How Experian thumbs its nose at the FTC every day

In 2005, Experian (doing business as consumerinfo.com) was fined $1 million by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive and fraudulent marketing of credit reports (see the FTC report here). Basically they marketed “FREE” credit reports and then charged people for the services. In clear violation of Federal law.

Experian fought it but was forced to pay a fine and put a disclaimer on their web site. So how did they implement this disclosure? Go to http://www.experian.com/ and see. They put the disclaimer in tiny font, orange text on orange background! Practically invisible. Especially since 1/12 men and 1/200 women are color-blind to some degree.

Anyone wondering why I named my company Truston?

Update: here’s a screen shot of the disclosure from the Experian home page:

Comments

[Ted Richardson]

From my perspective, the credit bureaus started the information gathering that has lead to identity theft crisis.

Amazing that they would then make money off it, illegally.

Good post!