Experian

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Experian Plc.

Type	Corporation (LSE:EXPN)
Founded	1980 as Information Services Company
Headquarters	Dublin, Ireland Nottingham, United Kingdom Costa Mesa, California
Key people	John Peace, Chairman Don Robert, CEO Paul Brooks, CFO
Industry	Business Services
Revenue	$3.1 billion USD (2006)
Operating income	$586 million USD (2006)
Net income	$520 million USD (2006)
Employees	12,500
Website	www.experiangroup.com

Experian is a global information solutions company, with operations in over 30 countries around the world, including the USA, UK, most European countries, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, China, Japan and Australia. The largest operation, Experian North America, is a consumer credit reporting agency, considered one of the "big three" along with Equifax and TransUnion in that business in the United States.

1 About the company
2 Cheetahmail
3 Other countries
4 Controversies
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] About the company

Experian's principal line of business is providing consumer information, chiefly by using credit ratings, but it collects other information such as company records, insurance information, vehicle details and lifestyle data.

Experian employs approximately 12,500 people in 34 countries and as of 2005 had clients in more than 60 countries. Its operational headquarters are in Nottingham, United Kingdom, and Costa Mesa, California. According to its corporate site, Experian's annual sales exceed $3.1 billion USD (£1.4 billion) and it has assets of $7.644 billion.

Experian was demerged from the British company GUS plc in October 2006. The new company, Experian plc, is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the abbreviation EXPN ^[1] The company is part of the FTSE 100 Index.

Experian acquired its US credit reporting business from TRW in 1995, and its databases contain credit information on 215 million consumers in the United States. In addition to providing credit reports, Experian maintains a database of over 450 million vehicles containing title and registration data from North American governments and provides address information for more than 20 billion promotional mail pieces to more than 100 million households every year.

Like the other major credit reporting bureaus, Experian is chiefly regulated in the United States by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, signed into law in 2003, amended the FCRA to require the credit reporting companies to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report per 12 month period. Like its main competitors, TransUnion and Equifax, Experian markets credit reports directly to consumers. Experian heavily markets its for-profit credit reporting service, FreeCreditReport.com, and all three agencies have been criticized and even sued for selling credit reports that can be obtained at no cost.^[2]^[3]

Experian handles its credit disputes in its National Consumer Assistance Center (NCAC) in Allen, Texas. It is frequently sued for violating the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and uses the large national law firm of Jones Day to defend these lawsuits.^[4] Experian's litigation and settlement decisions are made by its in-house attorneys based in California. You may contact the NCAC once you have a copy of your personal credit report by calling the number that is located on the personal credit report itself. Experian announced that it would be opening a second NCAC in Santiago, Chile during the summer of 2007. Many divisions of the Allen NCAC will be relocated to the Chile location.

Experian provides regional data at nationalscoreindex.com which shows average credit scores by region and zipcode as well as various other measures of household debt. The site does not indicate if it uses a FICO based credit score, the new VantageScore, or some other scoring model.

[edit] Cheetahmail

Cheetahmail, an Experian company, is an e-mail marketing services provider. Cheetahmail was founded in 1998 and was acquired by Experian in 2004.

[edit] Other countries

Experian announced its purchase of Northern Credit Bureaus, located in Quebec, Canada on September 26, 2006. Experian now has access to NCBs database of consumer credit information and has made the entry into the Canadian market to compete with Trans Union and Equifax (http://www.lexdon.com/article/experian_expands_operations_in_canada/57418.html). It should be noted that none of the Big 5 Banks in Canada have acknowledged that they use (or even know of) NCB/Experian, but they openly acknowledge their use of Equifax & Trans Union.

[edit] Controversies

The Florida state attorney general is currently conducting a civil (not criminal) investigation of Experian for possible violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.[1] Possible violations include misleading advertising, misleading domain name, failure to honor cancellations, and failure to disclose a negative option enrollment.[2] The Federal Trade Commission had previously cited Experian for not making clear to consumers they would be charged an annual subscription for signing up. Experian settled this matter without admitting guilt.[3]

In December 2006, the web site guardmycreditfile.org reported that Experian, along with the two other major credit bureaus, had earned a grade of "F" in an appraisal of corporate customer services conducted by a non-profit group called GetHuman. Experian fared worse than the others, however, as it did not even provide customers with their customer service telephone number.^[5]