CIC Triple Advantage
By Yangmun Choi on
One day I noticed a charge on my bank account that said "CIC * TripleAdvantage" for $14.95. I was actually charged twice because I went on a retreat when this happened and did not have access to the internet for a while. Clearly, I did not want credit monitoring, and I had no memory of signing up or somehow applying to a kind of membership.
Then I did some research and found that I was not the only one who had fallen for this TripleAdvantage scam. It was a one-time free-credit-report deal that had really fine print lined all along it. Obviously as a young college student, I was curious as to what my credit score was and had gone to FreeCreditReport.com to view my credit score. What I didn't know is that there was a hidden membership for the use of the supposedly free, one-time application.
Not only when I had learned that I had been fooled and tried to ask for a refund it was troublesome, but also they lie about their policies and say that no refund is possible. However, their policy is is that a refund is true, so in the end it worked out. Do not try this free-credit report site!
I got caught in the same trap, except I got charged a bunch more cause I didn't catch that charge for months. I'm still working on getting my money refunded, but so far, no luck.
Thanks for the warning. I have a bad habit of not reading the fine print! I will make sure I do from now on.
Has anyone ever been able to read the fine print on one of their TV ads? Unless you have TIVO and can blow it up to a readable print and who is going to take the time to do that! I'm glad you caught that charge early on before it got out of hand and thank you for the heads up for all of us here!
YES! I, too, have had the same thing happen to me! They really try to scam you with the fine print. I was able to get it all worked out also, but it was a headache!
Same thing happened to us, we were under the impression that that we were just getting the credit report and score and nothing else till the money started getting deducted from the back.
sometimes reading those small prints are so important but we are just too lazy to read and I am one of them. Thanks for sharing the info.
I have come to the conclusion that there aren't too many "free" credit reports-I'm glad you caught your's on your credit card statement.
Thanks for that warning and opinions shared, we just need to be more careful with all these deals.
I have heard that the free credit report website is not exactly free. Sorry that this happened to you. Glad to hear that you were able to work it out. Thanks for sharing.
good for you for bringing this out. Their ads on TV with the idiot singing about his credit blues and if only he'd used free credit report are very misleading. You'd think the BB would step in.