It seems strange considering my profession.  I recently pulled a copy of my credit report through the credit watch service  I am a member of.  I needed to purchase a car so I wanted to see where my scores stood and shop for the best interest rate.  To my surprise I had purchased a brand new VW (at close to $25,000)!  It turned out this new purchase had affected my scores somewhat and I would have to wait to get it off my credit before I could qualify for the interest rate I wanted.  The strangest thing of all is that I have never owned a VW and I also noticed that there was a strange address listed on my credit report from a nearby town. 

Coincidence?  I thought so until I went to my neighborhood Kroger to pick up a prescription.  When the pharmacy rep rang up my order, she confirmed my address as the nearby town I mentioned above.  Turns out the prescription was not even mine, but a totally different prescription from this ghost VW gal.  My best guess is that this mystery person has the same name as me, social security number very close to mine, and just happens to live less than 15 miles from my home. 

This sounds bizarre but you would be suprised how often these types of scenarios play out.  More commonly these mistakes are made due to family error or even family identity theft.  Are you a Sr. or a Jr.?  Better check your credit.  If you are a Sr. and have a Jr. floating around out there, it is likely you may have some things mixed up on your credit.  Have you been through a divorce?  Even more likely that the ex’s junk is showing up on your report  and affecting you long after their gone.  If you have ever filed bankruptcy, you better believe there is junk hanging around on your credit that shouldn’t be there.

Don’t be caught by surprise like I was.  I had to wait an extra 60 days to purchase my car while I was waiting for mystery girl’s junk to be removed from my credit (after I disputed the information to the credit bureaus).  Now I keep watch on my credit every 30 days through my credit watch service and have instant notification of changes or new inquiries.

The vultures always prey on the weak and the young. There is no greater display of this carnage than in the arena of identity fraud.  We are in the middle of major information crises in this country and yet we as consumers still believe that protection is possible, even expected.

Have we lost all sanity in this country? My first thought, was NO! She doesn’t have an IDENTITY to steal, right? So, I did some research.

The real answer is that this is an actual epidemic.  So the scenario goes like this: You have mom and dad they have horrible credit, but not just bad credit they also have legal issues listed on their bureau. They need to start fresh so Daddy uses his little princess’ social security number to turn the lights back on and keep the water running. Then times get really bad and he starts using her social to build credit. By the time she is 18 she has a fully established credit file, but it is not usually in good shape.

No one knows for sure how many children become victims of identity theft. In 2005, roughly 5% of all identity theft complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission were about victims 18 years old or younger. But that might be a significant underestimation since not everyone files a complaint with the FTC. For example, a large portion of child identity theft cases remain unreported because the thief is a parent or close relative.

It is amazing the information that one can get on another without doing anything illegal. We talked about in our previous post (Trans Union vs. FTC) about the fact that Trans Union was peddling “targeted” information to data warehouses for resell. I do not want to pick on Trans Union because they all do it. Even our supposed protector, the Federal Government, is a master of capturing information. They spy, tap, watch, and interrogate all in the name of…of…FREEDOM?

 So since, there appears to be no one really to help you protect yourself then it looks like you are going to have to do it. There are so many tools that can help you monitor those who are monitoring. Whether it is a family member or a scammer looking for its next victim you have to protect yourself and your family.

Here are a few tips:

• 1. One of the biggest things you can do is to check your credit on regular bases. We recommend working with a service that has a credit watch package. One of the cheapest and best we have found is Credit.com. They allow you to pull all three credit bureaus and also give you all three credit scores for only $14.95.

• 2. Take your name off as many lists as possible. We are pointing our clients to Proquo.com, a resource that allows you opt-out of prescreened approvals. Be prepared to spend some time on the site because you have to get through each one manually.

• 3. Next if you have kids it would not be a bad plan to order a free report via mail once a year just to make sure nothing is happening. I will give the contact info at the end.

Disaster response: Navigating the credit bureau maze

What if you find that your child has been a victim of identity theft? The credit bureaus claim this shouldn’t have harmful consequences if parents follow the necessary procedures to report the fraud. “We can investigate to see if the child’s information has been used and if it has, we can prevent it from being used in the future,” says Clifton O’Neal, a spokesman for TransUnion, one of the three major credit bureaus. The procedures, however, differ widely among the credit bureaus and can be frustratingly confusing.

At Experian, for example, as long as parents provide a police report they can place what is known as a “victim statement” on their child’s credit file. That means the bureau will attach a note saying the credit information belongs to a minor and warns creditors not to approve credit applications until the child turns 18. TransUnion will “cloak” the victim’s file, hiding it from creditors entirely. Equifax said it will delete any fraudulent information from the child’s report; take it offline and flag the Social Security number as belonging to a minor, so it cannot be used until the child turns 18.

Bottom line: If your child falls prey to identity thieves, calling just one of the credit bureaus – a common scenario in adult identity theft cases, since each bureau is required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act to inform the other two – isn’t sufficient.

