FreeCreditScore.com Review: Free Experian FICO Score, Credit Report, and Credit Monitoring

June 30, 2016 By Jonathan Ping 3 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

fcscom0

The URL is suspiciously generic and raised my scam radar, but Experian-owned FreeCreditScore.com has been revamped to offer a pretty good package – a free FICO score, full credit report, and free credit monitoring based on your Experian credit report data. (Continue to be wary of other less-credible sites.) Like most of its competitors, “free” means that you agree to let them market products to you based on your personal information. This post provides additional details regarding this service.

FICO Score details.

  • FICO Score version: FICO Score 8, or FICO 08. This is the most widely used of the many FICO flavors. Score version is directly shown on the website.
  • Credit bureau: Experian
  • Update frequency: Every 30 days or when you log in, whichever is longer.
  • Limitations: Available to everyone. No specific credit card required.

How to get your score. Here’s a preview of the application and approval process:

  1. You must provide personal information, including Social Security Number. Name, address, etc. This is required for any service that checks your credit score.
  2. You must agree to their Privacy Policy and Ad Targeting Policy. Basically, they will give your free access to your credit score and other credit information, and they will also collect personal information to market products and other services to you. Your information may also be shared with their affiliates.
  3. Identity verification questions. They will ask you some multiple choice questions based on your Experian credit report data in order to verify your identity. If you don’t pass this quiz, I would go over to AnnualCreditReport.com and get a copy of your report to scan for errors.
  4. Set your personal security questions. At this point, you are approved. You just need to set up the standard security questions like “Who was your 2nd grade teacher?”

What kind of information do you get? The score model is FICO Score 8, based on your Experian credit report. This is the same score model and credit bureau offered by American Express and CreditScoreCard by Discover, and is within a few points for me (the check dates are slightly off). The other two major bureaus are TransUnion and Equifax.

The major difference is that FreeCreditScore.com offers your full Experian credit report and ongoing credit monitoring of your Experian credit data. This includes any new credit inquiries, new accounts, pubic records, fraud alerts, and other personal information updates to your Experian credit report.

How often is it updated? As often as every 30 days, but only if you log in to the website. Many sites operate this way, as it reduces their costs of grabbing your score if you are no longer interested. Also, they want you to log in so that they can show you advertisements.

Screenshots. Here’s a look at my sign-up process and account page:

fcscom1

fcscom2

Bottom line. Experian owns FreeCreditScore.com and has jumped in fully into the “free score for showing you ads” business model. As they aren’t a credit card issuer, they can feel free to open it up to everyone. They offer the full Experian package of free FICO score, full credit report, and free credit monitoring based on your Experian credit report data. Most other Experian-based providers only offer one out of these three.

There are a lot of options out there now, but if you wanted to cover the other two bureaus efficiently, consider that CreditKarma.com offers free weekly updates of both your TransUnion and Equifax credit report factors in one site. You also get free weekly non-FICO credit scores and free automatic, daily TransUnion credit monitoring.

Related: Here are major credit card issuers with free FICO programs:

Filed Under: Credit Cards
Last updated: February 6, 2017
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

User Generated Content Disclosure: Comments and/or responses are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Comments and/or responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. It is not any advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Comments

  1. Dan says
    September 13, 2017 at 11:49 am

    If you’ve frozen your credit with the three major bureaus, am I correct in assuming you’d need to temporarily unfreeze with Experian to sign up for freecreditscore.com?

    Reply
    • Jonathan Ping says
      September 13, 2017 at 11:53 am

      If you sign up with FreeCreditScore.com first and then Freeze, then Experian will be able to continue its monitoring as an existing and authorized credit-checker-thingie. If you Freeze first and then want to sign up for FreeCreditScore.com, you will need to unfreeze in order to give them access. Hope that made sense.

      Reply

Speak Your Mind

*