Secret Weapon Labs

In this day and age of identity theft, using your your credit card smartly isn’t enough anymore to maintain accuracy in your credit history.

Get copies of your credit reports from TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian, and due to new legislation, over the course of 2005, people are becoming able to get one free report per year, regardless of their state of residence.

Thanks to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, you can now get free copies of consumer “specialty” reports that track your insurance claims, check-writing, and medical history. There’s no centralized source for getting all of those reports — and many people don’t even realize that all these reports exist. You can contact the companies individually through their web sites to request your free reports (or more strictly speaking, “file disclosures”). Unlike credit reports, all of these specialty reports became available (free once annually) starting December 1, 2004.

Here’s contact information for some of these specialty reporters:

ChoiceTrust (www.choicetrust.com) tracks home and automobile insurance claims [CLUE reports], employment history, and residential rental history. You can order these reports through the web, or you can call them at 1-866-312-8076. The hours for the phone line are all day Monday to Saturday, and 10 am ’til midnight Eastern Standard Time on Sunday.

ISO (www.iso.com) also tracks property and automobile insurance losses, through its A-Plus reports. The privacy rights center says that ISO has this subject to the roll-out dates that credit reports are on, but I saw no mention of this on the web site. To order the report, call 1-800-627-3487.

MIB (www.mib.com) compiles and maintains records about individual life, health, and disability insurance policies. They should only have information on you if you have applied for an individual (not group) insurance policy within the last seven years; they estimate they have reports for approximately 20% of the population. To request a report, call 1-866-692-6901; TTY users can call 1-866-346-3642.

Tenant reports. There are lots of them — the best bet is to ask the landlord for the name and contact information for his or her screening company, since there are over 300 resident screening companies in the country.

ChexSystems (www.consumerdebit.com) tracks checking account histories. You can order your ChexSystems report through the web at https://www.consumerdebit.com/consumerinfo/us/en/chexsystems/report/index.htm or call 1-800-428-9623.

TeleCheck. (www.telecheck.com) compiles information much the same as SCAN. As far as I can tell, they have no information about file disclosure on their website. Their toll-free number is 1-800-209-8186.

These reports may be of particular interest to you before shopping for home or car insurance, opening a checking account, applying for health or life insurance, or renting a house or apartment. And, as usual, they’re of special interest if you’re the victim of true identity theft (i.e., someone steals your social security number and starts opening accounts).

You can also go check out www.privacyrights.org