There's NO Such Thing as a Free Lunch (or Credit Report)

We are all guilty of getting excited when we see those four little letters F-R-E-E. But let's be honest, retailers and companies use the word (usually in big red letters) on purpose, just to lure you into the store or onto their website. But, you know as well as I do, that FREE, most of the time, doesn't mean FREE! Especially when it comes to credit cards.

I could write 100 posts on credit cards alone, and how people get mixed up with them....paying the minimum payment then getting served a boat load of interest charges, but I'll go off on that tangent another time.

Now I'm going to focus solely on credit scores, because I know everyone out there is curious to know what their's is...especially, when it comes to making a big purchase, like a house or a car. In fact, most loaning institutions make it mandatory for you to get a credit score with any such big investment.

But there are many ads out there that say free credit report, and you guessed i, it's not really free. So, before you know it, you're paying an unknown company for different numbers requested by the bank or mortgage company.

Jane Kim from the Wall Street Journal, writes that most companies that offer a free report, only give consumers a small glimpse of what their score truly is...then they charge them for the rest.

Check out her article here, to get an idea of how not to get "hoodwinked," on a so called, FREE Credit Report!

Need a Password? It'll Cost Ya!

How would you feel if I said to you, your password safe material online or on your computer is not really safe. Well, I'm sure you already know that. But how would you feel if you knew some people were making some extra dough just hacking someone's e-mail or Facebook account. Privacy right out the window, right?

For about $100, YourHackerz.com will provide you with any password you wish to have. Say for example you want to read your girlfriend's e-mail, (not like you would) but, bingo you'd have access.

Now, if you're at all like me, you try to make all your passwords alpha-numeric. Then you make each one different for every site (especially the important ones) to ward off all those identity thieves. But you know as well as I do, that with this well kept secret, all the precautionary measures you took are, POOF, gone!

Washington Post Staff Writer, Tom Jackman writes more on this. See his story by clicking here.