This certainly appears to be legitimate. And, if so, suhweet — a link that lets you opt-out of “pre-approved credit and insurance offers” garned by companies buying credit lists from credit reporting companies like Equifax (the page is cosponsored by all the big reporting companies).
You can either type the link directly — www.optoutprescreen.com — or go to a site that will redirect you (like this one under the EPIC, which recommends doing this here). For some reason, the credit reporting companies won’t let you click on a link directly to it, possibly for security reasons, but more likely (he says, mistrustingly) because they really don’t want you to do it.
Once on the page, you give your identifying info, and designate whether you want to permanently opt-out, do so for just five years, or even opt back into such offers. I’ve gone ahead and run it for myself, but not Margie, just in case it’s some horribly cunning scam, but it certainly looked legit and a bit of digging made me think it was.
(via Doyce, so I can blame him in case it’s some horribly cunning scam)
I did this by phone over two years ago because Clark Howard recommended it. Signing up will not stop credit offers from any agency that you already have a relationship with (I get offers for the Disney Visa because of my annual passport), but it lowered the number that I do get to around 1 a week. Between that and Pay My Bills, I hardly get any envelopes in my mailbox.
And don’t forget to shred any credit information before you dispose of it especially preapproved credit offers!
I don’t always shred them, but I at least tear them up a couple of times.
There is, indeed, an 800 number you can call for this sort of thing (it’
s at the EPIC page), if you prefere to do things that way.
Oh good, I feel like less of a paranoid doofus having done a LOT of checking before sending _anything_ with my SSN out. But, yeah, I didn’t send in my husband’s information for similar reasons.
🙂
My first thought was, “Cool!”
Then I looked at the entry page, with all the address and SSN info that a phisher might want, and thought, “Google!”
I also submitted to OptOutPrescreen after a cursory “legitimacy test”. I probably would have been more weary if EPIC hadn’t recommended it. Still, I’m a little worried now … I’m trying to get someone at a credit agency or industry association to confirm the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of this site. If you get any info, please post an update; I’ll do the same.
http://www.bbbonline.org/idtheft/protect.asp
seems okay to me. (i googled this page out and eventually ferretted out the link above.)
How dare these b**tards keep demanding MORE AND MORE INFORMATION FROM US, in order to “opt out” from their snooping!?
WHY aren’t more Americans PROTESTING and REFUSING to give up our private info to these friggin’ SNOOPS??!!
WHY should we have to give out our name, add, phone, SSN, and birth date, just to be LEFT ALONE?
WHY DO PEOPLE COOPERATE WITH THIS CRAP? DON’T YOU REALIZE THAT THE MORE INFO YOU GIVE OUT, THE MORE DATABASES YOU ARE GOING INTO, AND THE MORE ABUSES YOUR INFORMATION WILL SUFFER?
WHY AREN’T MORE OF YOU RAGING AND DEMANDING LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST THIS POLICE-STATE BULLSH*T????
SIGN ME,
SEETHING MAD!!!
PS. HAVE YOU *READ* THE FRIGGIN’ PRIVACY POLICY ON THE OPTOUTPRESCREEN.COM PAGE??? THEY BASICALLY SAY THEY’LL GIVE YOUR INFO TO EVEN MORE PEOPLE, ONCE THEY GET IT.
SCREW ALL OF THEM!
I’m inclined, without further research, to trust EPIC’s recommendation at face value on this. If anything, they err to the side of uber-privacy.