Pulls and PRMs (Part 5) my PRM block has been in effect 7 months now. and the actual report by mail is what I have been recieving . I do periodic checks via online every now and then and they appear to match for the most part. Jam as far as one of my creditors selling my info to a third party, I opted out right after my acct was opened. and if I recieved a promo offer of any type shouldn't I have some type of an inquiry on one on my CR?
Pulls and PRMs (Part 5) If the offers are coming from a CRA, then there should be a PRM (or These companies received your name and address) inquiry showing. But in my case, three of the PRMs didn't show up until *AFTER* I sent a letter to the opt-out address, saying that I knew that a CRA was selling my information without my consent, then the three post-dated PRM's popped up, and when the CRA received my next corresepondence, a fourth one showed up. If the offers are coming from a CRA, the disclosures should state that the offer came from a consumer reporting agency, and you are entitled to opt-out of these types of offers. But you can always demand that the company disclose the source of the report, remember 604(c) is included in the definition of consumer report, and they are required to disclose the source if a consumer report was used in connection with the offer. With the one company, I had to keep putting pressure on them to disclose the source, and by the time they officially revealed the source, the CRA 'found' the 'missing' PRMs.
Hey there... Just wanted to provide a bit of an update... I've gotten first-hand information of a different type of PRM report. Unfortunately, for them, that type of PRM report is always an illegal PRM if a consumer on the list is on the 604(e) list. Here is how this new PRM report works. XYZ Co sends to CRA a list of their consumer mailing list. CRA parses XYZ's mailing list against the 604(e) list, then provides to XYZ Co a PRM list including the consumer's score. Here's the caveat. There are two ways to respond to requests for 604(e) status. No they're not on the 604(e) list, you can solicit to them (we didn't remove their information). Yes they're not on the 604(e) list, you can't solicit to them (we removed their information). Any PRM request which is processed based on a clients existing mailing list is a request not only of the above-the-fold information, but also of their 604(e) status. Even if they don't provide the above-the-fold or score information, they still disclosed the 604(e) status.
Since this topic's come up recently, I wanted to bump it, and list three PRM cases to the topic. The grandfather of PRM cases was Trans Union Corp. v. FTC, 317 U.S. App. D.C. 133, 81 F.3d 228, 234 (D.C. Cir. 1996) If you want to learn EXACTLY how much information can be divined from your name appearing on a PRM mailing list, you need to read all of the information from this case. It features detailed analysis and examples of how specifically PRM criteria can be specified to allow reverse compiling of your credit report from a hit on a PRM list. Oneta S. Cole v. U.S. Capital, Incorporated (2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 24177,*;389 F.3d 719) Provides a number of criteria for determining whether an offer of credit (or insurance) is a bona fide offer of credit (or insurance) which is guaranteed to be honored; or is a sham solely to justify the obtaining of the consumer report. Murray v. Flexpoint Funding Corp., (2005 WL 1463500 N.D.Ill.,2005) Applies the criteria in Cole to non-specific offers which it is not discernible as to what EXACTLY the offer of credit (or insurance) is. HINT: An arguement for any non-specific offer, is that without the criteria in Cole being provided in the solicitation, how can any consumer, let lone an unsophisticated one to determine whether there is a bona fide firm offer of credit (or insurance). An example, I received a !CHECK! which was supposedly based on a PRM, the vague marketing materials said that when you cashed the check, with *YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION*, you would receive the membership offer that they were marketing. Only a vague reference to a supposedly unsecured credit card 'up to $2,500.00' is made as one of the supposed benefits of the program. Even better, this company then resells their list through a mailing list broker, and specific details about the financial status of the members of their company's mailing list is publicly available to anyone who visits their mailing list company's web site. (I have until November to sneak attack them with the suit; surprisingly (NOT!) only their mailing list company responded when I replied to their solicitation; and hmmmm, their response was "We didn't do anything, talk to them", hmmmm, if they don't reply, I guess I'll have to talk to both of you, in court.)
So: 1) Was the "check" a check? 2) Was the "check" a mechanism to sign and bind a contract in response to a disclosed "offer"? 3) Was the "check" simply a gift, with no determinable offer, later misrepresented as a contract? 4) Were they fishing for your credit card info, which was then fraudulently used to make unauthorized charges against? 5) Or is the issue that they sent the check at all, since they used PRMs to create mailing lists which were not used for firm offers of credit? 6) Or did they send the check, based on mailing lists generated thru PRMs, and then pull full reports without PP alleging falsely that cashing the check was a "transaction initiated by the consumer", when such transaction was no more than cashing their own check, and no defined offer was being accepted that could be construed as accepting an offer of credit? If I go any further down this path, I might have to move to FL, arguably one of the fraud capitals of the country.
The 'check' was one of those 'checks' which are the 'by cashing you enter into this contract, and will be billed at the credit card which you list here.' The main issue is that providing a "credit card protection plan" isn't a firm offer of credit. They barely mention the supposed 'up to $2,500.00' unsecured credit card, it's dropped just as a "Hey, we mentioned offering *SOMETHING* so its an offer of credit." The problem is there are not even vague references to what the interest rate or terms of the supposed credit card, so that any consumer in their right mind could determine whether the offer was a bona fide offer, or a sham.
So if it WAS a firm offer of credit, they violated TILA for failing to disclose the terms of that "firm" offer, and if it WASN'T a firm offer of credit, they violated FCRA. In short, it was a SHAM "offer", as a pretext to buy a mailing list. Of course, "credit protection" is a scam anyway, just based on the financial terms, even as sold by otherwise reputable CC companies.
It wasn't even a CREDIT PROTECTION, just one of those 'Call us if you lose your wallets, and WE'LL do the work of calling the credit granter and reporting the cards lost/stolen, and the like'... BINGO That's exactly why they got the letter, add to that they RE-SELL the mailing lists that they obtained from the CRAs in the first place.
