Your personal information is not private. In fact, nearly all of your financial information is up for sale. Your name, your address, phone numbers, email addresses, mortgage balances, credit scores, maiden name, previous addresses, lenders you have applied for credit from - all this information is readily available on the open market, for the right price. The major credit bureaus are cashing in on your personal information, legally, without your permission, and only you can stop them.

Each time that you apply for a credit card, auto loan, mortgage or refinance, your personal information is distributed to lenders, insurance, and credit card companies who have subscribed to product known as a “trigger list”. These would-be creditors then inundate you with offers of credit. If you have recently purchased a home, you know exactly what I am talking about: the dozen “mortgage protection insurance” offers and too-good-to-be-true refinance offers that have poured into your mailbox. Your information is sold without your permission, and there is nothing that your chosen lender do about it.

To learn more about these trigger lists, I recently contacted the sales staff at [1] First American Credco, or Credco for short. Credco is a credit reporting agency used by many mortgage lenders to access tri-merge credit reports, which are single reports that combine your credit information from the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. Credco also offers marketing products, such as trigger lists, to lenders with deep pockets.

Apparently, trigger lists are traditionally used by creditors to monitor existing customers for signs of financial distress. Increasingly, however, credit reporting agencies are touting trigger lists as “the Cadillac of mortgage marketing”: daily reports of everyone in an area who meets your criteria and is looking for a loan. The Credco sales representative explained to me how trigger lists are used to generate “mortgage leads” - a fancy term for your information, packaged for sale:

• Prospective creditors purchase a subscription to a trigger list service. They set the criteria for their list - for example, anyone who has applied for a mortgage or refinance, in the 15217 area code, with a FICO score of at least 720. They also choose what additional information they would like to have included: names, addresses, phone numbers, mortgage balances, et cetera, as well as how often they would like to receive the list (daily or weekly).
• When you apply for a mortgage or refinance, your chosen lender orders a tri-merge credit report (with your permission).
• Within hours of ordering your report, your file is red-flagged by the credit reporting agencies for inclusion in trigger lists.
• If your profile matches the conditions of any trigger list subscribers, your personal information is sent to those subscribers.
• Shortly thereafter, the subscriber makes you a “firm offer of credit”, usually by mail or e-mail.

Trigger lists are not cheap. Subscribing to a daily trigger list from Credco costs anywhere from $11,000 to $16,000 per month for the basic subscription, plus $0.30 to $0.80 for every name and address received. Subscribers can choose to purchase additional information, called “addendums”, such as your FICO score, mortgage balances, number of open accounts, phone number, email address, and what other lenders you have applied for credit from, in addition to your name and address. Addendums, comparatively, are downright cheap, at a cost of $0.04 per ten addendums on each lead. As you can see, selling your personal information without your permission generates massive profits for the credit reporting agencies.

How can this be legal? At first blush, it may appear that your information is protected by the privacy policy of your lender or the credit bureau. However, mortgage lenders are unable to prevent their clients’ personal information from being resold by the major credit bureaus. The credit bureaus include a line in the fine print of their privacy policy that reads: “We will not release your Personally Identifiable Consumer Information to third parties except: (1) as necessary for us to process your transaction or (2) as permitted by law” ([2] TransUnion). Under the [3] Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), credit reporting agencies are permitted by law to resell your information to prospective creditors without your permission, as long as the prospective creditor is prepared to make you a “firm offer of credit.”

Despite this provision in the FCRA, trigger lists for mortgage lenders may be downright illegal. Unlike pre-screened offers for credit cards, mortgages are complex transactions involving appraisal of the property involved, verification of income and/or assets, and proof of insurance. A trigger list subscriber who purchases your name, address, and FICO score is not actually prepared to offer you a mortgage. Worse yet, many trigger lists subscribers are so-called “lead generation” companies, who buy lists and then attempt to resell the information piecemeal to lenders and insurance companies. These lead generation companies are simply resellers of information, and not in a position to make a “firm offer of credit” as required by the FCRA.

I also spoke with a representative of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) to determine what brokers could do to safeguard their borrowers’ personal information. He told me that, at this time, mortgage brokers are unable to prevent the inclusion of their borrowers’ personal information on the trigger lists provided by credit reporting agencies. NAMB believes that selling trigger lists for mortgage marketing is illegal and unethical, and is in the process of developing a comprehensive legal and grassroots strategy to put a stop to trigger lists ([4] see their position paper), but for now it is up to individuals alone to protect their privacy.

Fortunately, it is relatively easy to prevent your information from being resold without your permission. You may opt out of trigger lists and other pre-screened offers of credit safely and securely online at [5] http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ or by calling 1–888-567-8688. Submitting your opt-out request takes less than five minutes and is the only way to prevent credit reporting agencies from reselling your personal information each time you apply for credit. Requests do take approximately 5 days to process, so don’t delay - opt out today!

I can hardly express how important it is that you remove yourself from trigger lists.

The unauthorized sale of your personal information, resulting in a flood of unsolicited offers of credit, is far more than just an annoyance and tremendous waste of paper. Having your personal information proliferated by dozens of leads generation companies to anyone willing to pay increases the chances that you will become a victim of identity theft. Furthermore, the volume of information available makes possible a wide variety of scams, including deceitful lenders posing as your current lender and/or running bait and switch schemes.

When I spoke to the Credco sales representative, he failed to include phone numbers in the list of information that subscribers could receive in a trigger list. When questioned on the point, he explained, “We can provide phone numbers - but so many people have jumped on the Do-Not-Call list that it really isn’t even worth selling phone numbers anymore. There are hardly any that you are allowed to call!” If enough individuals opt out of trigger lists and prescreened offers of credit, the credit reporting agencies will be unable to profit from the unauthorized sale of your personal information.

Please note: I have nothing against seeking out competitive offers of credit - in fact, as a mortgage broker, I often recommend that my clients shop around to find the best deal. The most important point is to always work with lenders that you trust – and that can meet with you face to face to answer your questions. If you think something is too good to be true, it probably is. There is a vast difference between working with lenders you know and trust and receiving unsolicited offers of dubious origin.

So to protect your privacy, reduce your risk of identity theft, and decrease the amount of junk mail you receive every day, go to [6] http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ or call 1-888-567-8688 right now and opt out of trigger lists and pre-screened offers of credit. If you haven’t already, you may also want to add your phone number to the National Do-Not-Call Registry ([7] https://www.donotcall.gov/) at this time.

Finally, please pass this information along to your friends and relatives, to anyone whose privacy you care about. Let us put an end to the unethical and possibly illegal practice of selling your personal credit information without your permission!