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FreeCreditReport.com Wins 1,017 Domains By UDRP

typosquatting writes to mention that the largest domain dispute case since the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) was enacted ten years ago has been decided. The decision saw 1,017 cyber-squatting domains turned over to ConsumerInfo.com, owner of FreeCreditReport.com. The full decision can be read via the National Arbitration Forum website. "It would seem that this decision sets or reinforces a fairly strong precedent that trademark holders may be entitled to, not only to the domain name that exactly matches their trademark, but also to a wide swath of other domain names including nearly every possible misspelling or other variation of that trademark, potentially even if the trademark is comprised of generic words."

184 comments

  1. This is gthe only real answer by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    to solve the important dilemma of people not wanting to be responsible for typing correctly.

    Jeez this is so stupid.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, some people ham-fist addressesd. You'll be tpying laong and hit teh wring button or forget if it was an underscore or a dash. THen where will you go? You don't know, and that's what a lot of scammers have been making money witj for a long tim.

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    2. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      No, some people ham-fist addressesd. You'll be tpying laong and hit teh wring button or forget if it was an underscore or a dash. THen where will you go? You don't know, and that's what a lot of scammers have been making money witj for a long tim.

      Thankyou for posting to slahsdot.org, the fan site for dots and slashes!

      Slahsdot.org - What You Need, When You Need It.

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    3. Re:This is gthe only real answer by EvanED · · Score: 2, Funny

      I know I spend way too much time at \.

    4. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Idiomatick · · Score: 1

      http://backslashdot.org/ is actually currently under development. I've no idea how long thats been there of course.

    5. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Idiomatick · · Score: 2, Funny

      I have a better solution. Instead of redirecting all of the common misspellings of big sites back to the correct spelling (the typist learns nothing). You could have every typo redirect to goatze and tubgirl. Spelling errors will plummet in weeks.

    6. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Romancer · · Score: 1

      Am I the only one who thought that this was funny because of the typo in the subject of his post?

      This is gthe only real answer

      People are currently modding it insightful...

      --


      ) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
      ) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
    7. Re:This is gthe only real answer by fucket · · Score: 1

      Oh man, does this mean slashdot is going to come after my http://questionmarkdot.org/ and http://perioddot.org/ domains?

    8. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Long time. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://backslashdot.org/

    9. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I spend absolutely all of my time in ./

    10. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /.

    11. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Nd dey givz me many moneyz fer tonz of cheezburgerz!

      Long Tim
      iz Loooooong Cat

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    12. Re:This is gthe only real answer by roguetrick · · Score: 1

      Or scat and anus stretching porn will suddenly become popular.

      --
      -The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
    13. Re:This is gthe only real answer by EvanED · · Score: 1

      *woosh*

    14. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tubgirl!=2g1c

    15. Re:This is gthe only real answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah I own dictionary.com. All your domains belong to us.

  2. Liar beats other liars? by Burdell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's funny that "free"creditreport.com is upset that someone else is profiting off their name, when their name is designed to profit off someone else's. I don't think they existed before the US government mandated the credit agencies give you a free copy of your credit report every year (via annualcreditreport.com). "free"creditreport.com doesn't actually give you a credit report for free; you have to enroll in a reporting service to get it.

    1. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But their commercials are so catchy!

    2. Re:Liar beats other liars? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      I am surprised that they themselves aren't considered domain squatters on "creditreport.com" -- if they argue that howtogetafreecreditreport.com is infringing on freecreditreport.com, I can't think of why they aren't infringing on creditreport.com
      Even more so considering that they have paid Google for a sponsored link when someone searches for "creditreport.com".

    3. Re:Liar beats other liars? by MikeD83 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not only do you have to enroll, but every month they charge you a fee of approximately $10/month. Which might seem okay if you could actually see your credit report every month.... I couldn't figure out how. I had to call them and cancel. The kind of cancellation where you have to convince them that you don't want to be a customer. As far as I am concerned freecreditreport.com is scum of the internet.

    4. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As far as I am concerned freecreditreport.com is scum of the internet.

      What, are we forgetting 4chan entirely?

    5. Re:Liar beats other liars? by jhoegl · · Score: 1, Funny

      I own Awesomesauce.com Therefore, I should own autosauce.com, sillysauce.com, imawesome.com, holycrap.com, anyotherurl.com, In fact I think because the person trying to go to my URL might type in microsoft.com, I should get that too.

    6. Re:Liar beats other liars? by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 1

      Their front page is (and always has been) right up front that they are selling you a service.

      They even give you the link to the "real" free credit report.

      Name aside, they don't seem too shady. There are plenty of opportunities to buy something you don't need, this is just another one. It's like buying clothes that say "dry clean only" right on the tag. You know what you are getting up front.

      --
      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    7. Re:Liar beats other liars? by pfleming · · Score: 1

      Their front page is (and always has been) right up front that they are selling you a service. They even give you the link to the "real" free credit report. Name aside, they don't seem too shady. There are plenty of opportunities to buy something you don't need, this is just another one. It's like buying clothes that say "dry clean only" right on the tag. You know what you are getting up front.

      And the FTC is really looking to hammer them on the "free" credit report. The FTC tried to get the domain name due to freecreditreport.com being misleading and too close to the government's own site.

    8. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Snarf+You · · Score: 1

      But their commercials are so fuckin' annoying !

      FTFY

    9. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Dachannien · · Score: 1

      Very true. In fact, the FTC has already won one civil complaint against them (Experian) and is gearing up for another.

      What I really don't understand is why the FTC didn't use a .gov domain name when they set up their website.

    10. Re:Liar beats other liars? by alecto · · Score: 3, Informative

      The FTC didn't set it up. The big three set it up to comply with the FACT Act (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act). Although I agree that a .gov would have been much more apropos.

    11. Re:Liar beats other liars? by DragonIV · · Score: 1

      It's funny that "free"creditreport.com is upset that someone else is profiting off their name, when their name is designed to profit off someone else's. I don't think they existed before the US government mandated the credit agencies give you a free copy of your credit report every year (via annualcreditreport.com). "free"creditreport.com doesn't actually give you a credit report for free; you have to enroll in a reporting service to get it.

      Wrong. FreeCreditReport.com (and many other competitors) existed long before the government even enacted the legislation to create annualcreditreport.com. By long, I mean several years. That said, their business model is definitely sleazy. However, you can get your report for free, so long as you remember to cancel that automatic subscription they enroll you for...and which they make it a pain in the posterior to cancel.

    12. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Helen+O'Boyle · · Score: 1
      I had the same problem. With new addresses every few months while I was on partial sabbatical years ago, I amassed quite a stack of previous locations. Their 3rd degree authn process required me to know all of them. I didn't.

      Never could access what I was paying for, and you'd think the company would be required to cease billing if not providing the service, right? I I called them up, pointed this out, tried to get cancelled, tried to get charges refunded. Well, guess what? As far as they were concerned I couldn't even prove to them sufficiently that I was who I was, for them to allow me to initiate the cancel operation!

      You'd also think that you could appeal to your bank when you couldn't cancel it and you weren't getting the service paid for, right? Well, according to Bank of America, I had to completely disable the card number. They couldn't refuse to honor that one recurring debit against it.. That was my main card on hmany dozens of online sites and autopays. I paid a couple hundred to freecreditreport over a couple years for the convenience of maintaining my card before it was finally eaten by an ATM machine and the bank disabled that card's number as per their policy. The only good thing about the card getting eaten was that I was then free of freecreditreport.com.

    13. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Entropy98 · · Score: 1

      Actually freecreditreport.com is owned by Experian, one of the big 3 credit reporting agencies.

