An article on NYTimes.com tells the story of Melody Millett who subscribed to a $79.99-a-year service from Equifax that promised to monitor any access to her credit records but when her car loan company asked if she was the wife of Abundio Perex, who had applied for 26 credit cards, financed several cars and taken out a home mortgage using a Social Security number belonging to her actual husband, she knew she had been victimized twice.
Fear of identity theft has financial institutions rubbing their greedy palms together cashing in on the nearly billion-dollar business of credit-monitoring services sold by the three credit kings listed above as well as direct marketers and banks. The article states that 12 million Americans are now subscribers.
These same industry groups are giving stiff resistance to new legislation that would empower consumers to block access to their credit reports.
“Identity theft has essentially become a business — not just for bad guys but for good guys, too,” said Robert Gellman, a privacy consultant in Washington. “A lot of the people that are involved in profiting legally from identity theft are direct participants in the whole credit system that doesn’t have the protections in place to prevent identity theft in the first place.”
Representatives of Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, whose consumer affiliates are being sued by the Milletts, would not comment on the couple’s specific contentions because of the continuing litigation. But they say credit monitoring is a valuable tool.
Mrs. Millett had also signed up with credit monitoring with Experian and TransUnion and at least one credit application using her husband's Social Security number. Not only did the couple not receive any notice of unusual access to their credit records they actually received reassuring e-mail messages suggesting that their information was safe and offering congratulations.
Read the full article here.
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