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Opt Out
of Someone Selling Your Name?
It's Not Easy
By Robert K. Heady
You
think the government's new privacy laws give you enough protection
against ID theft, unwanted junk mail and telemarketer phone calls
during dinner?
Guess again. Two federal
laws, in particular, are supposed to protect you from banks,
credit card companies, brokerages and the like selling or sharing
your personal financial information to/with other outfits. But
the fact is that the system isn't working. You're still open
to theft, fraud and other rip-offs far more than you'd ever imagine.
Technically, you have
the power to "opt out" to tell the banks, card issuers
and others that you don't want your good name peddled to strangers.
But although the law now requires that financial marketers must
notify you once a year of their privacy policies, with a chance
to opt out, research shows that only 5 percent of consumers do
so.
Why? Because the privacy
notices are written at the college graduate level instead of
junior high, which should be the case, and the opt-out instructions
are usually buried in flyspeck print way at the end of the company's
literature. My friend, they don't want you to opt out,
not when they're making a ton of money selling their customer
list to others.
Truth is, they make
it hard for you to opt out, by hiding their addresses in the
language or, in some cases, not letting you opt out online. Instead
of referring to your rights under the law, their letters typically
begin with a come-on approach, such as "Because we respect
your privacy..." or "In order to provide you with the
best services..." etc., etc.
(Tip: If you don't
respond exactly the way the company tells you to say, by phone
instead of letter it may not honor your opt-out request at all.)
No wonder there are
more than 600,000 cases of ID theft in the United States every
year, and the figure is rising.
So the job is up to
you. Unless and until you inform your bank and those other guys
that you don't want them to share your sensitive data with other
companies, they are free to do so. The two key laws are:
1) The Financial Services
Modernization Act (also known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley), which allows
you to opt out of information-sharing only with non-affiliated
third parties and not with a company's affiliates.
2) The Fair Credit
Reporting Act (FCRA), which allows you to opt out or prevent
a company from sharing "creditworthiness" information
with its affiliates. Example: How you've been paying your bills.
The main three areas
you should cover with your opt-out actions, according to the
Federal Trade Commission, are credit bureaus, department of motor
vehicles, and direct marketers. The excellent FTC Web site at
www.ftc.gov shows you everything you need, from all the credit
bureau addresses to a list of states where you can click on to
find your department of motor vehicles, and the Direct Marketing
Association's address.
There's even a sample
letter to send to the national credit bureaus. Or you can phone
the bureaus toll-free at (888) OPTOUT (888-567-8688) to opt out
of all preapproved credit offers.
Other good sites to
guide you are those of the Center for Democracy & Technology,
at cdt.org, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, at privacyrights.org.
Tena Friery, of the
Privacy Rights organization, who runs their gem of a Web site
with Beth Givens in San Diego, says the opting-out problem "won't
go away until the public gets more involved with lawmaking. They
need to write their senators and congressional representatives,
telling them how complicated the opting out process has become.
Companies put out what they want you to hear, with a lot of loopholes."
"Meanwhile,"
adds Friery, "if people want to protect themselves, they
should look for and read the companies' privacy notices when
they arrive. The process takes a long time, but if you don't
like what a company is doing with your privacy, you should opt
out."
Editor's Note: Robert
K. Heady is the founding publisher of Bank Rate Monitor. He invites
Bull & Bear reader mail on consumer money problems and solutions
but cannot respond personally to all inquiries. Send e-mail to
jrnl8888@aol.com, or write to P.O. Box 14875, North Palm Beach,
FL 33408.
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