Are Identity Theft Protection Services The Real Scam?
from the mixed-incentives... dept
As identity theft has grown over the past few years, it's often recommended that people sign up for some sort of identity theft protection offering - which are usually offered by the big credit bureaus themselves. However, because of this, some are beginning to believe that the identity theft protection services are the real scam. After all, the credit bureaus now have more incentive to make you worried about identity theft, so you'll pay for these services, which can often run about $100/year. And what do you get for that $100? You get to do their job of preventing fraudulent credit information from appearing on your credit report. They're basically making you pay to check over your own record to make sure that they haven't screwed it up.
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Free credit reports
and thousands of stupid people will sign up for this too.
The BEST way to get a FREE report of your credit rating is to call any of the three big credit reporting agencies. Claim you have been denied credit and they will send you a copy of your credit report for free.
Anyone that pays for this services deserves to get fleeced for sheer stupidity.
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extortion racket
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Re: extortion racket
The only way to fix the problem is to remove the CRA's from the picture. Instead, a single reporting agency should operate like the postal service handles move requests and the like. When a creditor attempts to make changes to your report, you should be notified immediately, and should be given the benefit to challenge the change, especially in the case of new credit requests. Challenges should be in the same form of arbitration that everyone else is used to. Sure, it may slow down the process and "instant credit" will no longer be available, but this is the problem...it is so easy now-a-days to find and procure instant credit that very little is done to verify that the credit is being given to the right individual and that they have in fact asked for it.
If you want any proof that the CRA's are corrupt, take a look at the current "Fraud Watch" documentation. My social security number and name were stolen recently (along with several million others.) I put in a fraud watch with the three CRA's, and all were supposed to, within 30 days, send me a free copy of my credit report as well as put a designator on my credit report which told creditors to contact me first before giving out credit to someone claiming to be me. Of the three CRA's, only one sent a credit report, and even then, I was able to obtain credit without so much as a question as to my identity. When calling the CRA, I was told that the "fraud watch" was merely a suggestion, and that it was up to creditors to actually follow through with calling me. Which, according to the representitive I talked to with the CRA (when I finally got ahold of a real person, which is all but impossible,) very rarely occurs.
The system is broke, and nobody in charge is interested in fixing it, because they are making more money off of the broken system than they would to fix it...
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Re: extortion racket
It's better than not having it, right?
what is the solution to protect your credit?
sn@puractiv.com
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Identity Theft Services
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