Experian Experian was formerly a division of TRW, an automotive electronics giant. TRW was originally founded in 1901 as the Cleveland Cap Screw Company. They started producing screws and bolts and grew to produce many parts for the aviation and automobile industry. In the early 1960s, TRW started a consumer credit information bureau, collecting and selling consumer data, and eventually became known as TRW Information Systems. TRW Information Systems continued compiling data and were the first to start offering consumers direct credit report access in 1986. In 1991, rampant problems started appearing with TRW reported credit data. Thousands of people in a town in Vermont had tax liens inaccurately reporting against them. Similar cases started appearing in the entire northeast, forcing the deletion of countless tax liens across the states of Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine Dozens of lawsuits were filed against TRW, claiming sloppy procedures to create credit files, lack of response to consumer complaints, and re-reporting previously deleted incorrect data. All cases were settled out of court. TRW then created a database known as the Constituent Relations Information Systems (CRIS). This system’s sole purpose was to gather personal data on 8,000 politicians who held opinions on TRW. In 1996, TRW was purchased from Bain Capital and the Tohomas H. Lee Partners for over 1 billion dollars by GUS plc, a private group of investors. It was then combined with CCN, the largest credit reporting company in the United Kingdom. GUS retained the Experian name for their combined credit services subsidiary. In 2004 Experian continued its growth, purchasing CheetahMail, a business founded in 1998 offering email marketing software and services.