TransUnion Settlement Reportedly Largest In History
Consumers may have finally scored big time!
Credit reporting agency TransUnion has agreed ( as part of a pending class action settlement) to provide free credit reports and credit monitoring to anyone who had a credit card, loan or credit account between January 1998 and May 28, 2008.
In case you’re counting, that amounts to over 160 million Americans who would qualify for free credit monitoring. Under the settlement, the free monitoring would be good for between 6 and 9 months.
After a 10 year legal battle in which TransUnion was accused of selling private consumer data, it seems that anyone with a loan during the last 10 years will get this neat gift by simply applying for it.
The data in question was sold to marketers like retail and financial institutions, who then analyzed it and sent out unsolicited offers (a.k.a. junk mail) to consumers like you and me.
In addition to the free credit report available now from the big 3 bureaus, consumers will also get free monitoring of their credit files. Monitoring can be a useful early warning signal that an identity fraud has occurred or may be pending.
Until now, it seemed that consumers had no defense against the sale of their personal and private credit profiles. During my public lectures, I have always shared the dangers of this sort of “dirty tricks” industry practice which I refer to as “Pirates Peddling People’s Personal Preferences.”
A TransUnion spokesman denied that any law was ever violated and claims that the practice in question was terminated in 2001. The company plans to make lemonade from lemons when it begins an ad campaign in mid June to announce its free monitoring plan to the public.
You can read a copy of the settlement online at: www.listclassaction.com Claims can be filed starting June 16th, 2008 on the website or by calling 866 416-3470.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:28 am
WOW, great post. Thanks for the link, too many times people say things without backing it up. Hopefully this case will “encourage” other companies to think twice before handing out information without consent.