Consumer Inq

Every time I hear a radio ad for a bogus "free credit report," I get angry. If you listen to commercial radio much, you'll know that means I get angry a lot.

I've warned Inquirer readers about this problem before. It became especially galling in September 2005, when Pennsylvanians and many other East Coast residents finally became eligible for a genuinely free annual report from each of the three national credit reporting agencies. But the problem plainly isn't going away – not when there's so much money to made from the unsuspecting, and regulators are too deferential to crack down.

The commercials you hear aren't for a genuinely free credit report, at least as I'd define it. Yes, you won't be billed directly for the report – just for add-ons such as credit-monitoring services that are always part of the deal. In my book, paying $100 to $150 a year doesn't add up to "free." If you disagree, please do speak up.

How big is this problem? Recently, a University of Utah researcher, backed by Consumer Reports WebWatch, decided to take a close look. (Read his study here.)

Robert N. Mayer looked at 24 sites that touted "free" reports – many with the word free conspicuously embedded in their sound-alike Web addresses. Typically, they offered that "free" report in return for monitoring or other pricey add-ons, such as a credit score from each of the three national credit bureaus. (Here's a tip: Generally, one credit score will tell you all you need to know. If your credit is clean, you may not even need that.)

One of Mayer's key findings: While there may seem to be lots of competition in the market, with so many different sites, there's much less than meets the eye. Instead, Mayer found the market largely dominated by two of the three national credit reporting agencies – the same folks that are required by law to provide consumers with a genuinely free annual report. He said either TransUnion or Experian owned or was closely associated with 17 of the 24 sites.

This won't surprise anyone who's gone to one of the credit bureaus' own sites to find a genuinely free report. The general rule is: They don't make it easy.

On the TransUnion site, for instance, there are several come-ons luring you to pay for a package deal that includes your "free" credit report, and one modest link that refers vaguely to the "FACT ACT and other free credit report disclosures." (The FACT Act is the 2003 law that mandates the genuinely free annual reports.)

Follow that TransUnion link, to be sure, and you'll learn about your rights, including the right to get a free report more than annually if you fit other criteria, such as believing you're the victim of fraud. But if you just want your genuinely free report, it's less confusing to go directly to the "central source" the bureaus were required to establish by the 2003 law.

You can request your free reports from the central source in three different ways:

1) On the Internet, at www.annualcreditreport.com

2) By phone, at 1-877-322-8228

3) By letter, mailing your request to:

Annual Credit Report Request Service
P.O. Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

By any method, you'll have to provide sensitive, personal information, of course. If you want to do it by mail, you can get a printable form by clicking here. Otherwise, be sure to include your full name, including your middle initial and generational designations such as "Jr.," as well as your current mailing address, your Social Security number, and your date of birth.

Remember, too, to specify whether you want all three reports or something less. You're entitled to a free report every 12 months from each of the three agencies: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. If you have any special reason for concern, such as plans to apply soon for a mortgage or real worries about identity theft, you'll want all three. If not, you might want to space out your requests.

Isn't it funny how the Web address for the genuinely free credit report doesn't include the word free at all? It's enough to make me angry even with the radio off.

(For instructions for invoking a security freeze, a cheaper and more-reliable alternative to credit monitoring, click here.)

Memo to wife: Time to talk to 16-year-old. Again.

Just in over the e-mail transome is a new poll done for Symantec, the computer security company, by Harris Interactive. Its major finding: "a significant digital divide between parents and their cyber-savvy children."

No, we don't need to be told this. Nor do our kids. But this poll supposedly tells us what they don't want to, probably because they're too busy playing games, chatting, reading, flirting or whatevering online.

Some of it is so-whattish. So what that the average parent thinks his or her kid is online three hours a week, but kids ages 8 to 17 admit to spending an average of seven hours online a week (which probably means they're actually spending 15 to 20 hours online)?

The part that worries me: Nearly a quarter admit "doing things online that their parents would not condone."

What's going on with kids in cyberspace? Well, one-fifth report encountering "inappropriate material ... that made them feel uncomfortable." Unfortunately, that goes with the territory: The Internet is an incredible window onto our great, big – and often ugly – world. Give a kid a mouse and free rein, and that's one of the first things they'll discover.

But here are some numbers that made me uncomfortable:

* 18 percent of children have had an experience with cyberbullying or cyber-pranks.

* 23 percent have had an encounter with a stranger on the Internet.

* 7 percent reported having met someone in the real world from the Internet.

“I wasn’t aware kids were posting their entire profiles online – including their name, location, photos and contact information,” said one parent, the father of two young boys, who attended a Symantec-sponsored conference on online kid safety last week in New York.

Well, I was. But not my kid – as far as I know from our last chat.

Time to have that talk again.

Symantec has assembled an impressive "Family Resource Web Site," which deals with everything from cyberbullying to Internet addiction. (That last one could help some adults I know.)