Quote:
Originally posted by widebody911
Because the lenders make the rules
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And that's exactly the truth; The lenders make the rules - there is no law protecting your fico score specifically really. Fraud is illegal but see here is the thing - the criminal is innocent until proven guilty but the person who truely owns the identity is exactly the opposite. Guilty by default until proven innocent. When dealing with the individual card companies you'll likely have little trouble establishing fraud but it's the credit reporting agencies and the hassle there after. Have you ever actually tried to get something removed from your credit report? It isn't easy - even if it is wrong it still isn't easy. Now - of course that isn't right at all - I'm not a huge proponent of regulation but in this case I don't think the people are being protected. There does need to be an identity specific law dealing with removing fraudulent or even incorrect nformation from your credit report. I think that the court system would be a great way to deal with this and the end result would be a court order from a judge to these credit reporting agencies saying that the info is wrong and needs to be removed. But that's just an idea of mine...
I spend a lot of time trying to prevent thieves from getting protected information (I'm a network security engineer) and I would say that it is time well spent.
ID Theives have no scruples; they will go after your kid's identity regardless of age or yours. Whichever is easier to get.
Consumers share some blame in this too -we want things to be easy to access like bank accounts and retirement accounts and what not. If you call and have forgotten your password or account number they will confirm you with your ADDRESS or SSN alone! but if they didn't they could loose you as a customer because they are "hard to deal with" even if they are just trying to protect your information. It always makes me mad when the incorrect information is in there and they hint that when they are trying to confirm my address and they have a previous address on file they will "hint" at the old address.
Lame.