Protect Your Good Credit

Michelle Malkin has posted an extensive article on her blog about the recent “identity theft” of Maryland’s Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. In her article, Ms. Malkin points out the recent activities of Democrats working for Sen. Charles Schumer at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. By inappropriately obtaining Steele’s social security number and pulling his credit report, the individuals could find themselves facing federal charges.

The surprising part, as Malkin sagely notes, is no one is expressing any ire that this Democratic committee which works to elect Democrates to the Senate, “has been compilling research on Steele, Maryland’s highest-ranking African-American official [and] GOP contender for the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Sarbanes in 2006.”

Bottom line, accessing someone’s credit inappropriately and/or without authorization is a crime. Identity theft is a threat of monumental proportions to all Americans. This incident should not only incense all Americans but show them the risk we all face as a result of easily accessed personal data.

Mortgage | Credit | Identity Theft | Credit Reports | Politics

In several recent news articles, consumers are expressing concern that access to their personal data, the information that is used to perpetrate identity theft, is often available through local and state government agencies and offices. Personal information such as names, addresses, bank account numbers, mortgage loan numbers and sometimes even social security numbers are readily available online or in local Circuit Court offices around the country.

In the Virginia legislature, there has been a proposal to have the state’s records on resident’s personal data out-sourced to a data management company outside of the U.S. Our government is suppose to be advocating identity protection, yet the idea of personal information being managed by a company, especially one outside the country, seems contradictory.

People who’ve discovered their information is out there, easily accessed by anyone via the internet with very little effort, usually find out by accident.

The Virginia Watchdog, founded by B.J. Ostergren is crusading to make consumers nationwide understand the implications of anyone, anywhere in the world having access to personal information via the internet. An article in the local Richmond Times-Dispatch, quotes Ostergren as saying that “unless consumers hassle their legislators and get Virginia Code 17.1-225 repealed during the legislative session beginning in January, all Virginia localities will be required to put ‘land records,’ as this information is called, online by July 2006.” Clerks offices around the state that have already complied give out their residents personal information online.

It’s happening in other states too.

One argument supporting this information being available on court websites is that it gives businesses and other professionals the information they need 24/7 to make fast credit decisions. Reality is that NO ONE, including certain industry professionals, needs that type access to personal data. It is ludicrous to claim that court records need to be accessible 24/7 for lenders or real estate professionals to do business.

If a professional or a business needs personal information on a consumer in order to make fast credit decisions, they already have service established with a professional credit reporting service which allows credit reports to be pulled 24/7. The difference now is , for these professionals to access credit history, they must have the consumer’s permission. Putting the information online via court records takes control out of the consumer’s hands and puts their personal data in the hands of anyone with a computer.

Identity thieves have found a new way to get information from unsuspecting consumers. Thieves call posing as a court official and claim that the individual has missed jury duty or there is a warrant out for their arrest. The thief then asks the victim to verify various pieces of personal data such as a social security number.

One woman was victimized this way in Connecticut and federal courts across the country are warning consumers about this latest scam.

Courts communicate with people through the mail and they don’t ask for social security numbers or credit cards over the phone. To see the court’s official warning, go to the main website.

Never give or confirm personal information to anyone over the phone unless you have initiated the call.

Since the majority of home mortgages in this country are underwritten by FannieMae or FreddieMac, both organizations have initiated the following relief for those whose homes are in the designated disaster areas:

Fannie Mae has mortgage relief provisions in place for borrowers in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and other states facing hardships as a result of widespread damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

With Fannie Mae’s disaster relief provisions, lenders help borrowers in several ways, including suspending mortgage payments for up to three months, reducing the payments for up to 18 months, or in more severe cases, creating longer loan payback plans. Such assistance is provided on a case-by-case basis, and is designed to meet the individual needs of borrowers.

In addition, lenders are now required to temporarily discontinue reporting delinquencies to credit bureaus if they are aware that the borrower’s delinquency is attributed to hardships as a result of a natural disaster.

Freddie Mac is strongly encouraging mortgage servicers to provide the following relief to borrowers with Freddie Mac-owned loans:

1. Waive the assessment of penalties or late fees against borrowers with homes damaged by wind, flooding, fire, etc. (collectively, a ‘disaster’);
2. Not report to credit bureaus forbearance or delinquencies resulting from a disaster;
3. Expedite the release of insurance proceeds.

Additional information will be posted as soon as it’s available! Our thoughts, concern and prayers are with all victims and their families!

