Warning - Your Name Has Been Sold!
Yes, you read that right- your name has been sold! Not once, not twice, but multiple times.
If you have applied for credit recently, your name has most likely been sold by the credit bureaus to businesses who are looking to telemarket you and try to sell you something.
The credit bureaus refer to your information as a "trigger lead" meaning that when you apply for credit, it sends a trigger to the credit bureaus that you are in the market to buy something. They then turn around and sell your information to other creditors, usually creditors who are selling the same type of thing you have applied for.
For instance, if you applied for a mortgage, your information is sold to other mortgage companies who will then try to contact you to choose their product over the original mortgage company you applied with. It's likely that your information will be sold over and over again to many mortgage companies.
How can this be legal or ethical? It's definitely not ethical, but must be legal or the credit bureaus wouldn't be doing it. The sale of trigger leads to third parties in my opinion is an invasion of privacy and should be stopped. However, the practice continues and your personal information is in jeopardy.
So what can you do? One of the most important things you can do right away is to visit www.optoutprescreen.com which is a website where you can opt out of this "service." Once you are registered at this website, your information should not be sold to anyone by the credit bureaus, and if it is you at least have some recourse. You should also start to get much less junk mail once you are registered.
Hopefully this tip will keep the telemarketers at bay when you apply for credit and help keep your personal information safe.
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RJ Baxter First Mortgage Corp
Branch Manager
303-670-0137 (direct)
27902 Meadow Drive, Suite 120
Evergreen, Colorado 80439