    14. Re:Liar beats other liars? by shentino · · Score: 1

      TransUnion at least sucks ass.

      I was turned down for a store credit card, and when I attempted to get a credit report from them AS REQUIRED BY LAW, I got the PBX runaround every time I called until my 60 day window had expired.

    15. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Marcika · · Score: 1

      You should have "lost" that card or "accidentally" damaged it with a magnet... Presto, new card.

    16. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The charm of 4chan is that it doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

    17. Re:Liar beats other liars? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I understand that freecreditreport.com is claiming that "google.com" is actually a very bad misspelling of their domain name.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    18. Re:Liar beats other liars? by Helen+O'Boyle · · Score: 1
      Ohmygosh, NOOOOOOO!

      Then I would have had to go through 65 web sites and autopays and put the new info in. And then subsequently pay late fees on the 17 sites I forgot to update (do you really have a "little black book" of everywhere you've left your credit card online?) that tried to debit on the old number at some point when I wasn't paying particular attention, the debit failed due to the card being cancelled and I didn't realize payment was overdue until a late charge had been tacked on.

      The point of refusing the let the bank cancel the old number, as I mentioned, was that I didn't want to incur that huge time and financial hit while working 70-100+ hour weeks, as I had to at Microsoft for much of my time there. (No longer there now.)

      When it eventually the card was cancelled anyway because of the ATM incident, it was a major pain in the neck for months and cost me probably a couple hundred dollars in late fees. Why that? I had longstanding auto-debits attached to accounts with email addresses at old ISP's, old employers, etc. from 10+ years ago. It wasn't always possible to notify me promptly when the autodebits failed, and these were things that might bill once a year, or only when there was a bandwidth overage, etc., so they weren't foremost on my mind either.

      That's why I'd said that the *ONLY* good thing about losing the card in the ATM was getting rid of freecreditreport.com. There was an awful lot of hell that went along with losing the card in the ATM that made that experience into quite a net loss.

  3. freecreditreport.com sucks ass. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't do it. You give them your info and get a free credit report, but you have to opt out like AOL or else they'll charge you. When you call them to opt out they haggle and harass you like AOL did ("Are you sure you want to cancel? Here are our other plans...") and you have to tell them no multiple times until either of you gives up. Then they continue to spam the living fuck out of your inbox.

    /rant

    1. Re:freecreditreport.com sucks ass. by GNious · · Score: 1

      Start out by telling then that your call is being recorded, and that you are calling them to opt out.

      Then quickly explain who you are and what you are opting out of.

      Immediately inform them that you consider yourself out of whatever they opt-in'ed you in the first place and you have proof of having opt-out'ed and hang up before they can say anything.

      ..no?

  4. Really horrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are millions of people in the world with the same name. If I want a web site in my name, and someone else has it, I have to wait for them to die before I can have a site with my name on it. Unlike license plates where I can put up -01 or -02 or whatever, I can't do that now (oh noes, its too close). This is really really dumb. If you've ever tried to find someone on Facebook and has to go through ten pages of people with the same name, you know what I mean.

    1. Re:Really horrible by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unless you're called "freecreditreport" I don't see how this affects you.

      IANAL but if your name is JohnSmith and you register JohnSmithsPage.com, and end up being sued by John Smith's Brewery, you'd have a fair crack at defending your page. Especially if you put "This page is not associated with John Smith's Brewery in any way" somewhere on your page.

      However if your page contains trash talk about John Smith's Brewery, or is obviously trying to fool people into thinking their at John Smith's Brewery's official site, you'd have a harder time convincing a judge. FOR example, check out this site, which still manages to hang on to its domain name despite having the force of a VERY LARGE company's legal army against it.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Really horrible by mccrew · · Score: 1

      I call BS.

      The whole issue with trademarks is whether a name is confusingly similar. Seems pretty clear to me that certain parties are trying to leech off a valid trademark holders name by registering common misspellings which would certainly meet the "confusingly similar" test.

      There is no equivalence between your example of common name domains JohnDoe.com and a real trademark CocaCola.com, or freecreditreport.com in this case.

      --
      Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
    3. Re:Really horrible by mccrew · · Score: 1

      There is no equivalence between your example of common name domains JohnDoe.com and a real trademark CocaCola.com, or freecreditreport.com in this case.

      Following up to my own post, no cookie for me!

      If your name is Mike Rowe, then ignore this one point, for everyone else it stands. :)

      --
      Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
    4. Re:Really horrible by geekoid · · Score: 1, Interesting

      How is talking trash fooling people into thinking your that site?

      If you are intentioal lisleading people on the page, then you ahe an issue, but even then I would argue they oly recourse to to force you to no longer ahve that page. Giving the domain to the company that claims to be harmed is just cheesy and reeks.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Really horrible by physburn · · Score: 1
      The law has changed as a result of the ruling. But it does show the importance of trademarks even on the internet. Typosquarting is a money making scheme, that offers nothing to the public, and i'm not sorry that the law is removing it. In your example with people reals name, yes your reasonibly ok with using your name, no matter that trademark. I believe that a Mister McDonalds own restrarant survived a trademark despute against larger clown logoed opposition.

      ---

      Internet Businesses Feed @ Feed Distiller

    6. Re:Really horrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Unless you're called "freecreditreport" I don't see how this affects you.

      IANAL but if your name is JohnSmith and you register JohnSmithsPage.com, and end up being sued by John Smith's Brewery, you'd have a fair crack at defending your page.

      Tell that to Mike Rowe

    7. Re:Really horrible by Dunbal · · Score: 2, Informative

      How is talking trash fooling people into thinking your that site?

            It's not. I made two separate points. But you're going to have a hard time getting sympathy from a judge if you're obviously antagonizing the other site owner.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    8. Re:Really horrible by justthinkit · · Score: 1

      Typosquarting is a money making scheme, that offers nothing to the public

      Typosquirting is also a money making scheme, that offers something to the public if done, er, in public.

      --
      I come here for the love
    9. Re:Really horrible by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

      Typosquirting is also a money making scheme

      Yes, I believe that was a feature of the original Zune.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    10. Re:Really horrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the nissan.com case is special. He registered it when nissan was still datsun. Not a very good case study for "same name" registration.

    11. Re:Really horrible by shentino · · Score: 1

      Assuming of course that John Smith's Brewery didn't out-muscle you in legal expenses.

      People who think that in theory the law is on their side are often disappointed when the legal system fails to protect them from being ground down by lawyers before the case even gets to the trial stage.

  5. Doesn't seem unfair to me... by moz25 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I do not really agree that domains that only bear similarity to a mark should be transferred, but in this case, they are part of a large collection of domains that appear to be very obviously registered in bad faith, with the sole intention of typosquatting.

    I wonder if the registrant paid for those domains... this should have set him back at least $5k.

    1. Re:Doesn't seem unfair to me... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "..with the sole intention of typosquatting."
      to which I say: so what?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:Doesn't seem unfair to me... by Web+Goddess · · Score: 1

      > I wonder if the registrant paid for those domains... this should have set him back at least $5k.

      Wooooo. Five K. News alert, "Doesn't Seem Unfair To Me" poster. That is DIDDLY SQUAT money for any ocmpamy. Even a small company, even my one-person company, can shoot off five thousand dollars for a one-time expense without blinking.

      It's no discouragement, paying $5 per domain, for a company. Only an individual would worry about that amount. "It could buy me a Vespa!"

    3. Re:Doesn't seem unfair to me... by 517714 · · Score: 1

      How is inwyoming a typo? as in freecreditreoportinwyoming.com?

