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Experian Upsells ChildSecure, Credit Monitoring for Your Kids

 

Coincidently, the same day I received my first alert from Experian's FreeCreditReport credit-monitoring service (see yesterday's post here), the company revamped its website's account-management area. The thing you notice right away is the focus on upselling subscribers to the new ChildSecure family plan (see first screenshot below).  

The cost is an extra $6.95/mo, which seems like a good value, considering that you can cover all your kids with a single fee. But the total monthly fee on my plan rises to an eye-popping $18.95/mo or $227 annually. That's a significant investment and hard to justify unless you've previously been burned by fraud (for more on the price/value equation, see our Online Banking Report on the subject published in August).  

Screenshots (24 Oct. 2007)
Logging in yesterday, I was greeted with this popup in front of the grayed-out main page.

They also sell it in a huge banner across the top of the main page and a tab for the ChildSecure option.

Finally, here's the page you see after clicking on ChildSecure tab.

Here's the email sent yesterday announcing the website redesign: