Free credit report.com only part of corporate identity theft protection racket

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Identity theft is big business. It is an industry that rakes in billions of dollars a year, and that is not for the perpetrators, but for the companies who warehouse the personal information of millions of Americans--The Credit Bureaus.

These parasitic corporations have taken their lead from the mafia see the millions of people who are forced into their databases as potential customers of their "protection racket." It is really ingenious, they run their ads on television repeatedly touting the importance of protection from "identity theft," which is a crime that they are silently complicit in, and offer to provide protection for a fee.

However, Experian, Equafax, and Trans Union make billions of dollars annually by selling the private data of the people who have been entered into their system with zero remuneration or explicit consent. Information is reported to the bureaus from all manner of financial industries.

As the credit cards proliferated, and the systems became computer based, it became apparent that someone with a stolen social security number and drivers license number could get credit in someone else's name by applying over the Internet, thus was born the growth industry of "identity theft."

These credit bureaus, realizing that they had a responsibility to the millions of people whose data they held rapidly responded to the crisis by creating a common sense fail-safe mechanism to prevent identity theft and promptly instituted it across the board, well not exactly. They chose the most logical course of action-They found a way they could profit off of the new crime and the Identity Theft Protection Racket was born. At that time, the credit reporting companies charged consumers for the chance to look at their own credit report, unless it had been used to deny them in a credit application. They could profit off of people's personal data, and not only would the bureaus not compensate them for using their data for profit, they would charge the people to see what information they were holding.

The bureaus decided that wasn't enough. People were willing to pay to protect themselves from identity theft, so they created programs where they would protect people's information for a fee. That is not quite as dramatic as a guy in a bad suit flanked by two goons with baseball bats demanding protection money, but the idea is about the same.

The federal government finally stepped in on the side of consumers with the passage of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act in 2003, which was signed into law by former President George W Bush. (Fact act.) This law provided for the consumers to receive one free credit report from each of the credit bureaus each year, as well as the granting of selected other rights.

Meanwhile, the credit bureaus are continuing the marketing of their protection racket, and taking advantage of the public's lack of knowledge of their rights under the FACT ACT.

FREECREDITREPORT.COM V ANNUALCREDITREPORT.COM

The single most egregious example of the depths to which the protection racket will go to confuse the public in the name of profits is freecreditreport.com. This website, with its ubiquitous advertising and its catchy slightly off key jingle sung by twenty-something slackers who always seemed to get in trouble for not knowing their credit score, is wholly owned by Experian. It is also far from free.

After freecreditreport.com was sued for false advertising, (No, really, calling yourself free credit report then charging for the service is not false advertising) the government mandated that all companies that offer a free credit report as part of a fee based service contain a link to the government mandated website that provides truly free credit reports: Annualcreditreport.com. So, rather than insert that link, Free14.99/monthcreditreport.com, has instituted a $1 fee to see a credit report. To add a good spin to this $1 charge, they donate it to charity.

Meanwhile, annualcreditreport.com is where consumers can go to get their free annual credit report with NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

PROTECT YOURSELF

With the census going on, there will be hundreds of legitimate census workers decending upon Modesto to follow up with residents who did not mail their form back. If you have any reason to suspect that the census worker at your door is one of the opportunists who is pretending to be a census worker call the Stockton office at 209-235-3480. They will be able to verify the identity of the census taker.

Advice on protection from the protection racket!