Is CreditCheckTotal a scam?

[mouses]

I wanted to get a free credit score, but the problem with sites like Credit Karma is that they only give you a score from one credit bureau. Then I found CreditCheckTotal that offers all three credit bureau's credit scores, but they charge $1. That would be fine, but they also take your credit card number and charge you $29.95 for credit monitoring after a week which seems kind of scammy to me since they advertise the scores for only $1.

Anyway, they say you can cancel within 9 days and you won't have to pay anything but the $1. Would this be a good way to get the credit score from all three monitoring services, or is there a better way for me to get them? What risks do I run if I give them my credit card and then immediately cancel once I get my scores? It seems like it should work, but am I missing something that will make me regret doing this?

[lorraineb]

This is how freecreditreoport works and has gotten a lot of people angry. If you have to hand over your credit card to get anything that's supposed to be free, that is a warning sign that something else is going on. I hate this business model so I would avoid it, but if you do decide to do it, make sure you read all the fine print.

I guess my question would be, why do you need the three credit scores? Is there a pressing reason that you need all of them when one wouldn't work?

[btctony]

The only place you'll get a true FICO score is from the FICO website, and yes you will have to pay for them. For free, you can get a copy of your EX, EQ, & TU credit reports from each of those credit reporting agencies. You can do that every year. Those do not come with scores attached to them though. If you're wanting to check your scores, because you are ready to apply for an auto loan, a mortgage, or a new credit card, true FICO scores are really the only scores that matter.

If the actual number matters to you, you're wasting your money unless your getting it directly from FICO. The rest are called FAKO scores for a reason. They don't accurately represent what a lender is going to pull. They calculate a score based on your credit report data, but with their own algorithm.

That being said (and I've mentioned this in other threads), there are 49 different FICO scoring models. So even the score you get directly from FICO probably won't be an exact match to what a lender pulls. One exception that I am certain of is that most mortgage lenders pull the FICO 04 model. The EQ score you get directly from FICO is based on the FICO 04 model. I pulled EQ from FICO three days before my mortgage lender pulled my scores, and the EQ score was an exact match.

[btctony]

If you have to hand over your credit card to get anything that's supposed to be free, that is a warning sign that something else is going on.

Just to clarify, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from EX, EQ, & TU each year. You are not entitled to free scores. If you're paying money to anyone for scores other than FICO (as in freecreditreport.com), you might as well be throwing your money away, because no one sells true FICO scores other than FICO.

If you're paying money to those other companies for services like credit monitoring, that's another story, but giving them money just because you want to know your score is not helping you out at all. They are not real FICO scores.

See my post above for more information.