Consumer complaint received 2022-09-15
Company: Experian Information Solutions Inc.
State: PA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit monitoring or identity theft protection services
Sub-issue: Problem with product or service terms changing

Complaint:
I signed up for free credit monitoring with Experian for the purposes of identity theft protection. I put in all of my personal information to create the account and took screenshots of the email address and password that I used. I was ready to go back on and upgrade to a paying membership when less than 5 minutes later using exactly the same information that I took a screenshot of I could not log on to the site. So I tried to call their customer service number and the only help their automated service could provide was to change the password. I did not wish to do that. I wanted to know why the password that I just put in was not working. Since they did not have a prompt for that on their automated system, I wanted to speak to customer service. All I kept being told was they would not allow live person except in certain circumstances but they wouldn't tell you what those circumstances were. I tried everything I could do to get through to a live person as their automated system could not help me. I tried several different numbers asking for customer service, a live person over and over again and still could not get through. Eventually the automated service would hang up on you If you did not follow their prompts correctly, which I could not because that was not the help I needed. I called back and tried several times to get through to a person each time just to be hung up on again by the automated system. Finally after many times of being hung up on I was able to get through on one number, Still not sure how this happened as all I did was keep repeating the word complaint, by this time I was quite upset. I explained that originally I wanted help with a password I had just created and did not want to make a new one, and was interested in signing up for their paid service but because of the number of times I had to keep calling back trying to get a person I was so frustrated at this point I wanted to make a complaint and no longer wanted any part of their service. I believe she canceled the service but would not take the complaint. I told the woman what happened in a raised voice because at this point I was so upset and frustrated with their lack of customer service. I did not use any curse words.. She hung up on me which was even more frustrating. Had she actually tried to help me It would have calmed me down. I tried calling back several more times trying to get through to a person using the same repeated word as before and was unsuccessful. I do not wish to have a service for something as important as your credit and identity theft where you can not speak to a person when you need help and what you need help for is not on their automated phone service. I especially do not feel that a company is trustworthy enough to deal with credit and identity theft. If hanging up on a customer by both automated system and live person is their ideal of customer service!

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