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ALERT:
Have you heard this anyone?

Subject: FW: YOUR CREDIT REPORT GOES PUBLIC IN JULY! REMOVE YOUR NAME ASAP!

Your Credit: Personal Information goes public

Starting July 1st, 2003, the four major credit bureaus in the US (Equifax, etc.) will be allowed to release credit info, mailing addresses, phone numbers, etc., to ANYONE who requests it. If you do not want to be included in this release of your personal information, you can call 1-888-567-8688. Once the message starts you will want option #2 (even though option #1 refers to this email, push #2) and then option #3.

Be sure to listen closely, the first option is only for a two-year period. Make sure you wait until they prompt for the third option, which opts you out FOREVER. You should receive the paperwork in the mail confirming the "opting out" in less than five business days after making the call.

If you call this number, don't give your name or personal info, VERIFY with the legitiment credit bureaus!

FYI

I found reading this BIG time intrusion on privacy rights!!!

This came via a co worker's email sent to her...

From Snopes:

There is truth here in the issue which seems to be uppermost in the minds of most of those who receive this message -- that is, whether the phone number provided above is valid for the stated purpose or whether it's some sort of information-collecting scam. The phone number listed (1-888-5OPTOUT) is indeed legitimate; it is a shared number set up with the cooperation of the Associated Credit Bureaus to establish a single point of contact for consumers to call to request that all four major U.S. credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, Trans Union, and Novus/Innovis) remove their information from the marketing lists and pre-approved credit offer lists sold to third parties.

It is not true that consumers must call this number before 1 July 2003, nor is it true that recent legislation allows credit bureaus to share private information with "anyone who requests it." This misinformation has been circulating since 2001, and the same message keeps getting keeps get dusted off and sent around every year with an updated deadline.

Contrary to the text of the dire warning quoted above, credit bureaus cannot sell your non-public personal information (e.g., Social Security number, employment history, bank account information) to "anyone who requests it." Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1997, businesses seeking to obtain personal information from credit bureaus must have a "permissible purpose" in order to access credit reports. (Permissible purposes include checking the backgrounds of persons to determine their creditworthiness before selling or renting property to them, extending them loans or credit, or considering them for employment.) This restriction remains in force, it did not change on 1 July 2001, and it still applies whether or not you call the number listed above.

Credit bureaus can, however, create lists containing the names, addresses, and phone numbers of consumers with good credit and sell them to telemarketers and direct-mail marketers. (Names, addresses, and phone numbers are not considered "non-public personal information" because they may be obtained from a variety of publicly-accessible sources, such as phone directories.) Consumers may call the 1-888-5OPTOUT number to request that all four major credit bureaus not include their information on these marketing lists. There is no deadline for this process -- consumers may call the number at any time.

What did change back in 2001 was that due to the implementation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act) the banking, insurance, and securities industries were allowed to operate under the same corporate affiliation. (This act set aside legislation passed during the Depression era, which had created legal barriers to prevent mergers between banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, and other financial institutions.) Because of consumers' concerns that new financial conglomerates allowed under this legislation might pool their resources to compile huge databases of sensitive customer information and share them with third parties, Congress added a provision to the act requiring that all financial service companies send privacy notices providing a "reasonable opportunity" for their customers to opt out of this information-sharing by 1 July 2001. (These notices had to provide consumers with details about all the kinds of information the companies collected about them and how they used that information.) The 1 July 2001 deadline applied only to the sending of notification to customers by financial institutions, and it had nothing to do with credit bureaus. Some key points of this "opt-out" process are:

- Unlike credit bureaus, financial institutions can share your private information with third parties by default. In order to stop this sharing, you must specifically invoke your "opt-out" privileges to request that they not do it.

- Privacy notices had to be sent to customers by 1 July 2001, but there is no deadline by which customers must respond. Your right to "opt out" of the information-sharing process is ongoing and may be invoked at any time.

- Most importantly, you must contact every financial institution with which you do business to completely "opt out" of the information-sharing process. The phone number given in the message quoted above (1-888-5OPTOUT) applies only to credit bureaus. Calling this number will not affect the ability of any banks, insurance companies, credit card companies, brokerage firms, or any other financial institutions with which you do (or have done) business from sharing your information.

The bottom line is that laws regarding the selling of personal information by financial institutions have become more stringent recently, not less. The changes may not have made the laws as stringent as we'd like them to be, but at least they're a step in the right direction, not the scare stories these messages make them out to be.