      I think I will register freecreditreportinchicago.com, and I encourage everyone to register a similar domain with the name of their favorite city,county, town, or region. My website will have a link to annualcreditreport.com stating that the consumer may obtain one report each year free of charge or obligation and won't receive spam by using the link and a simple statement that freecreditreport.com will charge the consumer unless he/she opts out or avoids them altogether, after which there will be a link to freecreditreportinwyoming.com

      --
      The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
    4. Re:Doesn't seem unfair to me... by moz25 · · Score: 1

      They key here, IMO, is intent. While that single domain may be legitimate under various circumstances, the situation is that it's registered along with hundreds of obvious typosquatting attempts. That constitutes bad faith.

    5. Re:Doesn't seem unfair to me... by moz25 · · Score: 1

      Eh, no need to get uptight with me, stranger.

      If you insist on thinking so lightly about throwing away money at poor investments, you are never going to grow your one-person "ocmpamy" into anything bigger.

  6. Woohoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    freecriditreeport.com isn't on the list.

    1. Re:Woohoo! by yurtinus · · Score: 1

      Does it seem wrong to you that the very first link on a search for Cridi trees is a home mortgage company?

      --
      +1 Disagree
  7. Sets a precedant by DeadDecoy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It would seem that this decision sets or reinforces a fairly strong precedent that trademark holders may be entitled to, not only to the domain name that exactly matches their trademark, but also to a wide swath of other domain names including nearly every possible misspelling or other variation of that trademark, potentially even if the trademark is comprised of generic words.

    Does it? It strikes me that FreeCreditReport variants have more potential to defraud regular people than your regular news site. If slashdot tried to do the same thing, and pick up all of the .coms, .nets, etc on its variants, it would probably be shot down. It would be a bit nice if this precendent was viewed in context as an exception where the public would benefit from not having ambiguous urls over the corporate entity actually owning the urls.

    1. Re:Sets a precedant by homey+of+my+owney · · Score: 1

      What does this mean for those who have their surname owned by a cyber squatter that wants a buzillion dollars for the domain?

    2. Re:Sets a precedant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was with you right up till the "public benefit" part; the FreeCreditReport people are only about one step above the typosquatting scum in this case. They're still trying to scam a $20/month service off on people who come to their site for something "free". Maybe they can team up with the Video Professor people and find even BETTER ways to rip people off...

    3. Re:Sets a precedant by ivan256 · · Score: 1

      Have you ever considered that they're doing you a favor? People who get family domain names based on their own name are usually the worst combination of dorky and egotistical. Do yourself a favor and register something creative instead.

    4. Re:Sets a precedant by __aasqbs9791 · · Score: 1

      I was wondering since this sounds like it went through arbitration rather than an actual court, does it set a precedent? I mean a legal precedent? IANAL, so I don't know.

    5. Re:Sets a precedant by PachmanP · · Score: 1

      Have you ever considered that they're doing you a favor? People who get family domain names based on their own name are usually the worst combination of dorky and egotistical. Do yourself a favor and register something creative instead.

      How so? firstname@lastname.com is a great email address. If people know who you are, it's easy to remember. It's more professional and less redicoulous than hotchix1970@hotmail.com. It's a little dorky, but I imagine people go "gee that's neat" more than they go "what a dork".



      AND I'M F!@#IN' AWESOME!!!!!

      --
      You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
  8. use annualcreditreport.com instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    You can get a really-and-truly free annual credit report from this website

    FreeCreditReport.com charges $15 and is run by lying, typo-squatting douches at Experian.

    1. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1

      Question. If you needed more than the free annual credit report from annualcreditreport.com (say, more frequent looks, or perhaps the numeric scores) who would you go to?

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    2. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by inio · · Score: 2, Informative
    3. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by David_W · · Score: 1

      For the scores you can go to Credit Karma.

      (Although I find it funny there's an ad-supported site that will give you your score for free when you want it, but not your report...)

    4. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by pfleming · · Score: 1

      Nope. MyFICO The scores you get from the credit reporting agencies are generally not the scores that are actually used to extend credit and thus are not even worth the paper they are printed on - or the pixels on the screen.

    5. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by tepples · · Score: 1

      FreeCreditReport.com is Experian.

    6. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and you can get one report per year from each agency. so it is three reports per year, i.e. once every 4 months.

    7. Re:use annualcreditreport.com instead by WindShadow · · Score: 1

      I suggest getting a credit report from each of the three reporting companies, and staggering your requests by four months. I do that and get a picture of the report on a regular basis. I wish the law required them to provide a convenient way to lock your report, I see 50-60 requests a year from people I never heard of or dealt with, they're in a "just looking" report, and I'm sure they're people trying to pick identities worth stealing.

  9. Precedent against Google? by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 1

    > not only to the domain name that exactly matches their trademark, but also ... nearly every possible misspelling or other variation of that trademark

    Right now Larry Page and Sergey Brin are yelling at each other over their diamond-encrusted platinum iPhones. On the bright side this guy claims that Google earns $32M-50M on typosquatting. That's the sort of cash they could easily walk away:
    http://www.itworld.com/internet/56426/professor-google-earns-32-50m-typosquatting-sites

  10. A battle between two evil companies by Skapare · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... means squat.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:A battle between two evil companies by geekoid · · Score: 1

      When Godzilla and monster X fight, it's the people who pay.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:A battle between two evil companies by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      You mean you're not happy to see that a credit report scammer has protected itself against credit report scammer typo scammers?

    3. Re:A battle between two evil companies by clarkkent09 · · Score: 2, Funny

      So guys from freecreditreport.com, cybersquatters, AND their lawyers were all in one courtroom at one time? Damn,there's never a suicide bomber around when you need one

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    4. Re:A battle between two evil companies by pfleming · · Score: 1

      TA says they represented themselves, no lawyers were harmed in filing the suit. Except the losers lawyers. And even then, harm seems like such a strong word.

  11. Reading the article... by Itninja · · Score: 4, Funny

    ....requires enrollment in Triple Advantage (tm).

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  12. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by WarlockD · · Score: 4, Informative

    I fell for this. They want $19.99 a month to "protect" your credit.

    Don't get me wrong though, it was kind of neat getting real time credit scores on your account, an email alert every time some yahoo looked at your report, and access to a one click instant credit lock. But in the end, unless your going to buy a house or a car you don't really need up to the second data on your report.

    Though, to be honest, I think we should be given access, atleast once a month rather than once a year. Its not like the data is that hard to display and it be far more useful to check for credit card fraud.

  13. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I fell for the catchy jingle.

    It's OK to admit it.

  14. Another win for the legal community by Trip6 · · Score: 1

    Get ready for many more such lawsuits, thus providing job security for lawyers and judges.

    --
    I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
  15. Reasons FTA.. by HockeyPuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In one or more of the following ways
    (1) adding "ing," changing the tense of the mark to a present participle;
    (2) adding the letter "s," changing the mark from singular to plural;
    (3) adding a generic or descriptive word to the mark;
    (4) adding a generic or descriptive word to the mark that has an obvious association with Complainant's business;
    (5) adding an abbreviation of a geographic word to the mark; (6) adding a geographic word to the mark;
    (7) misspelling the mark by changing a letter in the mark to a different letter;
    (8) misspelling the mark by changing a letter in the mark to a number;
    (9) misspelling the mark by adding a letter within the mark;
    (10) adding a letter to the beginning or end of the mark;
    (11) misspelling the mark by adding a number within the mark;
    (12) adding a number to the beginning or end of the mark;
    (13) omitting the period between the first-level domain, "www," and the mark;
    (14) changing the generic top-level domain (gTLD) included in the mark from ".com" to ".org;" and/or
    (15) adding hyphens to the mark. Any individual disputed domain name typically contains Complainant's mark and one of these changes.

