WASHINGTON--A subset of a major credit reporting company, which allegedly promised free reports but then billed customers $79.95 for a "credit monitoring service," agreed to settle charges of deceptive marketing practices.The Federal Trade Commission had alleged that ConsumerInfo.com, which also runs a site called FreeCreditReport.com, deceived customers about the free credit reports and later failed to distinguish its services from a government-sanctioned site designed specifically for such services. Experian Consumer Direct, ConsumerInfo's parent company, is one of the "big three" credit reporting agencies that last year helped to set up that government-sanctioned site at AnnualCreditReport.com.
The terms of the settlement, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, prohibit ConsumerInfo from making misleading claims about its products in the future and give specific instructions on how disclaimers should be displayed on its site and advertisements. ConsumerInfo must also continue providing refunds to qualified customers and hand the FTC $950,000 in "ill-gotten" revenue, which may go to "consumer education," the agency said in a press release.
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