Being on top of your credit score is important in today’s modern economy. There are hundreds of different places to get your credit score, credit monitoring, and other services related to knowing and building your credit. Here we’ll look at GoFreeCredit.com and if it’s a good idea to use this service for all your credit needs.
GoFreeCredit
This service is not a stand-alone proprietary credit monitoring service. In fact, it is a “white-labeled” credit monitor meaning that it is an affiliate (reseller) of a different service (TransUnion Credit Monitoring). Though the service is suitable enough for basic credit needs and monitoring, we typically recommend going directly to the source. However, let’s still take a look at the pros and cons of using Go Free Credit.
Pros of Using GoFreeCredit
This service has a free 7-day trial so you can give its inner workings a test run before you decide to pay a monthly fee. It uses TransUnion credit monitoring at the low cost of $1 for the trial and then is just under $20 a month recurring. What you get with the membership as well as during the free trial period is as follows:
- TransUnion Credit monitoring daily
- Credit Reporting & history
- Credit Score Reporting
- Daily credit bureau monitoring
- Identity theft protection (up to $1,000,000), insurance, and credit lock
- Smartphone mobile app and intuitive website
- Debt analysis
- Insurance scores
- Credit Lock
- Fraud Resolution
- Score Simulator
- Low monthly cost at $19.95
These are pretty straightforward items considering the vast number of credit monitoring and reporting companies out there. But they do cover all of the main bases so you know you’re getting an all-in-one solution.
Cons of Using Free Credit Score
This service does charge $1 during the 7 day trial period to use the TransUnion credit score. Though the fee is only $1.00 it should be said that there are plenty of other companies that will provide that same information for no cost during your trial or even just during registration. So you do pay a dollar for your credit score while others are offering it for free.
Affiliate/Reseller – this is not their own service and they use another companies systems to deliver their product (which leads to a higher cost typically)
When you sign up they have the right to share or sell your personal information like email and phone number
They have many different up sells within the system which is presumably where they make their profits
Unclear security measures and precautions
Zero phone support if you need it, so you can never get anyone on the phone
No help in fixing credit errors
Only offer access to the data of one credit bureau, TransUnion
So there are some clear limitations and there have also been some bad reviews on other website regarding their billing practices.
Plans & Pricing
GoFreeCredit.com offers a 7 day trail period where you do have to pay $1 for your TransUnions credit report. The trial does give you a free credit score as well. Some other companies offer 30 days or 2 week trial period but here it’s only 7 days, though after that 7 day trial you still get access to your 3 free credit bureaus scores. After the trial you’re charged $19.95 on a monthly basis. This is a great price compared to some other websites which can range up to $40 a month for more or less the same kind of service. So the price is plus.
Verdict: GoFreeCredit
Overall this service is average in comparison to other credit monitoring services. It has some great benefits but also has some noticeable limitations. The best thing that it has going for it is the low cost with some standard features. You can pay almost double for the same thing elsewhere so if you’re on a budget you may overlook a few of the limitations for GoFreeCredit.com.