    I'm glad they won. The showed plenty of examples of other companies that also won b/c of squatters like Bank Of America vs wwwbankofamerica.com (squatter removed the ".").

    1. Re:Reasons FTA.. by arth1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      One could argue that Bank of America opens themselves up to typosquatters by using www.bankofamerica.com instead of their old and easier typed domain, bofa.com
      I notice that Barnes & Noble too wants users to type www.barnesandnoble.com instead of bn.com

      No, it doesn't make the typosquatters any more right, but I think one is justified in also blaming stupidmarketingdirectors@companieswithverylongdomainnames.com

    2. Re:Reasons FTA.. by ottothecow · · Score: 1
      they have just realized that people are too lazy/stupid to type urls anymore. I know a lot of people who google youtube to get to youtube where they then search for a video (this one is especially stupid since you could probably just search your video on google and it would link you to youtube or you could type in youtube.com instead of google...)

      When these users get their page of results, they want to then click on the link to barnesandnoble.com since they aren't looking for the BN company. Users are stupid...bn.com is great for email addresses but not so good for name recognition on a list.

      --
      Bottles.
    3. Re:Reasons FTA.. by ivan256 · · Score: 1

      I think one is justified in also blaming marketing directors

      Removed the redundancy from that for you...

    4. Re:Reasons FTA.. by TheRealJFM · · Score: 2, Insightful

      These domain names are usually used because they're easier to *say* than shorthand versions.

      I used to think exactly the same way as you, but then I worked at a radio station for a year. Some of those short names can be quite easily misunderstood - letters are notoriously confusable. That's why there's a radio phonetic alphabet.

      --
      Joseph Farthing
      http://josephfarthing.com
    5. Re:Reasons FTA.. by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 1

      I notice that Barnes & Noble too wants users to type www.barnesandnoble.com instead of bn.com

      That's because they didn't want to risk being associated with BanniNation (bN).

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    6. Re:Reasons FTA.. by Kagura · · Score: 1

      I think one is justified in also blaming marketing directors

      Removed the redundancy from that for you...

      Removed the redundancy from that for you.

    7. Re:Reasons FTA.. by shentino · · Score: 1

      Not really.

      If all you put up are initials, you get two problems.

      1) Yet Another Acronym to memorize.
      2) Problems with two companies with the same initials getting into a squabble over who gets the domain.

      Fully spelled out domains are just less of a hassle.

  16. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by dan_sdot · · Score: 1

    Be careful about checking your credit too often though.

    When you check your credit too often, it dings your credit score. And it doesn't take much either.

    Don't ask me why this is the case...

  17. Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by Michael+G.+Kaplan · · Score: 5, Informative

    The New York Times recently did an extensive article on this scam.

    The entire basis of their operation is to fool people into paying for something advertised as free. They claim that their site discloses its fees, but the disclosure is still discrete enough to fool massive numbers of people.

    Any site where you make a purchase should disclose the fact that you are making a purchase with at least the level of clarity that you encounter on a reputable site such as Amazon.com. Also a service that advertises itself as "free" should never be allowed to charge -- even if they gratuitously disclosed their fee (which they don't) it would still be a bait an switch scam.

    1. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by drDugan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But its even deeper than this. Freecreditreport leeches off an even bigger scam. The whole premise that people allow, expect and pay these three companies to collect and sell their own information back to others is a intrinsically a scam.

      The "big three" do not see or treat consumers as their customers - which explains why they are so difficult to deal with: their customers are other companies that buy information about the "worthiness" of potential customers, like you.

      The absurd and unfair treatment that people received from these private companies was so bad that the laws were changed to require them to provide some information back to the unwilling subjects of their profits.

    2. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by Zanix · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's actually even worse than this. There is no cancel option on their website which means to stop service, you have to call them and deal with their trashy customer service. That doesn't even mention the fact that they will refuse to delete your account if you ask. They claim they have to keep the credit card for record purposes. Somehow I doubt it. The only way to get your credit card number out of their hands is to cancel it.

    3. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by benjamindees · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The "big three" do not see or treat consumers as their customers

      This is exactly correct. Not only are individuals not their customers, lenders actively profit when credit reports are worse than they should be, and these profits support the reporting agencies directly.

      It is the exact same scam as the ratings agencies passing off sub-prime mortgages as AAA. And it is completely due to the fact that the entire industry is supported by taxpayer money; financial institutions that fail to assess risk correctly are prevented from failing.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    4. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by ffflala · · Score: 1

      I am really torn about this. I believe that the business model of Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion is lecherous and pox on society -- they essentially quantify and qualify the reputation info of individuals and sell it to companies that want to know an individual's reputation before doing business with the individual. Congressional action against these companies goes back pretty far -- consumers used to have no effective recourse at all, you couldn't find out why your credit report was negative, and credit reporting companies would mark you down for prejudiced criteria (your race, gender, marital status, age, etc).

      OTOH, to keep these companies from doing it would require assigning a property right to facts about you. You would have an ownership interest and the ability to restrict the use of your name, age, residence, jobs, and transactions with all others simply because you were a part of it. I don't think society could function if we needed someone's permission to talk about them to others.

    5. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by muridae · · Score: 1

      We already function quite well with laws restricting people from knowingly lying about a person. How is that any different?

    6. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We already function quite well with laws restricting people from knowingly lying about a person.
      All the screwiness in the credit reporting system suggests we don't.

    7. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by ffflala · · Score: 1

      We already function quite well with laws restricting people from knowingly lying about a person. How is that any different?

      It is different because frequently the information contained in credit reports is frequently accurate.

      When you're talking about accurate information, the right you're treading up against is that of freedom of speech.

      To get more specific, defamation --lying about someone else and causing them harm-- is already a restricted form of speech. It is also a possible action against a credit bureau that "with malice or willful intent" provides incorrect info. (See the Fair Credit Reporting Act 1681h(e).)

      The standard used to include the easier to reach "reckless" inclusion of misinformation, see Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, where a company brought a defamation suit against a credit bureau for false info and prevailed in the US Supreme Court.

      http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=472&invol=749

    8. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by Golbez81 · · Score: 1

      I think we need to instigate a little project mayhem, Tyler Durden style of course

    9. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by jareds · · Score: 1

      This is exactly correct. Not only are individuals not their customers, lenders actively profit when credit reports are worse than they should be, and these profits support the reporting agencies directly.

      It is the exact same scam as the ratings agencies passing off sub-prime mortgages as AAA. And it is completely due to the fact that the entire industry is supported by taxpayer money; financial institutions that fail to assess risk correctly are prevented from failing.

      Actually, it's extremely different. In the mortgage case, risk was assessed as lower than it actually is when making loans. The normal market mechanism for correction is that such lenders lose money and eventually go bankrupt, so it's perfectly coherent to claim that being backstopped by the taxpayers distorts the correction. Note that this correction doesn't rely on the lenders having competition -- if the entire industry is making loans below the cost of risk it will still lose money. Also note that the loss of money was absolute. They loans were not merely less profitable than they could be, they lost money on net.

      In contrast, if you assess risk as higher than it actually is, you still make profit, albeit perhaps less than otherwise. The normal market mechanism for correction is not bankruptcy, but competition. There are no losses for taxpayers to backstop. Of course, in theory lenders could eventually lose all their customers to other lenders using a more accurate model of consumers, but that isn't happening; and if it is due to government distortion it's not the same mechanism at all as propping up failing institutions.

      I suspect the real situation is this:

      Credit reporting agencies provide mostly accurate information. If I'm a lender, I want accurate information. If agency A offers "lender-friendly" bad credit reports and agency B offers accurate reports, I can steal from lenders using agency A all the customers who have have falsely bad reports from agency A. Your claim that providing bad credit reports helps lenders is only true if the interest rate for any given credit rating is fixed by law or something.

      Nevertheless, "mostly accurate" could easily allow for a lot of anecdotes of inaccuracy. The natural barriers to entry for a CRA are extremely high, so a tiny fraction of consumers with inaccurate accounts will not cause a competitor to spring up, but a tiny fraction could still be a large absolute number of consumers.

    10. Re:Freecreditreport.com is a criminal scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's free as in freedom, not free as in free beer.

  18. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Jared555 · · Score: 1

    If it was calculated/reported correctly it wouldn't. But there is a possibility that it is showing up in the same area as requests by credit card companies, etc. making it appear that you are requesting multiple credit cards/loans.

  19. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

    if you need real-time monitoring of your credit report to buy a house, maybe you shouldn't be buying a house.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  20. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...at least once a month rather than once a year...

    Tip: There are three credit agencies. You can check each one once a year for free. Check a different one every four months ...

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  21. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by OnlineAlias · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let us not forget that the majority of these sites are owned by the credit reporting agencies themselves. They have set up a system of credit reporting that is so ridiculously flawed security wise that they can now sell the people "protection" from the very same system. Good business to be in...

  22. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by wbren · · Score: 5, Informative

    Be careful about checking your credit too often though. When you check your credit too often, it dings your credit score.

    Not true. Applying for new lines of credit will lower your score, but checking it yourself will not. See http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs6c-CreditScores.htm#5

    --
    -William Brendel
  23. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We should be given access on a completely unrestricted basis 24/7/365 including holidays, weekends, etc. This is data that is used to deny you bank loans, car loans, causes higher rates on many things, etc. No one should be allowed to keep this data without allowing the affected parties to view every single fucking record. Furthermore, there should be financial penalties for any inaccuracies. They accidentally show that you paid late once when you really didn't? That's a $20000 fine, paid to YOU. I don't know why we think that companies need to be allowed to keep records like this and use them in business dealings but keep them completely secret. (Access once per year is nonsense, that's as close to secret as humanly possible)

    --
    -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  24. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Idiomatick · · Score: 1

    From a real world POV thats a useful tip. From a bureaucracy and goverment POV. WHYYYYY? wtf we don't need redundancy in these situations. I can see why socialism is so unpopular in the states when the system is so retarded.

  25. Its's a ripoff of "annualcreditreport.com". by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    FreeCreditReport is a ripoff of AnnualCreditReport.com, the real free site which the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires the three major credit bureaus to maintain at their expense.

    "ConsumerInfo.com, Inc. and Freecreditreport.com are not affiliated with the annual free credit report program. Under a new Federal law, you have the right to receive a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies. To request your free annual report under that law, you must go to www.annualcreditreport.com."

  26. Not as much of a ripoff as you might think by Jiro · · Score: 1

    If you read the New York Times article linked to a couple of posts up, they mention that the company at freecreditreport.com started selling reports *before* the government started requiring free annual credit reports. Of course, once this started, the chance for confusion helped them, but they actually started it independently of the government requirement.

    1. Re:Not as much of a ripoff as you might think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not exactly how I remember it. The big three all started offering annual free credit reports before the law was passed and before freecreditreport.com started. One of them had to do it as part of a settlement with the government.

  27. Erm by ShooterNeo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Has to be said : what exactly do you get "for free" from freecreditreport.com? You can't get any information without paying and signing up for a service that you have to beg the phone reps to get canceled. Scarier still, the company that runs the site has the power to truly screw you over if you contest the charges on your credit card, since they ARE one of the credit reporting companies.

  28. slashdot has been trolled. by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 5, Informative

    The submitter's name is "typosquatting." The linked article was written by Alias Encore's PR flack , and exists for the sole purpose of selling Alias-Encore's software and services-- namely "helping companies increase highly qualified traffic to their websites through the strategic acquisition of misspelled domain names."

    1. Re:slashdot has been trolled. by jimmydevice · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I tried to log into my sourceforge account yesterday via SSH and mistyped the url, transposing 2 letters.
      I got a login prompt and dutifully typed in my username and password, without success.
      Only after staring at my commands for a minute did I see the error.
      I immediately changed my password.
      More squatting scums!

    2. Re:slashdot has been trolled. by michaelhood · · Score: 1

      Another reason to use SSH keys.

      Speaking of which, you didn't notice the client asking you to accept & store the unrecognized hash for known_hosts?

  29. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't ask me why this is the case...

    Because - as I have recently found after starting a job here - the American banking system is utterly insane.

    I can't believe you people still use cheques, for fuck's sake. And that even with a 6 figure income you're looking at 6-12 months of "credit building" before you can qualify for a cheap car loan without being raped on interest rates.

  30. Credit is fascism by AthleteMusicianNerd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Any company or government institution can put whatever they want on your credit report and you have no right to defend yourself. Serial killers even get a trial.

    1. Re:Credit is fascism by xigxag · · Score: 1

      Defend yourself against what? A credit report is not a civil complaint or any type of official government record. And it's not "your" credit report in the sense that it belongs to you. It's a file that a private company keeps on you based on its own research and sells to other private companies. So, in no way, shape or form is it like fascism or serial killing.

      On the other hand, you do have a legal remedy against an incorrect credit report. In some jurisdictions, you can sue either the reporting party or the credit agency for libel. The agency has the possibility of asserting "qualified privilege" as a defense, which basically means that it was only acting in good faith on information received. You also have to show how you were injured by their failure to correct your report. And before doing anything involving the legal system, you'd be wise to consult with an attorney about the details of your situation, and the feasibility of even obtaining a judgment in your state. Your chances of prevailing might be slim but credit agencies certainly don't have the kind of sovereign immunity that you would expect under fascism.

      --
      There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
  31. FCR.c Is a Total Scam by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Informative

    FreeCreditReport.com is a total scam. It's not free - you have to pay to get the report. But everyone's entitled to a free credit report once a year anyway, direct from the reporting corps, under US credit laws.

    And now that scam has funded this evil precedent.

    Goddamn the lawyers.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:FCR.c Is a Total Scam by Tacvek · · Score: 1

      The really crappy thing is that FreeCreditReport.Com is run by one of the three credit reporting agencies.

      I also note that it is rather shitty that the interface the credit agencies provide when using the real annualcreditreport.com actually has places where it is difficult to find the link that says "No I don't want to buy these extra services, I just want to continue to the Free Credit Disclosure."

      --
      Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
  32. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    And welcome to the f'd up country that was founded by some British (et al) sons-a-bitches that were so into their f'd up God cult that they couldn't continue to fit in with the rest of the way too liberal (for the time) yet still f'd up God cultists in Europe. Don't be so hard on us though. In the last 230+ years we have at least keep the female breasts hidden. As far as banking here goes, just take your raping and move on. Never going to change. Us yanks are just too stupid and fearful (on average) to demand any better. Ya gets what ya deserves.

  33. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by lgw · · Score: 1

    I can't believe you people still use cheques, for fuck's sake. And that even with a 6 figure income you're looking at 6-12 months of "credit building" before you can qualify for a cheap car loan without being raped on interest rates.

    No, silly, this is America. We use checks. And we didn't fall for that chip-and-PIN-and-you're-liable-if-your-card-is-lost scam.

