2004 Credit Suit

The PrivacyGuard/ConsumerInfo.com Privacy Policy

In January I requested specifics from ConsumerInfo.com, eventually got a letter from their attorney advising that I need to direct any questions at her, but she didn't send any answers.

It's nice to see that I'm not the only one concerned:

Take the case of a company called PrivacyGuard.com and a reader we’ll call Mr. Catchings.

"... The second privacy policy document (which I later learned also served as the privacy policy for other free-credit-report sites such as ConsumerInfo.com and Freecreditreport.com) had several provisions that bothered Mr. Catchings enough that he decided not to order the credit report after all. One thing that particularly concerned him was a statement revealing that his information could be disclosed to companies that “perform services on our behalf, such as the credit reporting agencies from which we obtain your credit report(s), credit card processors, e-mail communications management firms, or call center providers.

...”

Well worth reading, but one thing is missing: it doesn't matter where you order your credit report - they all sell you data. Oh, and of course ConsumerInfo.com and Freecreditreport.com are the same company and Experian owns them and GUS owns Experian.

The CRAs of course try to add as much data as possible to the credit reports for the benefit of collectors, and Fair Isaac also collects and shares the data they collect at myFICO.com and they are affiliated with all kinds of funky outfits like collector London Bridge.

They share with affiliates, WHO is an affiliate?

Anyone who signs an affiliate agreement with them? Anyone who is willing to write a check for your data?

Trans Union has been battling the FTC for years over their sales of consumer data obtained from the credit reports.

I believe that Experian set up CIC, CreditExpert and all these other sites to collect data that's NOT obtained from credit reports and the FTC can't keep them from selling this data. That's my theory.