By Emerson Smith
South Carolina businesses have been advised by Governor Haley’s office to register for a free credit monitoring service with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) http://www.dandb.com/sc/or Experian http://www.smartbusinessreports.com/SouthCarolina.
D&B has responded to some businesses with emails saying that the business’ credit profile is incomplete and that the business owner should call a D&B Credit Advisor immediately. The Credit Advisor is telling some businesses that the business needs to have at least four companies with which the business has credit to make the business’ credit profile more complete. The cost to the business is $948. To further improve the business’ credit profile, the business can add eight credit-providing companies for $1248.
It is not required that South Carolina businesses pay D&B anything for credit monitoring.
Obviously, D&B is pleased to have South Carolina businesses call them and give them information about the businesses. D&B can then market to these businesses for the many services, such as credit reports that D&B offers for a fee, for many years.
What D&B offers free is only “credit monitoring” for one year. D&B does not provide a credit report for free.
However, Experian does offer a free credit report as well as free credit monitoring. Businesses can go online at any time after registering with Experian and check the business’ credit report for a period of one year