Never heard of CIC CreditReport until the December '08 statement of a credit card. I had a $29.95 charge from them which I knew nothing about. No other people are on this account as I'm single.
I Googled and found gobs of complaints. Called one number I found, probably on this site, and the customer "no-service" person proceeded to ask for my account number. Right, like I'm stupid. They already have it.
I told them I would only provide my name and address as they obviously already found a way to charge my card. The lady was completely unhelpful, so I called my credit card company. They filed a dispute and the charge was reversed. I asked the card company to block any further charges, but they said they have no way of doing that.
The next month's statement had another charge, this time from CIC CreditManagerLT. This time it was $12. At that point, I did more research and was floored to find out that this is all REALLY Experian - the company that's supposed to be helping us all protect our credit. Are you kidding me!
I did the same drill with my card company and got the charges reversed again. I also filed a complaint with my state attorney general - and haven't heard a word from them in about 6 weeks, so I must follow up with that.
Meanwhile - this particular card had to be closed due to some other unknown charges not related to Experian. So, I thought, the bright side is that maybe CIC CreditManager will stop since there is no way they'll have any knowledge of the new card number. But, again, this is really Experian. So, they only missed one month - February. I just checked my account, and there is another $12 charge from CIC CreditManagerLT.
I called 877-481-6826 and talked to Jenny who asked the same inane questions as before. She wanted account number, "no", social #, "no", etc. I DID give my birthdate and told her they already have my account otherwise they couldn't have charged me. I told her I'd give her my address as there is definitely not more than one of me living at this address. All she said was that there were tons of my name coming up on her screen looking just by name and birthdate.
I told her I would be pursuing a small claims suit against her company and Experian (and I will be) and would name her in the suit for her unwillingness to help. I demanded a supervisor. Got one named Allison. She was as helpful as Jenny was. Both were useless. Allison simply told me it sounded like some unknown third party (not them of course) was using my card number to sign up for their services in my name. Right - and I'm an iguana.
I mentioned my lawsuit to her. Nothing. I asked for their corporate office phone number, including the CIC companies AND Experian. They don't have a phone for incoming calls, she said. Wow - imagine a company as big as Experian and they don't even have a phone system. Amazing. So she was just being a huge jerk and would only give me a PO Box address for CIC.
This just floors me that a company like Experian can get away with this with no ramifications at all. I got Experian's corporate info from the web and will be calling them. I also DO plan to file suit in my area small claims court for my time and energy even though I've gotten the charges reversed. If their company doesn't show up, I've read that that usually means the person filing the suit can win by default.
I'm also completely disappointed with the credit card company that says I just need to keep turning Experian in every month for a reversal of charges. Uh, later for that. One perfect way to end it is to drop the credit card. I don't need them that badly.
Christopher
Springfield, Missouri
U.S.A.
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