Released: November 28, 2007

‘Free’ credit reports sometimes aren’t free

Source: Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA Today

Like many consumers, Wendy Temple’s first step shopping for a mortgage was to go online to get a sense of where she stood as a prospective borrower.

Temple, an accountant, surfed to TrueCredit.com, a popular website owned by TransUnion, one of the Big Three credit bureaus. There she purchased her TransRisk credit score, TransUnion’s assessment of her credit worthiness. Temple thought her score — 608 — was just high enough for her to qualify to buy a $207,000 home in a gated community in Holiday, Fla.

“I was so excited,” says Temple, who signed a purchase agreement with her fiancé. But not for long. The mortgage company, it turned out, judged Temple, 33, differently. 

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