"There is no express or implied offer on our site for a free [credit] report."
Turns out that Congress passed a law forcing companies offering "free credit reports" to disclose "across the top of each Web page that mentioned free reports declaring that the only authorized source under federal law for such reports is annualcreditreport.com."
So, Experian has started charging so they can dodge the law that forces them to advertise a free competitor. This is where the main quote of this post comes in--when the spokeswoman was asked about this obvious contradiction.
This means, in theory, that they can get away with conning customers into signing up for a "free" $1 credit report where (unless they make the effort to cancel) after a month they will be charged $15/month for a "credit watch" service. Apparently, they're making quite the bank off of this semi-scam. According to the NYTimes article linked to above, Experian "paid a total of $1.25 million in 2005 and 2007 to settle two sets of charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it was misleading consumers who were seeking the free credit reports."
If they were willing to pay that much out just to settle, they must be making a helluva lot more than that from suckers--I mean--customers who fail to cancel their accounts after 30 days.
But don't think Experian is all bad--they give that $1 charge to charity.
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