"

The name is misleading, but the ubiquitous ads make it stand out in a person's head. News reports on identity theft and the economic crisis make you nervous. "I should keep better track of my finances," you think. "Where can I get a credit report? Oh yeah, at F to the R to the E to the E" The song will immediately come to mind and, singing, you type it in to your Internet browser.

Sticky situation: freecreditreport.com is not really a website dedicated to providing your credit report. It's a website dedicated to getting you signed up in its credit monitoring program for $14.95 a month.

Do you want the website that is actually dedicated to providing credit reports? And not just one report-how about three? Go to annualcreditreport.com! I know, there's no catchy song, so the name is hard to remember. But by going to this website, you can get a free copy of all three of your credit reports.

What's that? Didn't know you had three credit reports? Well you do, and each one may have different information. There's TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax; each one has its own unique report and score. You can go to annualcreditreport.com to check your information and even challenge mistakes. It's free, with no strings attached, and you can request a report from each company once a year. For a low fee, you can also request your credit scores.

Of course, freecreditreport.com mentions this on the front page of its website. It even provides a link to annualcreditreport.com. This is a gracious act. But how many people actually read the box that says "Important Information," and instead click immediately on the shiny button that says "Click Here"? Why is the website even called freecreditreport.com when its main aim isn't providing free credit reports? To be closer to the truth, it should be called FourteenNinetyFiveMonthlyFeeCreditMonitoringServiceT hatAlsoProvidesCreditReportsThatAreAlwaysFreeAnyway. com. I guess that's too awkward to fit in a song-hard to rhyme.

Full disclosure: I signed up for freecreditreport.com. I got the bright idea one day that I should take control of my finances, remembered

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