Carol Gomez, a homicide detective in Mesa, Ariz., experienced this firsthand when her car, an unmarked police vehicle, was stolen earlier this year while she was on duty. The car was later found, but her purse was missing, along with both her and her 11-year-old son’s Social Security cards. The credit bureau she contacted placed a security flag on her credit file, but not her son’s, since he didn’t yet have a file. “They said that since he was a juvenile, they wouldn’t be able to put an alert on his file,” she says. “They didn’t act like it was a big deal. And we know that it is.”

My question is as much technology and money as the credit bureaus have why could they not come up with a system that flags the birthdates that are under the age of 18. Then they could “lock” those files down until they are of age. The credit bureaus would probably tell you, based on past experience, that they cannot do that because it is a “violation of free speech.” 

Did you ever see Night of the Living Dead when you were a kid? I am not talking about the new one – I am talking about the original. The 1968 George A. Romero’s cult classic. It is black and white with ketchup laden cannibals. It has no plot and it lacks rhyme or reason , yet it terrifies me to this day.

Speaking of cannibals and having no rhyme or reason – we are going to discuss collection agencies (The carcass feeders) and their business practices (the lack of reason).  Look, I understand that if I do not pay a bill then it should go to collections, but at what point am I still tracked down for the demons of my past.

However, collecting on old debts is a rapidly expanding industry. This year a whopping $110 billion of such debt is expected to be sold to collection agencies, up from virtually nothing 10 years ago. Aggressive companies can buy charged-off credit card accounts from the original lenders for pennies on the dollar or less. Then, they use credit-scoring and other new technologies to identify which debtors are most likely to pay.

The players in this “junk debt” market range from fly-by-night outfits to well-established companies funded by Wall Street investors.  Many credit card companies have started selling delinquent accounts to collectors to boost quarterly earnings, according to a report by Kaulkin Ginsberg, a Rockville, Md.-based adviser on debt collection.

On face value, companies can make a profit if they can get debtors to repay even a tiny fraction. Along the way, some collectors realized they also could squeeze money from people who didn’t even owe it. Some consumers pay because their finances are so disorganized they don’t realize the debt isn’t theirs. Others are coerced into paying by illegal threats of lawsuits or ruined credit.

The consumer does have some protection: Six years after a debt goes into default, the collector no longer can sue to collect. And after seven years, the debt can’t be shown on a consumer’s credit report.

COLLECTION IS LEGAL

However, efforts to collect old debt are legal, as long as the collector doesn’t threaten to sue or report the debt to a credit agency.  

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE AND YOUR ENEMIES EVEN CLOSER

The best thing you can do is to keep an eye on your credit by joining a credit watch service.  We recommend using True Credit they are a great service that provides a complete credit report with all three bureaus and scores for $14.95.

http://creditdusters.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/what-to-do-when-your-income-drops-part-1/

Best of Luck,

Credit Hawk

If you would like to see how the new scoring system may have impacted your score we suggest you check your credit. check it out

Have a great weekend,

Credit Hawk

FICO gets a facelift – Quicken Loans – http://www.quickenloans.com/mortgage-news/article/709.html

New Credit Scoring Method Forgiving –

There is something that feels very wrong about how the credit industry markets their products to us. I am stalked each and everyday by these companies who temp me with their 0% APR and 6 months same as cash offers.

Don’t get me wrong I am not anti-credit. I just wonder if it is possible for me to have a moment to breathe without being sold another car, mortgage, credit card, student loan, furniture, or an electronic gadget on credit. Could there be just one solitary website that does not flash a LowerMyBills pop-up?

The internet is a playground for these marketers. We as consumers are little children who are led into their world. We are wide-eyed with bankruptcy laced plasma screens and drunk on consumer credit injected Kia’s. It is porn for spenders and there is nothing to do but enjoy the ride.

I would love to be a fly on the wall for one of those meetings – you know the one. It’s the meeting where all the marketers come together and talk about us like we are lab rats. Maybe we are. They have the charts on our buying habits.

I bet they know when we are about to crash. It starts out harmless enough with the credit cards. You know just a few. Did you know we are called “Preferred” customers when we pay the minimum payment on credit cards?

So where does personal responsibility come into it? When am I going to grow up and realize that the guy at Best Buy is not giving away money when he hands me an application the moment I step into his store? So, can I really blame the credit marketers for being really, really good at manipulating me?

I am starting to wake-up and come to the conclusion that I have the biggest role to play as a consumer. As the master playwright William Shakespeare so eloquently wrote – “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts,”

I believe that my part to play is to simply exercise a little restraint and say, “No.”

Thanks for listening. What is your story with credit cards? How have you been impacted? Talk to me. Post your comments – I want to hear from you.

Thanks,

Credit Hawk – credithawk@live.com ]]> https://credithawk.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/the-devil-lives-in-my-mailbox/feed/ 0 7 credithawk https://credithawk.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/hello-world/ https://credithawk.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/hello-world/#respond Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:47:58 +0000 Hello. Welcome to Credit Hawk.

We are your resource for credit education and intelligence. The world of credit is changing daily and Credit Hawk is the only source you will need. It is imperative for you to have a good knowledge of how the credit system works as a consumer and how to quickly access your credit so that you can stay on top of what others are seeing. We will also provide you with reviews on products that we believe will be helpful to you.

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 The Credit Hawk / credithawk@live.com