Experian

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Experian Plc.

Type	Public (LSE:EXPN)
Founded	1980 as Information Services Company
Headquarters	Dublin, Ireland
Key people	John Peace, Chairman Don Robert, CEO Paul Brooks, CFO
Industry	Business Services
Revenue	$3,481 million USD (2007)
Operating income	$473 million USD (2007)
Net income	$463 million USD (2007)
Employees	15,500
Website	www.experiangroup.com

Experian plc (LSE:EXPN), formerly known as CCN Systems, is a global credit information group, with operations in 36 countries.

The company employs 15,500 people. Founded in 1980 in Nottingham UK, Experian's corporate headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland with operational headquarters in Nottingham, England and Costa Mesa, California, U.S..

The company's largest operation is Experian North America, a consumer credit reporting agency that is considered one of the big three US credit agencies along with Equifax and TransUnion. As well as the US, Experian has operations in most European countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, China, Japan and Australia.

1 Activities
2 Cheetahmail
3 QAS
4 Other countries
5 Controversies
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Activities

Experian's principal lines of business are credit services, marketing solutions, decision analytics and interactive services. The company collects information on people, businesses, motor vehicles and insurance. It also collects 'lifestyle' data from through on- and off-line surveys. Access to much of the information Experian holds is subject to regulatory control, depending on the regulations in each country it operates.^{[citation needed]}

Experian acquired its US credit reporting business from TRW in 1995. Its databases contain credit information on 215 million people in the United States and 450 million vehicles, including title and registration data. It provides address information for more than 20 billion promotional mail items to more than 100 million households every year.^{[citation needed]}. Experian also provides credit reports on businesses. This business unit partnered with eCredit (now Cortera) in June 2007.

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.^[1]^[2]

Experian US handles its credit disputes in its National Consumer Assistance Center (NCAC) in Allen, Texas. 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 was demerged from the British company GUS plc in October 2006 and listed on the London Stock Exchange. ^[3] The company is part of the FTSE 100 Index.

In April 2007, Experian acquired Hitwise, an internet monitor that collects data directly from information service provider networks.^[4]

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.

In December 2005 Experian acquired FootFall Ltd, an information provider to the retail and retail property industries^[5]. FootFall is now a product of Experian's marketing solutions division.

[edit] Cheetahmail

CheetahMail, an e-mail marketing company providing e-mail marketing software and services was acquired by Experian in 2004. CheetahMail was founded in 1998

[edit] QAS

QAS, an Experian company, is an international provider of data quality solutions. QAS software uses data secured from national postal authorities and other leading data sources to verify and clean name and address records. QAS 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.^{[citation needed]}

[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 at FreeCreditReport.com. Experian settled this matter without admitting guilt.[3]

In December 2006, Experian, along with the two other major credit bureaus, had earned a grade of "F" in an appraisal of corporate customer services. Experian fared worse than the others, however, as it did not even provide customers with their customer service telephone number.^[6]

In 2008, Experian violated the Federal Trade Commission rules relating to the provision of free credit reports by mandating members provide credit card information before a request is fulfilled. The Federal Trade Commission's fraud unit received several complaints regarding this tactic and is now investigating the company practices^{[citation needed]}

In 1999 Experian was named in campaigning group Privacy International's Big Brother Awards as Britain's most invasive company ^[7]

In January 2008 Experian announced that over 200 jobs would go at its Nottingham office as it would move development work to India in a cost cutting move, causing concern amongst UK consumers over the security of personal data being moved overseas ^[8]