I attempted to obtain an annual credit report from Experian on line at www.annualcreditreport.com. After submitting the form, the submission was rejected with this error : A condition exists that prevents Experian from being able to accept your request at this time. 
To obtain your Experian annual credit report, please mail your request to the address below using the Annual Credit Report Request form. 
Annual Credit Report Request Service XXXX. XXXX XXXX XXXX, GA XXXX After getting this message, I backtracked to find the Annual Credit Report Request form. It displays as a PDFin the browser, but you ca n't fill it out there. You have to download it. I saved the file to my desktop, but instead of saving to a PDF format extension, the file is saved in a bizarre format - manualRequestForm.action. This file ca n't be loaded into a PDF browser. I renamed the file extension to PDF. 

My observation is that these steps all result in discouraging people from filing for a free report. The Web site provided no explanation as to why " A condition exists that prevents Experian from being able to accept your request at this time. '' It does n't say try again later. It just provides a mailing address. 

How many people just wo n't bother mailing in the request? Those who try may find it impossible to download the Annual Credit Report Request form. Then you have to wait three weeks or more to get a hard copy. 

In the time when businesses know everything about how users work with their Web sites, when organizations tune their sites to make them easy and frustration proof, this site seems to take the opposite approach and looks to discourage the very constituency it is charged with serving from getting the reports they are entitled to by law. 
