"Free to use", but presumably comes with a user agreement that opens you to some financial liability. There's a (granted small) chance that a bug, security incident, or fraud lands you in a Kafkaesque debt nightmare.
I had a bit of a nightmare where one of the credit reporting agencies was convinced my residential address was inside my bank. Their online system referred me to their phone system or sending them mail. Their phone system referred me to their online system or sending them mail. I sent them mail 3 times and got no reply. An online cheat guide for getting to an actual human through their phone system didn't work, and I eventually just started hitting random keys in their phone system and got to a human who was able to sort it out.
You can't even get a secured credit card (backed by a cash deposit) without a credit check (I looked into it), which is going to fail if your residential address is wrong.
Opening a financial account that might misreport something to a credit agency shouldn't be taken lightly.
I had a bit of a nightmare where one of the credit reporting agencies was convinced my residential address was inside my bank. Their online system referred me to their phone system or sending them mail. Their phone system referred me to their online system or sending them mail. I sent them mail 3 times and got no reply. An online cheat guide for getting to an actual human through their phone system didn't work, and I eventually just started hitting random keys in their phone system and got to a human who was able to sort it out.
You can't even get a secured credit card (backed by a cash deposit) without a credit check (I looked into it), which is going to fail if your residential address is wrong.
Opening a financial account that might misreport something to a credit agency shouldn't be taken lightly.