Pierre Money Mart Blog

Credit bureaus collect and collate personal financial data on individuals and businesses, from data furnishers with which the bureaus have a relationship. Data furnishers are businesses, utilities, debt collection agencies, public institutions and the courts (i.e. public records) that a consumer or business has had a relationship or experience with. Data furnishers report the experience with the consumer or business to the credit bureau.

A major credit card company, wants to promote a new credit card. They contact the credit bureaus and deliver a profile of the kind of person they think will be interested in the new card. The profile might include things like personal income, region or state the person lives in, number of credit cards, credit score, etc. The credit bureau then searches through their records looking for anyone that matches that profile. If you fit the profile, an offer is mailed to you or someone calls you on the phone at dinner time. It’s one of the ways the credit bureaus make money.

A good credit rating is very important. Businesses and financial institutions inspect your credit history when they evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, and even leases. Based on your credit payment history, companies can choose to grant or deny you credit provided you receive fair and equal treatment.

Experian is a global credit information group, with operations in over 30 countries around the world. The company’s largest operation, Experian North America, is a consumer credit reporting agency, considered one of the big three US credit agencies along with Equifax and TransUnion. As well as the US, Experian has operations in most European countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, China, Japan and Australia.

Experian’s principal lines of business are Credit Services, Marketing Solutions, Decision Analytics and Interactive Services. It collects information on consumers, businesses, motor vehicles and insurance, along with lifestyle data from a range of on- and offline surveys. Access to the much of the information Experian holds is subject to regulatory control, depending on the regulations in each country it operates.

Experian employs approximately 13,500 people in 36 countries and as of 2007 had clients in more than 60 countries. Its corporate headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland with operational headquarters in Nottingham, England and Costa Mesa, California, USA. According to its corporate site, Experian’s annual sales exceed $3.4 billion USD (£1.8 billion) and it has net assets of $2.107 billion.

Experian was demerged from the British company GUS plc in October 2006. The new company, Experian Group Ltd, is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the abbreviation EXPN The company is part of the FTSE 100 Index.

Experian acquired its US credit reporting business from TRW in 1995, and its databases contain credit information on 215 million consumers in the United States. In addition to providing credit reports, Experian maintains a database of over 450 million vehicles containing title and registration data from North American governments and provides address information for more than 20 billion promotional mail pieces to more than 100 million households every year.

Like the other major credit reporting bureaus, Experian is chiefly regulated in the United States by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, signed into law in 2003, amended the FCRA to require the credit reporting companies to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report per 12 month period. Like its main competitors, TransUnion and Equifax, Experian markets credit reports directly to consumers. Experian heavily markets its for-profit credit reporting service, FreeCreditReport.com, and all three agencies have been criticized and even sued for selling credit reports that can be obtained at no cost.

Experian handles its credit disputes in its National Consumer Assistance Center (NCAC) in Allen, Texas. It is frequently sued for violating the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and uses the large national law firm of Jones Day to defend these lawsuits. Experian’s litigation and settlement decisions are made by its in-house attorneys based in California. You may contact the NCAC once you have a copy of your personal credit report by calling the number that is located on the personal credit report itself. Experian announced that it would be opening a second NCAC in Santiago, Chile during the summer of 2007. Many divisions of the Allen NCAC will be relocated to the Chile location.

Experian provides regional data at nationalscoreindex.com which shows average credit scores by region and zipcode as well as various other measures of household debt. The site does not indicate if it uses a FICO based credit score, the new VantageScore, or some other scoring model.

Although there is no universal definition, simply stated, it occurs when someone fraudulently assumes another’s identity. In the physical world, a person’s identity is concrete and is supported by legal documents.

In the online world, how ever, a person’s identity is less tangible. Some digital data, such as passwords, account names, screen names, and logins, may not be considered elements of a person’s legal identity. Yet such data can be “identifying” and provide access to other When a person asserts an identity to another party, the latter authenticates the farmer’s identity in one of three general ways.

The most common method for two parties who have no previous relationship is to use an identifying document such as a card, badge, or license. Another method involves some
kind of secret knowledge, such as a password, handshake, obscure fact, or personal knowledge. Finally, they can use physical characteristics and recognition, especially between individuals who have an established relationship.

Prevent identity theft. One of the most damaging crimes in the world today is identity theft. Similar to someone robbing your home, when a thief steals your identity, it can feel like a personal, intimate attack on your person. But unlike a break-in, an identity thief can continue to manipulate, rob and terrorize you for years after the initial theft occurs. The impacts of identity theft are growing and as the Internet becomes more prominent in our lives, so too will identity theft makes its way into our everyday lives.

Identity theft is when a person uses your individual information in a malicious way. They can find out your name, Social Security number, credit card, mother’s maiden name, email address, mailing address and much more. Once they have this information, it is a race against time as they buy cars, electronics, open new credit cards and much more with your information. Sometimes, you won’t find out about the financial issues until years after it has occurred.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is an American federal law (codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.) that regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer credit information. Along with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), it forms the base of consumer credit rights in the United States.

Consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) are entities that collect and disseminate information about consumers to be used for credit evaluation and certain other purposes. They hold the databases which are the origins of a consumer’s credit report. CRAs have a number of responsibilities under FCRA, including the following:

1. Provide a consumer with information about him or her in the agency’s files and to take steps to verify the accuracy of information disputed by a consumer. Under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), an amendment to the FCRA passed in 2003, consumers are now able to receive one free credit report a year. The free report can be requested by telephone, mail or through the government authorized website, annualcreditreport.com.
2. If negative information is removed as a result of a consumer’s dispute, it may not be reinserted without notifying the consumer within 5 days, in writing.
3. CRAs may not retain negative information for an excessive period of time. The FCRA spells out how long negative information, such as late payments, bankruptcies, tax liens or judgments may stay on a consumer’s credit report – typically 7 years from the date of the delinquency. The exceptions: bankruptcies (10 years) and tax liens (7 years from the time they are paid).

The 3 big CRAs Experian, Trans Union and Equifax, do not interact with information furnishers directly as a result of consumer disputes. They use a system called E-Oscar.

An information furnisher, as defined by the FCRA, is a company that provides information to consumer reporting agencies. Typically, these are creditors, with which a consumer has some sort of credit agreement (credit card companies, auto finance companies and mortgage banking institutions, to name a few). However, other examples of information furnishers are collection agencies (third-party collectors), state or municipal courts reporting a judgment of some kind, past and present employers and bonders.

When you buy a car, furniture or appliances on an installment plan, the dealer or store usually takes a “security interest” in the item you are buying. This means that while you are paying for it, the creditor (person or business to which you owe money) can take back or “repossess” your purchase if you break your promises under the contract. If you buy a car, for example, the dealer or bank from which you borrow money to pay for the car usually takes a security interest in the car. Then, if you don’t make the monthly payment or if you don’t keep the car insured, the creditor can repossess the car. Not all purchases can be repossessed. For example, credit card purchases usually can’t be repossessed. To find out whether the creditor has a security interest and can take back your purchase, check your contract. If the paper you signed when you bought the item includes a security interest, there may also be a “grace period”. A grace period is an additional amount of time for making a payment after it is due. However, if you don’t pay during this grace period, the item you bought can be taken back (repossessed). On the other hand, when you make a credit card purchase, there is usually no security interest in what you bought and it cannot be taken back if you are late making a payment. The law says that the creditor cannot come into your house without your permission to repossess personal property such as furniture or appliances. If someone tries to break into your house or garage, call the police. If someone claims to have legal papers, call a lawyer. If you leave your car parked in front of your house or in your driveway where the creditor can find it, the car can be repossessed easily. If a creditor threatens to repossess personal property, it is probably a good idea to talk to a lawyer. It is easier to prevent a repossession than to get your property back after it has been repossessed.

Techniques for obtaining information

* Stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish (dumpster diving)
* Stealing payment or identification cards or the information on them (pickpocketing, “drive-by” scanning of RF-enabled cards/tags)
* Eavesdropping on public transactions to obtain personal data (shoulder surfing)
* Stealing personal information in computer databases (Trojan horses, hacking)
* Infiltration of organizations that store large amounts of personal information
* Impersonating a trusted organization in an electronic communication (phishing)
* Obtaining castings of fingers for falsifying fingerprint identification.
* browsing social network (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc) sites, online for personal details that have been posted by users
* Simply researching about the victim in government registers, at the internet, Google, and so on.

Legal response

The increase in crimes of identiy theft lead to the drafting of the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act.[3] In 1998, The Federal Trade Commission appeared before the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information of the Committee of the Judiciary, United States Senate.[4] The FTC highlighted the concerns of consumers for financial crimes exploiting their credit worthiness to commit loan fraud, mortgage fraud, lines-of-credit fraud, credit card fraud, commodities and services frauds. The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (2003)[ITADA] amended the U.S. Code, s. 1028 – “Fraud related to activity in connection with identification documents, authentication features, and information”. The Code now makes possession of any “means of identification” to “knowingly transfer, possess, or use without lawful authority” a federal crime, alongside unlawful possession of identification documents.

In the USA, until 2003, dealing with consumer crimes involving legally attributed personal identifiers was the jurisdictional responsibility of the local and state authorities. Identification documents are a different story, addressed in Title 18 > Part I > Chapter 47 s.1028 of the U.S. Code. The unlawful use of identification documents is historically a federal offence. In response to the consumer issue of “identity theft”, the U.S. Congress passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (2003) amending Title 18 > Part I > Chapter 47, s. 1028 to include the unlawful use of a “means of identification” [s,1028 (d)(7)] making it a federal crime alongside identification documents. The title of s.1028 is, “Fraud related to activity in connection with identification documents, authentication features, and information”. The Act also provides the Federal Trade Commission with authority to track the number of incidents and the dollar value of losses. There figures relate mainly to consumer financial crimes and not the broader range of all identification-based crimes.[5] Punishments for the unlawful use of a “means of identification” were strengthened in s.1028a, allowing for a consecutive sentence under specific conditions of a felony violation defined in s. 1028c.

If used to commit another crime in the commission of identity theft in the United States (if charged federally) include:

* Class B Felony: 6-20 years in Jail and a fine up to $10,000
* Class C Felony: 2-8 years in Jail and a fine up to $10,000

If charges are brought by state or local law enforcement agencies, different penalties apply depending on the state.