Just before I left Iraq, I wanted to check my credit score for free on-line. And that’s when I made a mistake. I was dumb enough to use freecreditreport.com to check my credit score. The site is owned by Experian, one of the big three credit reporting agencies, so I figured it was safe to give them a credit card number to “verify” my identity. Boy, was I wrong.
Three months after my mistake, I noticed a charge on my credit card that looked like this –
| 22 DEC | CIC*Triple Advantage 877-4816825 CA | 12.95 |
I didn’t remember signing up for a monthly subscription to anything, so I called the number and was surprised to learn that by trying to get my one free yearly credit report as authorized by federal legislation, I had inadvertently “signed up” for a $13 a month service that would keep me apprised of my credit score moment by moment. That is a service I simply don’t need.
I immediately told the representative, who sounded like she was at the bottom of the ocean somewhere off the coast of the Philippines that I wanted to cancel the account and that I wasn’t even aware I had signed up for a monthly fee based service. All she wanted to do was argue about how valuable the service is to me. I find it highly insulting that a large company like Experian, a company that keeps track of millions of people’s financial data without their consent, is also in the business of trying to rip those people off. Experian trains their customer service representatives to treat callers like cowardly idiots who aren’t intelligent enough to make their own decisions about how much money they want to spend on a “free” monthly-fee based service.
Experian has earned my ire for life. Any opportunity I have to steer people away from doing business with Experian or any of its subsidiaries will be my pleasure. I am warning anyone who reads this blog entry to stay away from any services provided by Experian. They are unscrupulous rip-off artists who practice misleading advertising techniques and purposefully make it painful to cancel their completely useless service once they have tricked you into “signing up.” I’m sure that eventually, Experian will face a class-action lawsuit because of their unsavory business practices, but for now, make sure you steer clear of freecreditreport.com. Instead, use annualcreditreport.com. And boycott Experian whenever possible.