Issues with Experian

[Lucid08]

Hi all,

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction here...

2 weeks ago I went online to the annualcreditreport.com website to request my 3 free annual credit reports. I put in all of my personal information and selected "Experian" as the first one to request. Upon clicking the submit button I was returned a message that stated that they could not verify my identity with the information provided. Ok, no biggie I thought, so I got out the phone and called the 1-800 number and requested my reports that way. Well, 8 days later I had my EQ and TU reports in the mail. On day 9 I got an envelope from Experian with a single sheet of paper in it stating that I "had already received my free annual credit report" and that I "was not eligible to receive another at this time".

OK, still needing my report I decided to go online and just outright buy the darn thing and be done with it. So, I went to the Experian website, selected to buy my report for the $10.00 option, entered all of my information yet again, and this time when I hit the submit button I was met with the same message that they could not verify my identity with the provided information.

I'm at a loss, I cannot get my free Experian report, nor can I buy the blasted thing. I've tried calling the numbers on past credit reports, but I'm sick of the phone/computer promts that always end in a disconnection. I need to get this report, but in order to do so I need to speak with someone at Experian who will be able to look into this for me. Does anyone have a backdoor number, or direct access number that doesnt require me to input a credit report number??....because I cannot get one!! This is soo frustrating!!

::edited for accuracy

Message Edited by Lucid08 on 06-03-2009 12:05 AM

[Anonymous]

I had already obtained my Experian report for this year, and needed to obtain it again, so I decided on (attempting, I guess) to pay the $10. I, too, got the identity verification error. They're supposed to send a letter with a code in it. I subscribe to Equifax's 3-in-1 credit monitoring service which allows me to obtain a 3-in-1 report for $20 and that worked. It was $10 more, but I got all 3 bureaus and I needed the report anyways.

I believe Equifax offers a free trial with a free 3-in-1 report so I'd try that. TransUnion might as well with their TrueCredit product. I wouldn't bother trying any Experian-owned services (i.e. FreeCreditReport.com) since they'll probably result in the same error. 

[Lucid08]

Just wanted to update:

I managed to call one of the corporate numbers listed on the experian website(1 714 830 7000) and finally got thru to a supervisor who was very helpful in settling my issue.

It would seem that 2 years ago, when I first started my credit building journey, that I registerd on the Experian website and bought my Experian credit report using a visa debit card that was attached to my old bank account. In short, the fraud prevention or identity verification process they use is based, in part, on the information stored in your account when you register initially. So when I tried to use a new CC number to get my free report the system was flagging my account based on the old CC/Visa debit card number not matching the new one.

Hopefully this information will help others who are having this same issue when trying to pull their Experian CR's.