TransUnion is taking sign ups for a Free Credit Monitoring Service. We first posted the news of the free service on June 2, but it was not available at the time. As of June 25, you may now sign up for it. Recap of the why they are offering this free service:
The credit monitoring service is a result of a settlement due to a class action lawsuit charging that TransUnion violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act when it sold consumer information to businesses for their targeted marketing efforts. The law allows selling publicly available information but not private data. If you had a credit card or loan any time since 1987, then you are part of the Class in this class action against TU. Your Settlement Options:
- Six months of TransUnion’s credit-monitoring service for free, giving consumers unlimited access to their credit reports and scores, and email notifications when changes occur on their credit reports. The settlement values this service at $59.75.
- Nine months of the credit-monitoring service, plus access to the credit scores used in insurance decisions, and TransUnion’s mortgage simulator service, by which consumers can see how their credit score affects their mortgage rate. Value: $115.50.
- Cash Settlement is also an option, but any such payments won’t be made for two years — and they’ll be paid only if there’s money left after any other “post-settlement claims” have been paid out of a $75 million fund set up by TransUnion for the purpose. In other words, I wouldn’t hold out much hope of getting anything from this.
I chose the 9 months of free credit monitoring. Whatever cash MAY come out of it, it’s not going to be enough to bother with give the size of the class.
Register here: https://www.listclassaction.com/
Popularity: 24% [?]
4 responses so far ↓
1 Datamining Stinks // Aug 21, 2008 at 1:48 pm
We’re sick and tired of credit card companies, insurance companies, telephone companies, DMV, SSA, and so on, GIVING OUT OUR PRIVATE DATA, with no real PUNISHMENT! What good is a few months’ of credit monitoring or a class action lawsuit that MIGHT provide a small cash settlement (think $20-40)?!
The DAMAGES done by violating people’s privacy far outweigh any of these slap-wrist solutions when these privacy violators do get caught and have to “pay.” For those who have worked HARD all their lives to be private and avoid harassment or stalking, these kinds of relentless privacy violations create havoc, destroy peace of mind, cause disruptions in their lives and sometimes put them at risk of physical harm–and it is high time that the government start TRULY PUNISHING the dataminers and others who are harvesting and disseminating our private info without our knowledge and without our permission.
WHERE can we begin to protest this ongoing violation of our privacy rights? And in the meantime, those who feel upset by this ongoing trashing of privacy in America should start to vote by closing their accounts with all agencies who indulge in this dirty business of datamining and selling our private info.
2 Kristy // Aug 21, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Unfortunately, the only way to go after them is to:
a. Change the laws
b. File Class action lawsuits
c. Convince the FTC or your state attorney general to sue them.
Unfortunately, none of these things are quick fixes.
3 Starky // Aug 21, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Yeah, and another problem is that it is the GOVERNMENT itself in many cases that is doing much this snooping, stalking, surveilling, and violating of our privacy–all in the name of “SECURITY”! Hah. WHOSE security? Certainly not the security of us “little people”!
4 Denise // Sep 23, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Transunion STINKS! Mailed 8 letters and legal documents so the jerks would correct their typo errors for my MAILING ADDRESS and to DATE they have not corrected it. ITS WORSE! they cant READ, cant TYPY and cant TELL THE TRUTH! What can they do? When I called it got another JERK in INDIA who cant speak CLEAR ENGLISH! The Chester PA office STINKS!
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