Connecticut Protects Residents From Identity Theft With Credit Freeze Law
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A powerful new weapon to protect against idenity theft. Freeze your credit report. Connecticut is the second state (after California) to institute credit freeze into law.
Sometimes consumers are the last-in-line with news and control over their credit status. No longer is that the case in Connecticut. Spurred by the proactive Attorney General, Richard Bluementhal, State legislators joined the hand full of states that have decided "enough is enough" in terms of regaining citizens' control over identity theft and criminal attempts to heist bank accounts or commit credit card fraud. No matter if you live in New London, New Haven, Greenwich or anywhere else in the Nutmeg State, you've now got the right to control the release of personal credit information.
Who's Against The Connecticut Credit Freeze Law? Remarkably the players in the credit bureau "front line", namely Experian, Equifax and TransUnion along with many consumer credit financial institutions and banks are dead-set opposed to credit freezing by "ordinary consumers".
Why? They lose out on money. Think of your credit report as "intellectual property", however with the twist that you don't own it. Yes, it's all about you, what you buy, how well or promptly you settle your credit obligations. However, to the credit bureaus the 150 million plus individual records represent ongoing cash flow as credit card companies, department store retailers, gasoline companies and a raft of other businesses "churn" business opportunity by offering new low interest credit card facilities.
Where Connecticut Residents Get Control On New Credit Enquiries. Here's the rub. If you, the peon consumer, take control over your own credit record in terms of when it's made available to new requests, then you effectively control the timing of revenue for both the credit bureaus as well as the merchants keen to sell yet another credit card inducement to selling gear. It's certainly in your "best interest", but clearly not in the commercial interests of the credit bureaus and merchants.
How Does Connecticut Credit Freeze Stop Identity Theft Fraudsters? Since identity theft can be triggered by intercepting your mail, stealing your auto, renting State birth records (like in California), corrupting an online web seller's data base, or stealing a pocket book filled with your credit cards or checking account data, you're not going to stop it by having a gaggle of politicians pass a credit freeze bill. However, what a credit freeze protection creates is a key "obstacle" which you control for impeding any unauthorized attempt to obtain your credit records or any like private data that might be contained in your personal report. You see, the identity theft bad guys know the drill...they steal your personal data...then they attempt to apply for new credit cards which they'll use to rapidly max-out credit limits...meanwhile, you won't even know of the existence of this new credit card until the bill arrive in the mail.
Gotcha! The bad guys get "open running room" for 30 days or more...and then they vanish, leaving you holding the bag and having to unwind a now serious credit problem. In Connecticut at least this fraud opportunity will be eliminated for the 20% or more of State residents who take up the opportunity to file and pay the fee of $10 per credit bureau. Perhaps residents may be motivated to freeze credit after reading recent news of the attack on Mastercard and Visa records where over 40 million records may have been fraudulently copied by unauthorized persons.
What The Connecticut Credit Freeze Means In Terms Of New Credit Or Employer Background Checks. Once you impose a credit freeze, no banks insurers or any other party can either obtain credit information nor can any new credit be issued unless you personally release the report. You do this in a formal notification to the credit bureau, plus a $12 fee for each enquiry. What this means if you're changing jobs or careers is that no background check will "go through" unless you formally notify the credit bureau.
Connecticut credit freeze laws signal a new trend in awareness to fight back against identity theft and credit card fraud. For more info and family protection strategies please go to:-
Avoiding Identity Theft: http://www.wise4living.com/lidtheft/
Safeguard Against Online ID Theft:: http://www.wise4living.com/lidtheft/online.htm
Author Robin Derry is publisher for http://www.wise4living.com/ a specialty information site that gives solutions to health, household, sport, travel and legal needs.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robin_J._Derry
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