Warning: Free Credit Report Imposter Websites Springing Up on the Web

A recent amendment to the federal Carnival Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) necessitates each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies to supply consumers with a free transcript of their credit report, upon request, once every 12 months.

Access to the free credit reports have been phased in beginning last December in the Occident and will finally be nationwide by 1 September. This is good intelligence to consumers.

However, a new word form of phishing, is manifesting itself even before access to free credit reports is available for all Americans.

The new law that necessitates the three national credit bureaus to supply a free annual credit report to consumers, have met with the law of unintended consequences. Although the law was initially created to assist queer identity theft, the procedure for requesting the free credit reports may in fact lend to additional identity theft or loss of privacy.

While the purpose of the law was to do it easier for consumers to check for mistakes and possible grounds of identity theft in their credit reports, according to a new report by the World Privacy Forum, more than than 200 impostor websites have got sprung up trying to work one of the methods made available for consumers to apply for their free credit reports.

One of the methods by which consumers can apply for their free credit reports is through a website that was established jointly by the three credit bureaus. The functionary website for applying for the free credit reports is at http://www.annualcreditreport.com

But, if the identity thieves and other unscrupulous internet chisellers have got their way, portion of the very procedure sent up in an attempt to restrict identity theft, will go forth consumers vulnerable to additional loss of privacy.

The online sneak thiefs make websites with domain name calling that are very fold to the functionary website www.annualcreditreport.com. By registering similar name calling or stopping point misspellings, such as as wwwannualcreditreport.com (note the lacking dot), creditannualreport.com and
www.freeannualcreditreports.com they trust to lure consumers to unwittingly come in their private information into online web forms, thinking that they are on the functionary website.

Depending upon the degree of personal information item captured from the impostor websites, the chisellers can then utilize the garnered information for illegal purposes, sell the information to purveyors of personal information databases, or they can simply direct the unsuspicious consumer to commercial websites.

While the bulk of impostor websites, simply garner names, addresses, and electronic mail computer computer addresses and then direct the consumer on to advertisement sites, some land land sites attempt to garner societal security numbers, birth dates, and other sensitive information.

To guard against the possibility of entering personal information on an impostor site, consumers can travel to the functionary website from a nexus off from the www.ftc.gov website or phone call the functionary toll free number (877-322-8228) to get the free transcript of their credit report.

Note: Strange as it may seem, your free annual credit report makes not incorporate your credit score. For more than information on your credit score, what it is, how it is used, and why it is important, see the resource box below.

Copyright 2005 George Dodge