Consumer complaint received 2016-08-15
Company: TRANSUNION INTERMEDIATE HOLDINGS, INC.
State: NJ
Product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit monitoring or identity protection
Sub-issue: Problem cancelling or closing account

Complaint:
XXXX separate problems with TransUnion : 1. Their website is set up to intentionally deceive people. Many states allow for one free credit report per year from each of the XXXX major credit reporting agencies. The space on TransUnion 's home page is almost entirely taken up with their offer to " Get Credit Score and Report '' with a large " See Yours Now '' button beneath it. Most people will click on that and assume that they will be told if their credit card will be charged at some point during the sign up process. 

The next page is where you enter your personal information, and on the right side of the page, XXXX under XXXX the advertising, they inform you that you have a chosen " FREE credit score & {$1.00} Credit Report ''. This is not in any way obvious. On the following page you enter an active credit card number, which, it would be reasonable to assume, is necessary to confirm your identity. You are not notified that the credit card will be charged. There is no confirmation page after that. The page where you enter your credit card info appears to be just another section of the identification information needed to verify your identity in order to pull your credit report. Even after signing up, it is not obvious that you have been charged {$1.00} and that after 7 days you will begin getting charged {$20.00} per month. 

After realizing I was scammed, I went back to the site to begin creating a new account and print out or screenshot each part of the process. When you print out the page, there is a message right at the top in bold letters that your credit card will be charged {$1.00} and that you will begin getting charged {$20.00} after the 7 day free trial. But if you view the page on your computer, which is what you use to sign up, that message is not there. It is buried under the advertising on the right side of the page. Why on the printable version, which no one would ever use, is it so clear? Is there a loophole in the rules that allows you to buy a potential charge under advertising, but a printable form must make that clear? 

2. There is no way to cancel online. You are forced to call in. You can find cancellation information in the FAQ. They recommend that you call a number but if you want to cancel online, to click on a link. That link takes you to another page that asks you to call a number, but if you want to cancel online, to click on the " Continue and Cancel '' link. That link is a dead link. They require you to call in to make it more difficult to cancel. 

This will obviously result in many people putting it off until a later time since making a phone call, waiting through multiple menus, regurgitating all your identifying info, and then having to explain yourself to CSR is not always convenient in that particular moment when simply hitting cancel while logged into your account is. All that needs to happen is for a few people to forget about calling back for them to start collecting the {$20.00} per month. It 's hard to imagine that this is not intentional. There is no reason to not allow cancellation on the website or to provide any way to contact their company through email or online forms.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation