Public Service Announcement

I recently received a letter from a local finance company (check cashing place). I always open mail and review it before shredding it, and this particular piece of junk mail contained a $5,000 check. We all receive crazy offers in the mail from credit card and finance companies, so at first this seemed rather ordinary. However, upon closer inspection I realized that this was a REAL check! If it were to be cashed somewhere, it would form a LEGALLY BINDING contract with me to repay this loan....ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?

Can you imagine the nightmare scenarios...suppose that letter never made it to our house and some nefarious individual figured out a way to cash it. All of the sudden I'm legally bound to repay a loan that I don't even know exists!

I did a little research, and as you probably already realize, here is the situation:

The credit reporting agencies are allowed to sell information from your credit file to credit card and finance companies. When these companies receive the information, they evaluate you for a loan as if you were actually there requesting one. They then decide loan terms, and send you an "offer"....in my case an actual, live check. Cashing the check would form a legally binding contract to repay the loan. This is also a way that credit card companies use to send you their "pre-approved" offers for credit cards.

I found this to be an appalling invasion of privacy, and if you feel the same way, there is a way to change it. You can go to the website listed below and print off a form that will permanently remove your name from the lists that the credit reporting agencies sell to credit card and finance companies. This does not in any way impact your actual credit file at the reporting firms, or affect your ability to apply for and receive credit...it merely removes your name from lists that are sold to, and used by, companies to create unsolicited offers of credit.

www.optoutprescreen.com

I'm just glad that I found a way to remove our names before something bad actually did happen.