Now, that said… everybody knows exactly what the company is doing and that the whole basis of making money is banking that people will forget to call back in and cancel. They even brought in specialists when I was there to design their website(s) in a way so your eye would be so drawn away from the disclosure. Which by the way, that disclosure was actually mandated by the Supreme Court (I think) in another lawsuit against the FCC when they settled. They do not put that on there willingly. They even had to go back a second time and get specifics from the judge because the CEO of FreeCreditReport.com, Ty Taylor, wanted the color of the text of the disclosure to be very similar with the background behind it… making it so it blends in and does not stand out very much. Even now, it’s not exactly a black on white type of thing. Last I checked it was a light blue on dark blue background. Don’t think for one minute that the company didn’t consult with experts about even the most conspiquous color to use in which the least amount of people will see the disclosure.

The company FreeCreditReport.com is actually not a company at all, but rather part of a bigger company called Experian Consumer Direct, which is part of Experian Interactive (EI). EI contains a lot of other websites where most of them are completely legitimate. ClassesUSA.com, consumerinfo.com, qspace.com, LowerMyBills.com, etc. The FreeCreditReport.com part of EI is the biggest revenue generating by far. Here is what I never understood though about the company. You get the “free” credit report because you agreeing to take a 7 day (used to be 30 das for many years) trial of their Triple Advantage. Triple Advantage is their brand name for their credit monitoring service. If you don’t call back and cancel you are autobilled the monthly membership fee. That name, Triple Advantage, has changed many times throughout the history of the company. Ther service is actually a pretty good service! It will email you anytime you get a negative hit on your credit, any derogatory information or inquiries. And you can check your credit for free anytime during your membership. I could never understand why the company would just market the service by itself as a legitimate and reputable service? I asked one of the VP’s that worked there one time why that was and he told me it was simply because there was more money to be made by doing it through “negative cancellation marketing”. That is a term that got started a long time ago with companies like Columbia House, AOL, and many others who do the same exact crap of “If you want to keep the service, do nothing and your service will continue uninterupted. But if you want to cancel, then you have to call back and cancel.” I know what you are thinking, why isn’t that type of business illegal? I have no idea. Many people… and I mean a LOT of people have tried to get it made illegal in the US but without success.

Something to consider about this company is they do not break the law ever, or at least nothing that I was aware of. If you call in to cancel, they will cancel your account (considering the customer service rep doesn’t screw up like we’ve all experienced).

Not sure if this information helps, but the fact of the matter is this company knows full well that an unbelievable amount of customers feel deceived, mislead, taken advantage of and their business style needs to be made illegal. If you wish to help this, find out which law firm is currently sueing them (there is always one going on) and call them to ask if there is anything you can do.