Company charges for freely available sex offender information

FORT COLLINS - The flier reads "Attention Neighbors … A sex offender has moved into this area!!!" and then directs you to a website to find out "who they are and what their address is." To get that information, though, you need to pay up.

It costs $7.95 to sign up and then $4.95 a month after three months. The fliers have been posted at homes across Fort Collins, which resulted in many calls to the Fort Collins Police and several News Tips to 9NEWS.com.

What neither the flier nor the Web site (www.neighborhoodredalert.com) mentions, is that you can get the very same information for free on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's sex offender Web site (http://sor.state.co.us).

Police say neighborhoodredalert.com is run by a legitimate company out of Colorado Springs.

The company says offering updates on sex offenders is comparable to a lawn mowing service and claims to have received a good deal of positive feedback.

One person who left a News Tip with 9NEWS, though, calls the operation a "scam" and adds "I hope no one falls for this."