    Anyhow, taking a loan to buy a car is almost always a mistake. Save your money, pay cash, be free.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  34. FreeCreditReport.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    * Ruling applies with enrollment to Triple Advantage(tm).

  35. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Citation please. I was able to qualify for a low (0%) loan on a new vehicle, with only your normal everyday 5 figure income. Dodge Diesel truck--not some econobox.

  36. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... and it be far more useful to check for credit card fraud.

    Precisely, and that's exactly what the Big Three don't want. If people started checking their credit record at will, and as a matter ordinary household economics, the credit bureaus would be under a lot more pressure to clean up their respective acts. That will cost them lots of money, and they're perfectly happy that 'x" number of us get screwed out of our savings and our credit every year. Otherwise, they would have to actually fix the broken system they've built. There's no incentive whatsoever for them to treat us decently in this respect, mainly because there's no downside to them if we get shafted. Congress, of course, could fix that very easily with effective regulation and enforcement, but it's unlikely that will ever come to pass ... too many billions (of our money) on the line.

    Furthermore, the corporations that depend upon the credit system (banks and credit-card issuers, for example) want millions of people who don't understand the system, don't understand how to improve their score, or what affects it. That way they can keep milking those people with high interest rates, late charges, and so forth. It's no small potatoes, my friend.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  37. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 1

    Citation please. I was able to qualify for a low (0%) loan on a new vehicle, with only your normal everyday 5 figure income. Dodge Diesel truck--not some econobox.

    Without a credit rating ?

  38. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by barzok · · Score: 1

    The credit-reporting agencies are not government entities.

  39. Denied? You get a free credit report by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is data that is used to deny you bank loans

    When a U.S. lender uses a credit report to deny you a loan, you have the right under the FCRA to know which bureau the lender used, so you can get a copy of your credit report yourself.

    1. Re:Denied? You get a free credit report by Coopjust · · Score: 1

      In NY, IIRC, when lenders deny you a credit report, they are required to tell you the specific reason why (lack of history, if you are paying another lender late, etc.)

      In some states (I also believe NY is one of them), they are required to give you a copy of the report they used upon request if they deny you.

  40. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 1

    And we didn't fall for that chip-and-PIN-and-you're-liable-if-your-card-is-lost scam.

    What "scam" ? I'm not aware of any countries where the customer is liable for fraudulent transactions unless they've been grossly negligent (and being grossly negligent with your "checks" won't produce any different result).

    Anyhow, taking a loan to buy a car is almost always a mistake. Save your money, pay cash, be free.

    There are numerous situations where it makes more sense to get a loan. Everything from not having sufficient cash on hand, to being able to get a better return on the money elsewhere.

  41. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

    And all it will take is you getting enough people together to out-lobby the people who don't want that to happen.

  42. Tack on a generic by tepples · · Score: 1

    Buy your surname followed by a generic term related to what you sell. For instance, Staisy Example would find example.com taken and buy examplegreenhouse.com or something.

  43. Only a concern for the American Empire wage slave by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    That worthless bullshit garbage means NOTHING outside the borders of the Empire.

    Seriously, you can rack up tens of thousands in debt and just bounce to another country and get citizenship there leaving your silly social number and all that Imperial rabid consumerism as you get a new ID/identity for your new citizenship. All your three Master's can do then is cry into their platinum cups while sitting on their gold thrones on top of their titanium floors with embedded diamonds and pearls.

    The only check you need is a reality check with this set of debt chains you Imperials so proudly wear for some asinine reason.

  44. Mod that sites' users +5, Karma Whore by tepples · · Score: 1

    For the scores you can go to Credit Karma.

    So if I pay my bills on time, does that make me a karma whore?

  45. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by wickerprints · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What, you think the purpose of a credit file is to serve the borrower?

    Credit scores and credit reports are for lenders. Why would they fine themselves for incorrectly reporting your credit history? The system is broken not because there is inadequate oversight or accountability regarding lending and reporting practices (though it is obviously grossly inadequate). The system is broken because it is designed from its very foundations to ensure that no matter what, lenders always come out on top. This is why fraud is not more aggressively pursued, and why incorrect reporting is shrugged off as a necessary part of doing business. The free-market mentality is that the only mechanism required to ensure correct reporting is the loss of revenue due to competitors valuation of lending risk being more accurate than one's own. And of course, the consumer is the one who always gets shafted under this system.

    Credit reports are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they are a necessary aspect of determining credit risk. On the other hand, they are used these days to evaluate far more than one's creditworthiness--and they do so using very personal and specific data about you, information that you would think ought to be your right to know whether they are being used for or against you. The system is corrupt because it is being increasingly applied to aspects of one's life far beyond what was originally intended, yet the borrower is really the only party who truly cares about the accuracy of the data it contains.

  46. scam site makes my blood boil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here in the UK I was recommended to join the UK version of this site BY MY BANK. The credit report was worthless and I couldn't cancel my account.

    Months later when I saw the sneaky submarine charges on my card bills I rung up several times but never got my money back. The site is a low life scam- pure and simple. It has multiple complaints all over the net yet when I asked customer service each time if they feel good working for a scam website they would reply that it's perfectly clear and in the TOS.

    Come on, who reads the TOS ever? It says on the website FREE credit report (in caps)... Therefore I assume it's free.

    Stay away. They should be shut down. They stole money off me.

    1. Re:scam site makes my blood boil by thomasw_lrd · · Score: 0

      Wow you people are stupid, not just you ac, but eveybody that complains about it. I clearly understood the first time that I would be charged recurring fees for checking my credit. That's why I use a disposable credit card from wal-mart. Check it once, use the card for whatever I was going to buy anyways, and then when they can't charge my card, they cancel my account. It's annoying yes, but nothing scammy about it, of course I consider myself smarter than the average slashdotter anyways.

  47. Ren Faire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck your friends, fuck your dad, fuck your mom!
    Never mind, they've been droning our songs
    Since we first showed up with our fag hats on!
    If you're not into pork sword fights
    Pointy slippers and green wool tights
    Take a trip from a jerk who knows
    Notso Free Credit Report dot com, let's go!

  48. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And yet all 3 have the incontestable power to destroy your life.

  49. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    undoing overrated

  50. DO NOT USE FREECREDITREPORT.COM by JimboFBX · · Score: 2, Informative

    freecreditreport.com will automatically sign you up for a service which you can cancel at any time. They will never ask how they will bill you because they will steal it out of one of your bank accounts as 3TVC. yeah, if you call to cancel they won't actually cancel. I've talked with like 3 or 4 people who have used the service and all of them said that freecreditreport.com didn't cancel even though they claimed that they did so on the phone. You have to get their payments disputed through your bank once you figure out which bank account they are pick-pocketing you from. I dont understand why they aren't all arrested and thrown in jail. My wife used this service, found out 6 months later that 3TVC was actually freecreditreport.com, tried to get refunds on them, and found that the bank wouldn't refund that far even though they had records of her account much farther back. She only got 3 months back. When she talked with someone from the bank, they said they get this all the time from freecreditreport.com. WHY ISN'T THIS ILLEGAL!?! THIS IS MINOR THEFT ON A LARGE SCALE AND EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT IT!!!!

  51. Free by daveime · · Score: 1

    It's laughable that the domain freecreditreport.com says this on it's homepage.

    When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple AdvantageSM Credit Monitoring. If you don't cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period**, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that you continue your membership.

    So it's NOT free at all. Seems like they just handed over care of the lambs from one wolf to another.

    1. Re:Free by thomasw_lrd · · Score: 0

      Except it is free from 7 days, so no lies, no false advertisement.

