Household HSBC Watch

The Federal Trade Commission said there is only one authorized site where consumers can get their free credit reports as part of the 2003 law. That site is http://www.annualcreditreport.com _ and it now has reports available for people in the Western and Midwestern United States, as well as much of the South. The phased-in program will be expanded to cover the Eastern part of the country on Sept. 1.

The FTC said it planned to send warning letters to more than 130 imposter sites that either misspell annualcreditreport.com or use sound alike names. FTC’s Parnes said the agency wants those sites to know that it’s watching them and attempts to mislead consumers are illegal.

An affiliate of credit bureau Experian has settled government charges that it marketed free credit reports to trick consumers into paying for a credit report monitoring service, federal regulators said Tuesday. Experian, which acquired Consumerinfo in April 2002, maintained that it did not knowingly mislead or deceive consumers. The company promoted its “free” reports at its freecreditreport.com and consumerinfo.com Web sites, the FTC said.