CREDIT MONITORING – CRITICISM MOUNTS ON FALSE PERCEPTIONS OF PROTECTION

KnightsBridge Castle has been critical of credit monitoring from its inception for a number of reasons. It reports new credit lines after the credit line has been looted by criminals, many institutions will grant credit without checking a credit report, and lastly notifications that someone has recently purchased your credit report is a poor indicator of pending theft. Lastly we don’t like credit monitoring because it creates a false sense of protection against the over 80 crimes of identity theft – of which credit fraud is only one.

Now the New York Times has published a stinging criticism of credit monitoring. We quote briefly from the article by Ed Zugra below:

“Melody Millett was shocked when her car loan company asked her if she was the wife of Abundio Perez, who had applied for 26 credit cards, financed several cars and taken out a home mortgage using a Social Security number belonging to her actual husband. . . Melody Millett found that the Social Security number of her husband, Steven, was being used to apply for financing under another name. Beyond her shock, Mrs. Millett was angry. Five months earlier, the Milletts had subscribed to a $79.99-a-year service from Equifax, a big financial data warehouse, that promised to monitor any access to her credit records. But it never reported the credit activity that might have signaled that they were victims of identity theft. “

The incident describe in the article is common. This is not the result of a glitch in some system. It is the result of a failed system of reporting by the credit reporting companies. The New York Times article continues:

“At the same time, credit monitoring may fail to detect that a credit request was even made. For example, a fraud artist may use someone else’s personal identification information — like a Social Security number — but take out a loan in his or her own name. The data mismatch can cause the bureau’s computer systems to route the loan request to a separate file so that a credit-monitoring service never picks it up.”

At KnightsBridge Castle we believe that only a credit freeze, allowed now in 26 states, is the best way to prevent credit fraud. We also believe that a comprehensive program of protection is required that provides protection against credit fraud, bank forgery, wire transfer fraud, employment fraud, medical benefits fraud, and over 70 other form of identity theft.

We also object to credit monitoring on the basis that it is similar to extortion rackets. The credit rating companies sell information to anyone. Now they want to sell it to you to protect yourself against the others they sell the same information to. There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture,

The New York Times article was published on December 12, 2006 and for subscribers to the times the article may be found at the link below:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/business/12credit.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ore