Surely you've heard the commercials for freecreditreport.com - the one place not to go to get your free credit report (I'll explain in a minute).

For the second time in two years, the Federal Trade Commission went after and got a settlement with the company for implying that you get a free credit report from them. Actually, you do get one - but only after your buy something else.

Freecreditreport.com is run by Experian, one of the three national credit bureaus. They got in trouble and settled with the FTC for the same misleading marketing in 2005. They've had to pay more than $1 million in fines for this ad campaign, which has convinced a lot of consumers that they are the place to go for a free report.

As for truly free credit reports, there is only one place to get them with no strings attached. Here are the instructions.