The tragedies that have resulted from Hurricane Katrina are almost impossible to grasp. I am currently trying to gather information on what type financial and credit help is being offered victims with regard to their home mortgages and other credit accounts. I will post any information I get right away!

Those who had homes in the designated disaster areas with Wells Fargo mortgages should know that as of September 1, the representative I spoke with said the company was placing a 90 day suspension on mortgage payments, late fees and negative credit reports. The company rep also indicated that this was an initial relief effort and additional and/or expanded assistance would probably be established within the next two months.

Additional information will be posted as soon as it’s available! Our thoughts, concern and prayers are with all victims and their families!

Many people believe, mistakenly, that the credit bureaus in this country are some type of consumer-service provider or regulatory agency. They control many aspects of our daily existence. Most people don’t even realize the extent of the bureaus’ influence. You can’t buy a car, a house, get a credit card, get insurance, rent an apartment and sometimes even get a job, without you, a business or service provider paying the credit bureaus.

Credit bureaus are simply big businesses and their business isn’t about managing your credit score, it’s about selling information and marketing services. They tap every scrape of information about you and then they sell it over and over again. The real kicker in all this? WE PAY FOR IT!

Every time you apply for credit, insurance, etc. the provider is paying the bureaus for your report. That cost is passed on to you one way or another. Then we pay for the credit bureaus to “monitor”, “protect” or “update” our credit. We pay them to correct mistakes on our reports. We pay them to be able to review our own credit.

Next, there are the marketing companies that pay the credit bureaus for the ability to access our personal history so they can sell us more stuff or extend more offers of credit. There are credit reporting companies that provide tri-merge credit reports to all types of businesses. The credit bureaus charge the companies and then the reporting companies charge the businesses. The bureaus charge government agencies such as Fannie Mae for credit information and Fannie Mae then charges the lenders that utilize their automated underwriting systems.

Indeed, this is capitalism at is very best or very worse, depending on your prospective.

Wake up, people, you need to realize how much this is costing you and every other consumer in this country. Unless these businesses are going to be regulated like other government monitored monopolies, we are never going to have control over our own personal information and we’ll never be free of the risk of having our identity stolen. It’s time to end our over-dependence on credit and, therefore, the credit bureaus. If we must have them, then they must provide appropriate and consistent consumer service and protection without the repetitive price tag to us.

Summer is the time of year everyone is enjoying activities of all types, ususally outdoors! Families come and go, kids run in and out, the neighbors are off on vacation, and the backyard is a haven for relaxation. During the warm, lazy days of summer people forget about things like theft. During this time of year, you can take some easy precautions to prevent becoming a victim of theft. Consider the following safety tips:

If you’re out in the evening enjoying your patio or deck, don’t leave your front or side doors unlocked. Theives will boldly enter a home to grab a purse or wallet if they know the owners are outside, involved in some activity.

Just because the daylight lasts longer during summer days, don’t park in unlit areas. Summer activities can easily lead you to being out later and you don’t want to enter a parking lot or garage after it’s gotten dark only to discover the area isn’t well lit.

While on vacation:

Leave a light on when you leave home or put your lights on an automatic timer.

Never say you are away from home on the outgoing message on you answering machine or voice mail. Simply say you are unable to get answer the phone at the time.

When leaving home for an extended time, have a neighbor or family member watch your house and pick up your newspapers and mail.

When shopping during vacation, put your shopping bags in your trunk. Don’t try to cover items on your seats with a blanket or beach towel. Better yet, take your packages straight back to your hotel or resort after a shopping spree and then go back out.

Don’t carry large amounts of cash with you, or else, keep it in your front pocket not in your purse or wallet.

Be extra careful when carrying a purse - warm days cause people to relax and be less aware. They become prime targets of criminals in crowded areas. If you must carry one, make sure it has a strap that can go over the shoulder and be held under the arm, making them more difficult for purse snatchers to grab.

Keep a record of all of your credit card numbers in a safe place at home while you’re on vacation and keep the 800 customer service number of your credit card issuers with you in a handy place. If your card is lost or stolen, you will be able to report it immediately, even if you’re out of the country.

Beware of strangers approaching you. Thieves may try various methods to distract you while you are sight-seeing with the intention of taking your money or belongings.

During the summer and vacations, many people can become careless and vulnerable to theft and other crime. Protecting yourself and your home from potential crime is the easiest way to ensure a safe and happy summer.

Credit report errors occur for a number of reasons but they can all have a negative impact on your eligibility for any future credit. It’s important to stay on top of your credit report to avoid any mistakes made by the creditors and credit bureaus —Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Some common reasons for credit report errors include:

The individual has applied for credit under several different names (i.e. John Doe and Jonathon Doe)

Someone made a clerical error in entering or reading information (names, social security numbers, addresses, etc.) from a handwritten application.

Mix ups with common names. For example, there is likely more than one John Smith living in New York City and often there is the chance that information intended for one John Smith might appear on another John Smith’s credit report as he applies for a mortgage.

The individual gave an inaccurate Social Security number or the number was misread by the creditor.

Loan or credit card payments were inadvertently applied to the wrong account.

No matter what the reason, the erroneous information could reflect poorly on your credit file, thus causing approval problems when the time comes to apply for a job or obtain a mortgage. If you find errors, no matter how small, be sure you get them fixed, and make sure that you contact all three credit bureaus with your change.

For more information about your credit and protecting yourself against identity theft, click here, Free Stuff, and get my free report on “Protecting Yourself Against Identity Theft”.

In today’s increasingly automated society, it should come as no surprise that when you apply for a mortgage, your ability to pay can be reduced to a single number. All the years you’ve been paying your mortgage, car payments, and credit card bills can be analyzed, sliced, diced, spindled and mutilated into a single indicator of whether you’re likely to meet your future obligations.

All three of the major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) use a slightly different system to arrive at a score. The best known is called the FICO score, based on a model developed by Fair Isaac and Company (hence the name) and used by Experian. Equifax’s model is called BEACON, while TransUnion uses EMPIRICA. While each of the models considers a range of data available in your credit report, the primary factors are:

Credit History - How long have you had credit?
Payment History - Do you pay your bills on time?
Credit Card Balances - How much do you owe on how many accounts?
Credit Inquiries - How many times have you had your credit checked?

Each of these, and other items, are assigned a value and a weight. The results are added up and distilled into a single number. FICO scores range from 300 to 800, with higher being better. Typical home buyers likely find their scores falling between 600 and 800.

FICO scores are used for more than just determining whether or not you qualify for a mortgage. Higher scores indicate you are a better credit risk, and thus may qualify for a better mortgage rate.

What can you do about your FICO score? Unfortunately, not much. Since the score is based on a lifetime of credit history, it is difficult to make a significant change in the number with quick fixes. The most important thing is to know your FICO score and to ensure that your credit history is correct. Conveniently, Fair Isaac has created a web site (www.myFICO.com) that let’s you do just that. For a reasonable fee, you can quickly get your FICO score from all three reporting agencies, along with your credit report. Also available is some helpful information and tools that help you analyze what actions might have the greatest impact on your FICO score. Each of the credit services offers similar services on their web sites: www.equifax.com, www.experian.com, and www.transunion.com.

Armed with this information, you will be a more informed consumer and better positioned to obtain the most favorable mortgage available to you.

This information is courtesy of the website host for Premier Mortgage Source, Inc.

According to the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, “a command sent over a network to a power station’s control computer could be just as deadly as a backpack full of explosives.” As incidents of records being compromised, data being lost and identities stolen become more rampant, one would think businesses would be more incline to report any intrusion on their computer systems to the proper authorities.

“Most businesses [however] do not report cyber attacks to law enforcement officials fearing the disclosure would harm their image and benefit rivals,” says Mueller.

Unfortunately, this reluctance of businesses to admit their exposure to law enforcement gives thieves and terriorists more lattitude and opportunity. Mueller stresses that “maintaining a code of silence will not benefit [businesses] in the long run. We cannot investigage if we are not aware of the problem.”

Whether a security breach affects a business or an individual, law enforcement officials, both locally and nationally, need information in order to stop unlawful actions by both terrorists and thieves utilizing the internet . Business owners must realize that keeping silent can give their competition a greater edge. Why?

If a business owner has a security breach and doesn’t work with law enforcement to find and stop the activity, his/her business will continue to be vulnerable. That vulnerability may ultimately provide, not just the competition, but other entities with the information and/or means to cripple the owner’s business.

Business owners, just like individual consumers, need to be vigilant about protecting their company “identity” and/or “data”. It is imperative that companies realize the inherent risks if a breach of security goes unreported. A temporarily tarnished image in the short-term is far better than continued vulnerability on multiple levels during the long-run.