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I'm asking about this question:

How can one get their FICO/credit scores for free? (really free)

This question is quite old, having been asked almost 6 years ago. Today, after attracting a spamish answer from a new user, the question was closed. The reason given was that the question is "seeking product or service recommendations."

Is this question really seeking a product or service recommendation? It seems to me that the OP is asking how to get their FICO score for free. Answers to that question may or may not recommend a service, but the question itself is asking for a method, not a paid service.

I understand that some questions from early in the site's history that used to be on-topic are no longer on-topic; however, this one still seems to me to be on-topic. If it attracts spam from new users, it should be Protected, not Closed.

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  • Did you put in a vote to reopen?
    – JTP - Apologise to Monica Mod
    Commented Aug 14, 2015 at 19:36
  • 1
    @JoeTaxpayer I did.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Aug 14, 2015 at 19:37
  • Already voted to reopen.
    – Dheer
    Commented Aug 15, 2015 at 10:58

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I think at the very least it needs some editing to make it properly on-topic.

I initially closed it because I saw the wording "Is there any website that is truly free where you can determine your credit score" and that immediately made me think "product and service recommendation". It doesn't matter whether the products or services requested are free, it's still asking for an off-site resource and the usual reasons for not wanting those questions are still valid (they attract spam and become stale).

I was probably also feeling a bit trigger-happy as I'd just spent a few minutes trying to work out if the latest post (now deleted) was spam or not.

I looked back at it again after a bit and realised that the other part of the question seems like it might be on-topic, in that it asks for specific instructions on how to get the score by post. However in practice no-one has answered that part so if we just edited out the "find me a website" part then we'd end up with a question with a bunch of invalid answers.

I guess it would be reasonable to edit it to a more general question which would leave the existing answers valid and re-open it. We should definitely protect it if so, if only to save us poor moderators from having to judge the spamminess of every new answer :-)

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  • I've made a slight edit to the question to take out the word "website" and make it sound less like a product recommendation request. Take a look and let me know if you find that less objectionable.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Aug 14, 2015 at 22:55
  • Thanks - I reworded a bit more to avoid the word "where" which still kind of suggests the same thing, and reopened.
    – Ganesh Sittampalam Mod
    Commented Aug 15, 2015 at 7:46
  • Thanks, guys! I believe I was one of the reopen voters. I think the reworded question makes it clearer that it's about personal finance rather than a product recommendation question.
    – Peter K.
    Commented Aug 18, 2015 at 15:02

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