Ripoff Report Needs Your Help!
X  |  CLOSE
Report: #1278562

Complaint Review: Experian - Nationwide

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: pcappell — Loveland Ohio USA
  • Author Not Confirmed What's this?
  • Why?
  • Experian Nationwide USA

Show customers why they should trust your business over your competitors...

Is this
Report about YOU
listed on other sites?
Those sites steal
Ripoff Report's
content.
We can get those
removed for you!
Find out more here.
How to fix
Ripoff Report
If your business is
willing to make a
commitment to
customer satisfaction
Click here now..

I wanted to enquire about my credit score in October of 2015 before buying another car. I went to Experian.com, as well as one of their competitors. I pressed the "Get your credit report and FICO score" button, not knowing there was a condition attached to pressing this button. 

I got my credit score and purchased the car.

On January 5 I noticed a deduction of $21.95 from my debit card. Not understanding why this charge was made, I called my bank. To my shock, not only did I have this charge, I had one for both November and December 2015.

I called Experian on January 6 to rectify the solution. To my dismay, I was told I had purchased a monthly credit tracking membership. Needless to say, I was seeking to not only cancel the membership but get a full refund on the 3 month's worth of charges to debit card. I explained to them that their website is misleading and I didn't knowingly sign up for a monthly membership. In fact, they checked and the only time I had used Experian was on October 26, 2015. 

Their response? "Due to the terms and conditions you signed up for, we can only issue you a refund of one month as a courtesy." I persisted that this was unethical as I didn't know I signed up for this. Incdientally, I had, in fact, had this very same issue on the very same day with one of their competitors. The competitor handled it in a much better way. Not only did they refund the $39.99/mo for November - January, they also went as far as to tell me that they have received so many complaints they are in the process of redesiging their website and sign-up process. So much more consumer-friendly than Experian.

Experian wouldn't back down and only refunded me the $21.95. When the customer service supervisor asked if he could do anything else from me, I politely responded "I will never being doing business with Experian again."

How can it be ethical to automatically charge you a monthly membership if you don't cancel a 7-day trial you didn't know was a 7-day trial? Their large yellow button "Get your credit report and FICO score" is so huge that you don't even know there is fine print below it explaining the trial offer. 

In the very least they should send you a reminder email saying your trial is about to expire, and give you the option to cancel it so you don't get charged the monthly fee.

I am very disappointe in this type of misleading marketing and even more disappointed that they couldn't refund me the full 3-month charge.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 01/07/2016 07:09 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/experian/nationwide/experian-unethical-practices-nationwide-1278562. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

Search for additional reports

If you would like to see more Rip-off Reports on this company/individual, search here:

Report & Rebuttal
Respond to this report!
What's this?
Also a victim?
What's this?
Repair Your Reputation!
What's this?

Updates & Rebuttals

REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
1Author
2Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#3 Consumer Comment

Oh Brother...

AUTHOR: Robert - (USA)

POSTED: Thursday, January 07, 2016

There is a constant with these type of reports.  No matter what proof is provided or shown that in fact there were terms there that stated they were signing up for a membership, the poster will always deny it.  Now, the most you may get out of them is a "Well yes it is there, but it is not good enough".

So you know what, instead of trying to go down that road, let me go into your world and agree with you that the terms were not there or easy to read and you are just some innocent victim by a big evil company.  Sound good...good then let's continue.

Now that we have established that, do you want to know why YOU still bear the responsibility for this.  It is because it took you 3 months to actually discover this, and let us not forget it wasn't just one company you had this done by two companies.  Kind of makes us wonder what other charges are on your account that you didn't "agree" to.

The fact that it took you 3 months tells us that in fact you do not keep a written register on your account and/or you do not reconcile your account with your monthly statement.  As if you did you would have discovered this the FIRST month it happened.  You would have been out ZERO dollars, because they would have refunded your one and only charge from them.

Now, I am sure you will come here and give us 101 reasons justifying why you either don't or shouldn't have to reconcile your account and again that is standard procedure by people who are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.  So yes I get it.  Because let me point something else out to you.  By FEDERAL law you only have 60 days to dispute a charge on a credit card.  After that you are legally responsible for it.  So if say this was a real fraud case where someone got a hold of your card and charged up $500.  If you didn't find that out for 3 months you would be SOL.  Oh but you think you got me by saying "well I would have noticed $500/month".  Buzz...wrong answer.  All that does is give us a level you are willing to loose.  As by your lack of noticing it for 3 months you have then just admitted that $21.95 was too small for you to notice(or care about)..well until you figure you could try and blame someone else.

Now that we went over that, back to reality.....

The fact that you failed to notice a charge on your account for 3 months, goes towards your creditiblity.  After all if you missed a charge on your account it is not that far of a leap to figure that you missed the "fine print" on a web site.  Oh, and as for your car I really hope you paid more attention to what you were signing at the dealership.   If not, I highly suggest you look it over..oh and we will be waiting here for your next "report" when you find out that they are unwilling to change it.

And before you even mention it, no I do not now or have I ever worked for this or any other Credit Reporting Agency.

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#2 Author of original report

Apparently you didn't read either

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Thursday, January 07, 2016

In the fine print it says "When you order your $1 Credit Report & FICO® Score." See, you have to give your credit card information to get the credit review for $1. I pressed the yellow buttom first without looking below. Appparently this happens all the time because on their survey they just sent me it asked for a reason for calling in the first place and one of the choices was "I signed up for a $1 credit report review, not a membership." They're all over the internet and BBB for their unfair practices. 

It's my credit and I shouldn't have to pay to look it up in the first place!

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#1 Consumer Comment

Pure Garbage

AUTHOR: Jim - (USA)

POSTED: Thursday, January 07, 2016

 I went to their website and saw this "big" yellow button you write about. Directly below it is the complete list of terms and conditions. Secondly, how did they know to charge your account if you didn't give the account information to them??? NO RIPOFF HERE -- Complainer apparently signed up for this service and failed to comply with the cancellation policy but now blames them!

Respond to this report!
What's this?
Featured Reports

Advertisers above have met our
strict standards for business conduct.

X
What do hackers,
questionable attorneys and
fake court orders have in common?
...Dishonest Reputation Management Investigates Reputation Repair
Free speech rights compromised

WATCH News
Segment Now