The whole free-annual-credit-report-via-the-web-thing worked great in the beginning. I used it for years. Then, it went to shit. First, it was the barrage of ad

The whole free-annual-credit-report-via-the-web-thing worked great in the beginning. I used it for years. Then, it went to shit. First, it was the barrage of ads for free credit monitoring or whatever. Then, it just stopped working altogether. It's now obvious they're just trying to make it as difficult as possible to get your free annual credit report, which, I think, is supposed to be guaranteed by law. I actually wrote to one of the credit agencies a few years ago (forget which one), attempting to get my free report. Three months later, the agency sent me an insane form to fill out to get the report. They also started mailing me ads, telling me how easy it was to obtain my credit report...if I paid them. Nice.