Brothers In Blog

If you currently have a specialty credit card issued by Chase Card Services (e.g. Amazon Visa, Buy.com Visa, etc), you might have recently received a $15 Circuit City gift card as an incentive to try Chase ID Protection. If you did get one of these offers in the mail, make sure to read the not so fine print — use the gift card and you are purchasing a membership in the Chase ID Protection program.

Chase ID Protection, what is it?

The Chase ID Protection program offers a list of services aimed at protecting your credit information. The plan sounds interesting and might be worthwhile to some consumers; however, the plan costs $11.99 per month. The price isn’t too bad but several of the reports Chase touts as “features” are nothing more than repackaged reports already available free of charge as Chase points out on the back side of the second page:

Many government records are available free or at a nominal cost from government agencies. Credit reporting agencies are required by law to give you a copy of your credit report upon request, at no charge or for a nominal fee.

Of course the key word in the entire statement is “nominal fee.” I guess that part is left up to the credit reporting agencies to decide.

Use the gift card and get away with it?

The offer, in my opinion is presented in such a way that some individuals might just use the gift card without completely understanding what they’re agreeing to. Understandably you could “game the system” and use the gift card and then cancel the Chase ID Protection and get a full refund of your $11.99 (I haven’t come across anything in the fine print that says you are obligated to keep the plan for any period of time). Remember, however, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and I suspect Chase has figured out a way to keep you enrolled long enough to recoup their $15 gift card expense.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you “read the fine print” and always keep in mind the old saying: if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.