Hickory Creek Civic Club

Tired of Junk Mail and Unsolicited Email?

Aug 03, 2001

(by Shannon Westveer)

An email prompted me today to do some research, and I wanted to pass on this vital information to my neighbors. If you are fed up with all of the junk mail you have to open, telemarketers interrupting your family dinner, gobs of unwanted email, or are simply concerned about your credit privacy, this is for you.

A family member mentioned in this email (bulk-forwarded, I might add) a bill that was passed recently by our Congress that would allow third parties to obtain certain information about us from our credit agencies. For example, if Joe Blow wanted to know what the balance on your credit card was, he could get it--easily! Being a skeptic, I went immediately to our government for a look-see.

So far, I haven't found anything that supports this claim that just ANYONE can get information about you, but I did find the bill S.900 (106th Congress, 1999) that started it all. Copy and paste the following link, and then do a search by "Bill Number" and type in "S.900" in the 106th Congress engine. You can get a full textual copy, but it takes a while to download.

http://www.house.gov/

In summary, several credit reporting agencies (i.e. Equifax, Trans Union, Experian) have been given federal permission to solicit certain information about your credit without your express permission. This is why you've been getting all of those "pre-approved credit card" offers in your US mail box. If you're like me and think that it's a waste of paper, follow these instructions.

There is a convenient service called the "Opt Out Request Line." It has been set up for you by law by these credit agencies so that you can have yourself removed from these solicitation lists for two years...even permanently. The toll-free number is:

888-5-OPTOUT (888/567-8688)

Be sure to listen to all of the options.

The link for the Federal Trade Commission explains it all, and I urge you to convince yourself of what I've shared with you. REMEMBER: You should never blindly trust your friend's research; use his to do your own before EVER giving out personal information to an automated service...especially if you don't know whose it is. Copy and paste this link:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/optoutalrt.htm

Also listed at the FTC site are additional ways of ridding yourself of unsolicited telemarketing phone calls and emails.

Another thing that you can (that you probably already know about) do is to call each of the companies for which you hold credit and specifically request for them to take you off of any distribution list they share. Most of these financial centers are responsible with whom they relay your account information, but this will further reduce any third-party knowledge.

Lastly, if you are receiving US mail on the order of unsolicited sexually oriented advertising, go to the USPS site to find out what to do. Copy and paste the following link:

http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/smutmail.htm

Other good links:

http://www.creditinfocenter.com/cards/preventSellLists.shtml
http://dauphin.extension.psu.edu/CYF/CreditCard.html