Groundbreaking Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruling: FTC fines Certegy for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Folks, there are so, so many data brokers out there that traffic in and make money off of your personal information. It’s impossible to name all of them or keep track of all of them, but believe me, they gather info on you ALL THE TIME and then sell that info at a handsome profit. Certegy specifically gathers information about consumer check-writing, and sells it. Other data brokers gather your information about insurance claims, tenancy claims or complaints, employment information, salary information, public records, retail habits, etc. etc.
When the information that the credit bureaus or the data brokers have on you is FALSE (and it often is), you can be denied insurance, apartments, loans, jobs…you get friggin’ sidelined in our culture.
You are protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and by parallel California laws. Really, I’m not kidding–you do need to know about these protections, because trafficking in your personal information is the new growth industry in our country and it’s not going to get any smaller.
See my website, www.socalcreditdamage.com, for info about the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Here’s the article about the FTC action against Certegy:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2013/08/certegy.shtm