Online credit check free Colorado

Experian spokesman Don Girard says that selling to consumers at online credit check free Colorado websites using different names "is just creative marketing." TransUnion, privately owned by the billionaire Pritzker family of Chicago, operates TrueCredit.com, the site where Wendy Temple bought her TransRisk credit score, as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Another major subsidiary, TransUnion Interactive, distributes consumer products via dozens of independently run websites, company spokesman Steve Katz online credit check free Colorado says. These include PrivacyMatters.com, free-credit-reports.online credit check free Colorado com, Credit.com, Free3BureauCreditReport.com, FreeCreditReportsInstantly.com, speedycreditreports.com and SpendonLife.com, Katz says. Equifax alone sells consumer products primarily through its eponymous website, Equifax.com. "Our approach has always been to take the high road," says Steve Ely, president of Equifax'online credit check free Colorado s Personal Solutions. Joel Winston, the FTC's associate director of privacy and identity protection, credits the bureaus for improving their public disclosure statements in recent months.

But he says the FTC remains "very concerned" about any lingering confusion. "The principle we're upholding is, you've got to make clear what it online credit check free Colorado is you're selling," Winston says. "And also make all of the conditions clear." The Big Three for decades denied consumers access to their online credit check free Colorado credit histories, selling data exclusively to lenders. view your credit report

Once the government gave consumers the right to a free copy of their credit report, the bureaus moved aggressively to tap the consumer online credit check free Colorado market.

sales of credit data to consumers negligible in 2000 hit $220 million in 2003, soared to $488 million in 2006, and should top online credit check free Colorado $860 million by 2010, says Craig Focardi, financial services analyst at market researcher TowerGroup.

Though consumer sales make up only a fraction of the bureaus' lender-centric operations, they have become the bureaus' fastest-growing source of revenue.

But this windfall derives from an online marketing free-for-all in which many websites and promotional offers aren't what they seem. "Consumers face a bewildering variety of things to click on, some of which is valid, much of which is not," says Pam Dixon, executive director of online credit check free Colorado the World Privacy Forum. free credit report site

The bureaus online credit check free Colorado make no apologies for how and online credit check free Colorado what they sell to consumers. The biggest bureau, Dublin-based Experian, reported $375 million in consumer sales in its fiscal year ended last April. "Unhappy consumers don't buy your stuff," Experian's Girard says. "We've been averaging about 20% growth in our direct-to-consumer business, year over year. That's due to happy consumers." Not all consumers are endeared with online credit check free Colorado Experian.

The company's well-known subsidiary, online credit check free Colorado Consumerinfo.com, has been fined twice by the FTC. In August 2005, online credit check free Colorado Experian paid the FTC $950,000 online credit check free Colorado to settle charges that Consumerinfo.com misled consumers into subscribing to an online credit check free Colorado $80-a-year credit-monitoring service. In February, Experian paid the FTC a smaller fine $300,000 to settle a second round of similar complaints. Experian admitted no wrongdoing in either FTC case.

On Consumerinfo.com's home page, that disclaimer is in small, light blue lettering on dark blue background next to a large "order now" button for a credit monitoring online credit check free Colorado subscription. In March, about a month after Experian paid its second FTC fine, Melissa Duenas, 28, a customer service representative in Denver, surfed to Experian.com in an attempt to online credit check free Colorado obtain her free credit report. how to request a free credit report She online credit check free Colorado recalls being guided to a Web page where she typed in a credit card number, as directed, thinking online credit check free Colorado it was part of verifying her identity.

Actually, Duenas had signed up for trial use of a credit-monitoring online credit check free Colorado service.

After a month of free service, Experian initiated a recurring $13-a-month charge, which was dropped only after Duenas complained. The FTC and Experian say the service was properly explained.