I found these charges on my account coming from CIC Triple Advantage. What the hell is that, I asked myself. Turns out it's a fucking scam is what it is.
So for all those people who, like me, were told by their Financial Aid offices to go to Freecreditreport.com to get a free credit report... don't. I just reported them to the Better Business Bureau, and I'm astonished that they even have a B rating. They've received over 3900 customer complaints, and every review is negative. Every review says basically the same thing, and it's the same thing they were sued for last year.
"On January 8, 2007 Consumerinfo.com entered into a Stipulated Judgment and agreed to an Order for Permanent Injunction to settle charges that the company's "free credit report" offer failed to explicitly disclose that subscribers would be automatically signed up into a paid credit-monitoring program.
...The FTC charged that ConsumerInfo.com had engaged in deceptive marketing practices through requiring credit card information for consumers to purchase their "free credit report," then billing them $79.95 annually unless they opted out within 30 days."
So yeah. If you ordered a credit report from these people and didn't immediately cancel, do it now. Further, make sure they haven't been automatically charging your account. I just caught this, and so I'm trying to get over a hundred dollars refunded to me. Thankfully, the BBB review makes it look like it's fairly common to get a refund, probably because they've nailed these guys for deceptive marketing before.
So if anyone tells you to do business with these folk, just don't fucking do it. Don't give them your account information, even if you plan to cancel immediately because guess what! They won't always let you. Just stay the hell away from them. If you have already gone through these guys, I strongly suggest you check out this page.
Canceling CIC Triple Advantage: Get Your Money Back and Get Justice!
Go through the steps it gives you, and if the bastards still don't listen... report them. This is bullshit, and they don't deserve your money.Edit (6/4/2009): Evidently they're not going to be allowed to do this anymore! Hooray! That's good news to all you people who get to my blog through queries about CIC Triple Advantage.
5 comments:
Oh, gods, those stupid fucking bastards. When I worked for a credit card company, I can't tell you how many calls I got about those assholes.
Want a legitimate free credit report? You get one per year. Here's where you go:
http://www.annualcreditreport.com/
That's the actual really truly free one. For more info,
visit the Federal Trade Commission.
And I know all of this because I had to tell these poor victims of shady practices that this is the one and only way to get the free credit report they're guaranteed by law WITHOUT getting signed up for some bullshit subscription service.
This has been a Public Service Announcement, brought to you by the drunken elitist bastards at En Tequila Es Verdad. ;-)
Drunken elitist PSAs are always welcome.
i got scammed by them as well. you should check out this site as well http://www.cancelcictripleadvantage.com/
These guys are crooks! I cant believe how they get away with this... they should go to jail for all the people they are scamming.
CIC Triple Advantage has a B rating with the Better Business Bureau because they are a paid member of the Better Business Bureau(BBB). People have the misconception that the BBB is a government agency. The BBB does nothing to disclose the truth, that they are a privately owned company and have no government affiliation. If a business pays to be a member, on average, they have a better rating than a company that does not join and pay.
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