Upheld advert complaint against Experian

7 January 2009

The advert encouraged consumers to check their Experian credit report for free at creditexpert.co.uk.

It did not mention that this free trial was part of a membership offer which would then charge consumers after a 30-day period.

Consumers interested in finding out their credit history were required to provide account details in order to sign up.

It was up to the consumer to cancel the subscription at the end of 30 days if they didn’t want to keep using the credit check service.

A statement from the ASA says: “We considered that ‘conditions apply’ was not sufficient to make clear the degree of commitment required to access the free credit check offer, which would involve the consumer signing up to a service and bearing the responsibility of cancelling at the end of the trial period.

“We therefore considered that the ad should have made clear that consumers would be charged at the end of the trial period if they did not cancel. We concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.”