You find a two-bedroom listed way under market rate. The "landlord" replies fast, friendly, a little too eager to show you around — but first, could you check your credit report and score at their preferred site, just so they know you're serious? It's free. Takes two minutes. You've heard landlords screen for credit before applying; this just saves everyone a wasted showing.
The apartment was never for rent. Neither was the landlord real. And the "free" report was the actual product being sold.
What Is This?
It's a negative-option credit-monitoring trap, and a federal prosecution — with a guilty plea entered March 30, 2026 — laid out exactly how one version of it ran for years. Michael Brown and Andrew Lloyd, operating a company then known as MyScore LLC, posted fake rental listings on classified sites — apartments they had no right to rent, sometimes ones that didn't exist at all. Interested renters were told to get a "free" credit report and score first, through Brown's websites, before a tour would be scheduled.
To get the free report, you entered a credit card number and were charged $1. Buried in that transaction was enrollment in a recurring credit-monitoring membership billed at $29.94 a month until canceled — a membership most people never noticed until it showed up on a statement weeks or months later.
The Southern District of New York charged Brown and Lloyd with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349 and 1343. Brown pleaded guilty on March 30, 2026, and was scheduled to be sentenced on September 1, 2026, facing up to 40 years. The operation drew about 2.7 million unique visits and pulled in at least $6.8 million from at least 169,000 people who were automatically enrolled.
Why It Sounds Appealing
Because everything about the setup matches what a real rental search actually feels like. Landlords do check credit. A cheap listing that moves fast is exactly what you're hoping to find in a tight market. And a free credit report isn't a red flag on its own — it's something you're entitled to.
The card charge doesn't register as a threat either. One dollar, for a report, before you even see the apartment? That reads as a processing fee, not a subscription. Nobody scrutinizes a receipt for a rental application the way they'd scrutinize a loan document. The scam works precisely because it borrows the shape of a routine you already trust.
Why It Fails
The legal exposure here isn't hypothetical — it already happened once, civilly, to the same company. The FTC sued MyScore's corporate successor, Credit Bureau Center, LLC, back in 2017 and won a $5.2 million judgment for exactly this scheme: phony rental ads, a "free" report, an undisclosed recurring charge. Under the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, 15 U.S.C. § 8403, a seller running any negative-option billing over the internet must clearly disclose the material terms before taking payment information, get express informed consent, and provide a simple way to cancel. None of that happened here — the entire pitch was structured so consumers wouldn't notice they'd agreed to anything recurring at all.
Do the arithmetic: $6.8 million from at least 169,000 enrolled customers is roughly $40 collected per person, on average, before most of them even knew they'd been charged. When the FTC eventually mailed refunds in November 2024, it sent 42,849 checks totaling nearly $1.9 million — about $44 each, or roughly a month and a half of the subscription price, for people who in many cases paid it far longer.
There's a second-order cost here too, and it's bigger than MyScore's customers. When Credit Bureau Center appealed that 2018 judgment, the Seventh Circuit didn't just review the facts — it reversed decades of precedent and ruled that Section 13(b) of the FTC Act, the provision the FTC had used for years to get money back for defrauded consumers in any case, doesn't actually authorize monetary relief at all. The Supreme Court agreed in 2021 in AMG Capital Management v. FTC, unanimously. Congress has been trying to patch the resulting hole ever since — the Consumer Protection and Recovery Act was reintroduced in the House again on July 30, 2026, five years later, still not law. One rental-ad credit scam helped strip the FTC's main tool for returning money to scam victims nationwide, and that tool still hasn't been fully restored.
The Real Alternative
You don't need a landlord, a listing, or a credit card number to see your credit report. Federal law already gives you one free report from each of the three bureaus every year, through the single site the FCRA actually authorizes: AnnualCreditReport.com, under 15 U.S.C. § 1681j(a). No card on file, no "membership," nothing that renews unless you ask it to. If you're applying for an apartment, pull your reports there first and bring the summary — most landlords never actually require you to run credit through their own portal.
If you're already enrolled in one of these memberships, canceling it and disputing the charges with your card issuer are the next steps. How much of what you paid comes back depends on your bank's chargeback window and how long the charges ran — results vary.
Want to dispute it yourself? The CreditShield Toolkit turns your own facts into accurate, statute-cited dispute letters — 11 letter types, one-time $27, no subscription. You print and mail everything yourself. Prefer to learn first? Join the free CreditShield Academy → Educational, not legal advice. Results may vary.
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