  52. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a question.

    Why is it that someone can fuck up your credit right away if you pay a bill late, but when you pay that late bill back it takes the credit agencies upwards of 30 to 45 days to correct your credit. Shouldn't it be if you pay your late bill the credit agencies should immidiately fix your credit report to reflect that payment?

    Is there a chance of making this law?

  53. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by barzok · · Score: 1

    Private companies aren't bound by the Constitution (it's only meant to protect us from the government itself. Insert boilerplate argument about erosion of Constitutional protections over the last X decades here). That helps a lot.

  54. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 1

    In fact, this is the perfect example of why the free market doesn't work sometimes. Lenders always benefit when they can justify charging you more for a loan by getting the worst credit report possible. The reporting agencies have no incentive to fix the problems because every fixed problem directly results in lost profits for their industry.

    So you end up with lenders being protected while the consumers - the voters who control the laws that allow lenders to exist - get hit with higher and higher interest rates. And it's not like some fair, reasonable credit reporting startup can realistically compete when the Big Three own the central authority that everyone orders reports from.

  55. Costs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am wondering how much it cost them to contest 1017 domains

    Source: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/fees/index.html

  56. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 1

    Is that so hard to believe? Say the window allowed by law for events to affect your score is 45 days. When you hurt your score, lenders (their customers) have a very strong need to know immediately. When you improve it, lenders (their customers) don't consider it a priority, and in fact they have an incentive for your score to be as low as possible. So the agencies pad out the response time to the maximum allowed by law: 45 days.

    It's a problem of conflicting interests, not one of making law stricter. At least in this specific case.

  57. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Credit protection subscriptions and the like are BIG business. The guv will never mandate open access to your credit info... the credit bureaus would scream bloody murder.

  58. A special place in hell... by BlueF · · Score: 1

    I'd like to think this is a fair more positive step in the right direction to curtailing cybersquatters -- those for whom there is a special place in hell... along the lines of sub-prime mortgage profiteers (and anyone else making money off the misfortuate/suffering of others) -- rather than a dangerous precedent against fair use.

    Seriously, unless you run a legit business which happens to have a name similar to another, where you own ONE similar domain (maybe a few that ALL rediect to your legitimate web business), otherwise you have 0% right to own multiple domains. This is not to mention 1017 variations of a legit domain, where the squatter domains are dead-pages or fake web portals (search/news/whatever). There is no fair-use going on there.

  59. Generic Trademark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    example of some of the names given to freecreditreport.com:
    newyorkfreecreditreport.com
    getfreecreditreportonline.com
    statewithfreecreditreport.com

    I see that freecreditreport.com owns freecreditscore.com. There are hundreds of businesses that use the term "free credit report" or "free credit score". Why did the uspto grant freecreditreport.com trademark rights to such a generic term? The term is too ordinary and by definition has a natural association with something in a consumers mind.

      I guess if you spend enough millions and have a superbowl commercial or two you can trademark almost anything?

    I don't agree with the typosquatting, but this decision goes way beyond it, and sets a bad precedent.

  60. This stuff deserves better explanation. by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 1

    I don't think they existed before the US government mandated the credit agencies give you a free copy of your credit report every year (via annualcreditreport.com). "free"creditreport.com doesn't actually give you a credit report for free; you have to enroll in a reporting service to get it.

    This is worth emphasizing more carefully so that people can't possibly miss it. You are entitled to one free yearly credit report from the consumer credit reporting agencies. The official website for this is AnnualCreditReport.com.

    Some important details to be aware of:

    • A credit report is not the same as a credit score. A credit report states what names and addresses are known for you, what credit accounts you have had, and your history of making payments on these accounts. A credit score is a number generated by a computerized analysis of your credit report, used for a quick judgement of how good your credit is.
    • You're entitled to one free credit report each year, not a free credit score. The free reports website will forward you to the websites for the credit reporting agencies to get your reports. Read the pages in those websites very carefully, because the reporting agencies are sleazebags that will try to trick you into buying a credit score in addition to your free credit report, and sell you credit monitoring subscription services.
    • The credit scores that the websites will try sell you are normally calculated with a different formula than the ones that lenders use to process your credit application. So don't buy the agencies' credit scores because you'd like to see the same score that a lender would pull up for you; the number will likely not be the same. (The credit agencies don't want you to know this either; when pressed upon this point, they say something along the lines that they sell you a special credit score designed to help consumers improve their credit.)
    • The point of looking at your credit report is to make sure there are no errors. Read the information carefully, and if you see anything you think is an error, then bring it up with the agency.
    • You don't have to get the credit reports from all three agencies all at once. You can get a report from one of them now, one from another four months from now, one from the third eight months from now, and start the cycle all over again next year.
  61. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

    Not only that, but they don't give an easy way to cancel your membership online. The only way to cancel the thing is to literally call them up on the phone and do it, at which time you have to do verbal battle with the service rep whose job it is to tell you how awesome their service is and remind you that without it your credit score will catch HIV and die.

    They're one of the shadiest companies I've every dealt with.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  62. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by shentino · · Score: 1

    The free market ALWAYS works...if it exists.

    The problem with a free market isn't that it doesn't work, but that it's fragile.

    As soon as one company gets big enough to push everyone else around, it is by definition not a free market anymore.

    Most "market failures" actually start happening when the market's "freeness" goes away.

  63. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Kagura · · Score: 1

    And that even with a 6 figure income you're looking at 6-12 months of "credit building" before you can qualify for a cheap car loan without being raped on interest rates.

    Can I have a $30,000 loan? I have a six-figure income, I can even have you meet my employer to prove it. What's that? You don't like giving loans to people you just meet, even if they make $120k a year?

  64. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 1

    Can I have a $30,000 loan? I have a six-figure income, I can even have you meet my employer to prove it. What's that? You don't like giving loans to people you just meet, even if they make $120k a year?

    Yet in many countries (Australia, Switzerland, England, to name the ones I am personally familiar with) you can do just that - simple proof of employment and income is all that's necessary (unless you're self-employed). I had a credit card with a $20k limit within a couple of months of arriving in Switzerland, and the only reason it took that long was the wait for my residency permit to be processed. All they wanted was evidence that I was a legal resident and proof of income. Further, stupidities like a "credit check" with too large an outstanding amount on a card resulting in a loss of "credit rating" were not even a passing concern.

    Really, the biggest problem dealing with US banks as a new resident is that anything not American may as well not exist. Five year history with same company ? Tens of thousands of dollars in cash back home ? Existing mortgage with a decade of regular repayments and rental income ? Several existing credit cards ? If you're new to the country it all means diddly squat. You're in the same boat as some random kid just finishing high school who's never had a job - you have to spend 6 months (if you're lucky) to 12 months (more commonly) walking on eggshells. It's ludicrous.

  65. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know, I thought it was once per year per one of the three free sites. Hence, you could do it once every 4 months. Am I wrong?

  66. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by BitZtream · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    We don't use cheques, we use checks. I don't particularly care that you need to re-enforce the differences our languages have developed over the years, most of us are aware that we spell somethings different just so its clear we are NOT YOU. Get over yourself.

    I bought my first car with a low interest rate and the car cost more than half my yearly salary, it was the first thing I bought on credit. Not really sure what your problem is, but until about a year ago having no credit wasn't really an issue for any one unless you were old enough that no credit meant you had probably had bad credit and waited for the bad stuff to disappear off your record.

    I can't believe you people still haven't gotten over yourselves. Keep it up, at least the rest of the world can see where we got our arrogance from that way. By the way, hows' that world power thing going for you now days?

