You may not be aware that the three credit bureaus are selling information in your credit report to lenders, credit card companies, insurance companies, telemarketers, and direct mail marketers. You may also not be aware that this type of information gathering and selling is perfectly legal. Whenever you receive a "pre-approved" or "pre-screened" offer of credit, this is because the bank or company who is offering credit to you has either pulled your credit information through a "soft inquiry," or the credit bureau has sold your information to them as part of what's called a "trigger lead" program.
What are "trigger leads?" "Trigger leads" happen when you authorize a lender to access your credit report in reference to a loan application, or other type of credit application. If you meet certain criteria that lenders, marketers and insurance companies are looking for, the credit bureau may send your information to lenders who are part of the trigger lead program, in order to let them to solicit your business. You don't need to approve this type of solicitation it happens without your knowledge.
This is not to say that the credit bureaus are sending your full credit report to whoever asks for it. They are restricted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1997, which protects the privacy of the information you have in your credit report. However, the credit bureaus can create lists based on certain searchable criteria, such as age, state of residence, gender, annual income, and credit score. They then create lists of creditors who meet the specified criteria, and sell those lists to the marketing companies that buy them. On those lists, the only information they supply is your name, address and telephone number. Names, addresses and telephone numbers are not considered "private information," because they may be easily accessed from a variety of public sources, such as telephone books, internet listings and the like.
If you have concerns about your privacy and want to be removed from these sort of trigger lists, you can choose to opt out of pre-screened offers of credit by going to www.optoutprescreen.com. While this method will not eliminate all targeted advertising, it should eliminate a lot of pre-approved offers for five years.
