According to the GitLab pricing page, creating a Free tier account specifies No credit card required. Based on this advertisement, it is expected that a user should be able to create a Free tier account without a credit card. The observed behaviour is new users are blocked from creating an account until they give a valid credit card. This behaviour does not match the statements on the pricing page, thus making them false.
The identity verification page also specifies that GitLab will not charge or store your payment information, it will only be used for verification., but upon entering credit card information my card was, in fact, charged $0. A $0 charge is still a charge.