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  67. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Sulphur · · Score: 1

    I would prefer that they tossee jingle than catchy it.

    "... how I got my knowledge on" (from one of their jingles)

    --

    Financial advice 60% off.

  68. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by MrPhilby · · Score: 1

    And thus if you rely on credit you have to modify your behaviour to survive so as to "please" the authorities. One more reason for us all to be permanently in debt.

  69. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by pipingguy · · Score: 1

    I always know when I'm in trouble with Amex, as I get strange hang-up calls. I call them up, settle the balance, and the hang-up calls go away. Odd. Later, they offer me a "better" card. Now, I have the super-duper, gold-plated, silver-trimmed version that gives me a million dollar limit. At this point I'm just trawling them along, waiting until I get the billion-dollar limit unobtanium version card after which I'll just say, "Sayonara, suckers!" and get on my spaceship.

  70. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by pipingguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With a "6 figure" income you need to borrow money to buy basic transportation?

  71. Bad decision. by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    This has bad decision written all over it, and will only serve to stifle people in the future.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  72. Re:Only a concern for the American Empire wage sla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ^ I want a couple ounces of whatever HE'S smoking.

  73. are you upside-down in an ARM now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because you're thinking is as messed up as those folks.

    "even with a 6 figure income" -- let's say $100,000 per year; this is only $10K per month of which you'll have only $3K left after taxes, utilities, rent/mortgage, and other non-car-payment bills (even less if you're being smart and putting money away for retirement)
    "6-12 months...before you can qualify [for a low-risk loan]" -- $3K times 6-12 months=$18-36K

    No shit that when you want a loan for an amount that you won't have for another year or more if you can even manage to keep your job for that whole time you're going to have to pay more to offset the risk that you won't be able to pay back the money.

    Now do you see why you're faulty thinking mirrors that of the idiots who took out ARMs on over-priced homes feeling secure that in the future house prices would continue rising unchanged to rescue them?

    1. Re:are you upside-down in an ARM now? by Cal27 · · Score: 1

      ...$100,000 per year; this is only $10K per month...

  74. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem with a free market is that it never works, because it cannot exist.

    That's not only because it's inherently fragile, and will be utterly destroyed as soon as any one entity gets a slight advantage (which given market freedom will inevitably lead to a monopoly), but also because it would require an utterly impractical system of supply and distribution. And, most industries have an inherent barrier to entry, which precludes true market freedom on the front end.

  75. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

    But in the end, unless your going to buy a house or a car you don't really need up to the second data on your report

    But in the end, unless you're going to buy a house or a car you don't really need your report at all.

    There, fixed that for you.

  76. Re:Only a concern for the American Empire wage sla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...because as we all well know, the American economy has absolutely no impact on the world economy at all [coughs].

  77. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 1

    With a "6 figure" income you need to borrow money to buy basic transportation?

    No, I just know that my money can be put to better use than buying a car with cash or sitting in deposit for a secured loan. Particularly in the very expensive first few months of an international move (and especially before I receive my first paycheque).

  78. Lookout SPARCfun ;-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear Sparkfun,

            In light of recent events, we're going to totally screw you over now...

    --SPARC International

  79. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We don't use cheques, we use checks. I don't particularly care that you need to re-enforce the differences our languages have developed over the years, most of us are aware that we spell somethings different just so its clear we are NOT YOU. Get over yourself.

    You're the only person here who feels the need to "re-enforce the differences". I write it that way because that's the way I've been writing it for thirty years.

    I bought my first car with a low interest rate and the car cost more than half my yearly salary, it was the first thing I bought on credit. Not really sure what your problem is, but until about a year ago having no credit wasn't really an issue for any one unless you were old enough that no credit meant you had probably had bad credit and waited for the bad stuff to disappear off your record.

    The problem is when you arrive in the USA, you have no credit. The ridiculous part is where this is inescapably equated with having bad credit.

    I can't believe you people still haven't gotten over yourselves. Keep it up, at least the rest of the world can see where we got our arrogance from that way. By the way, hows' that world power thing going for you now days?

    Apparently you think I'm British. I'm not.

  80. Horrible Commercials - like fingernails on board by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it just me, or does anyone else want to take that singing idiot in their commercials and beat the living snot out of him? Worst-Commercial-Evar

  81. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
    "With a "6 figure" income you need to borrow money to buy basic transportation?"

    People don't usually have enough pocket change with them to buy a Porsche or a Vette.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  82. Maybe by ThurstonMoore · · Score: 1

    Maybe they should take away freecreditreport.com's domain away and give it to annualcreditreport.com since it is the place to go to really get your free credit report.

  83. Re:Only a concern for the American Empire wage sla by ponraul · · Score: 1

    Which country do you suggest for the American debt slave emegrant?

  84. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Vesvvi · · Score: 1

    If your take-home pay is >$42,000 a month (very conservative estimate for 1M/year gross), do you really need a car loan?

    And if you're in that situation, and you do need a loan, that doesn't speak well for your money management skills. I wouldn't want to loan it to you.

  85. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I can invest money at a higher rate than the interest rate on the car loan, why would I waste the opportunity just to pay cash for a car. As a matter of fact, I would say that doing so would speak fairly poorly of my money management skills.

    dom

  86. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by drsmithy · · Score: 1

    If your take-home pay is >$42,000 a month (very conservative estimate for 1M/year gross), do you really need a car loan?

    A "six figure income" starts at $100,000, not $1,000,000.

    And if you're in that situation, and you do need a loan, that doesn't speak well for your money management skills.

    With low financing rates like 0% - 2% being quite common, I'd be mad *not* to take advantage of it and use the cash somewhere it would get a better return.

  87. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Zxern · · Score: 1

    What "scam" ? I'm not aware of any countries where the customer is liable for fraudulent transactions unless they've been grossly negligent (and being grossly negligent with your "checks" won't produce any different result).

    Some banks offer the chip and no pin for transactions with a debit card. If someone takes that card they can use it anywhere and drain you account completely and you have no recourse whatsoever.

  88. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by toddestan · · Score: 1

    They'll happily give you a for a high end diesel truck, even if you'll be barely able to pay it off - provided you have a credit history. But if you don't have a credit history, you might as well not exist.

  89. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by lgw · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In many places, a chip-and-PIN credit card gives up the "stolen card" protection I'm used to, on the blatent falsehood that someone couldn't use your stolen card unless you told them the PIN.

    And there's always a rationalization for living beyond your means, but very few legitimate reasons to get a car loan. The only exception I can see is if you're a taxi driver buying your cab (or owner/operator of a comercial truck or etc) where it's really a small-business loan. Don't have much cash? Drive a crapwagon and save up until you do. Better return elsewhere? Exceedingly unlikely (given you usually have a choice between a below-market interest rate and a significant up-front discount on the car), though I guess there are cases like the now-defunct Saturn, where they negotiated on financing instead of price. But most people can't understand risk-adjusted rate of return, so they borrow money to invest.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  90. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 2, Informative

    "The free market ALWAYS works...if it exists."
    No, no, no, absolutely not!

    It does not always work.
    Look up:
    Moral hazard problem
    Coase theorem (negative externalities in an unowned resource, e.g. the air/environment)

    Those two things should be enough to show that the free market doesn't always work. And, of course, there's the problem with monopolies as you said.

    --
    -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  91. Re:Liar beats other liars? Mod up by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 1

    It's once per year per agency. You can request your information every 4 months from a different agency. Of course, if there's problems on your report that were added right after you checked it, it's impossible for you to see until next year.

    Like I said, it's as close to secret as humanly possible.

    --
    -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.