Peoplefinders.com uses Experian data?
A reader recently posted with privacy concerns about http://www.peoplefinders.com/:
“… They list names for me that can not be obtained from anywhere else BUT my credit report. A year ago my daughter-in-law used my address when she was applying for a couple jobs. She shows up as a “possible room-mate” of mine. Again, the only way this information could be obtained by People-Finders is from the credit bureaus.”
I just spent a few minutes to check it out and I agree. It sure looks to me like they have access to credit report data and my guess is it’s Experian due to the number of addresses.
Interestingly, it seems like a somewhat outdated Experian database, at least 6 months old. Has Experian SOLD the data or has some Experian employee sold data without permission as recently at Certegy?
Or does Experian sell a “snapshot” of all personal data occasionally?
People Search
Find anyone, anywhere. Search more than a billion public records and 12 databases to locate people using: white pages, public records, addresses, phone numbers, yellow pages, criminal records, background checks and sex offender registries.
I’m extremely busy for the next month, so I don’t have time to look into this much. But I’d sure like to find out how they have everybody’s addresses for the previous 20+ years. I can see that they are using various databases depending on the CITY I use for a search for myself.
From the sample report:
Comprehensive Background Report - $39.95 view sample
May include:
* Current address and phone numbers
* Past addresses and phone numbers
* Birth date
* Aliases & maiden names
* Marriages & divorces
* Bankruptcies, tax liens & judgments
* Relatives, roommates & neighbors
* Property ownership & web site ownership
Is it legal to provide peoples’ personal data including all these previous addresses, birth date? The only thing missing is the social security number.
This is every ID thief’s dream come true.
Posted by Christine on 08/30/2007 at 02:48 PM
Privacy - what happened to it? • PeopleFinders.com • (4) Comments • Permalink
Your last sentence says it all. I’ve known for a long time this info can be bought for less than $50..but to give away most of it for free and freely available to anyone with Internet access....is scary as all h*ll.
I spent a day Googling to see if there had been any precedence set, any class action suits, etc. Almost everyone seems to agree this *should* be illegal, I can’t find why it isn’t, and if it...why isn’t the law being enforced?
Both Zabasearch and People-Finders are located in CA, and we have some the strictest privacy laws of any states. And like you, I’m exceptionally busy without the time, energy or money to take on a crusade against big businesses. But I also can’t just let this go.
The information on me was only found in my credit report, and it’s there as an error. I just wrote to all the credit bureaus (before I saw the People-Finder site) disputing/correcting some errors, and that was one of them. It will be *very* interesting if P-F’s information suddenly changes.
I’ve been gathering legislative and federal contact numbers to try my best to get businesses like this shut down, but it’s going to be a week or so before I have a few days to devote to that.
If I make any progress I’ll let you know.
It’s real nice to see someone else take an interest and do something.
I’m so sure now that it’s Experian data, I’m willing to bet some serious money! Like you, I noticed mistakes that can ONLY come from credit data and only Experian is reporting it.
The easiest way to get the legislators’ attention is to actually purchase the full reports and post them on the web. Don’t I wish I had more time and money.
I wonder what it takes to get Jerry Brown’s attention, he ought to look into that.
And I wonder who PeopleFinders.com really is.
From the terms:
“e. Unauthorized Use of the Site
Illegal and/or unauthorized uses of the Site, including, but not limited to, unauthorized framing of or linking to the Site; unauthorized use of any robot, spider, or other automated device on the Site; automating, scripting, scraping or otherwise taking data from the Site in an automated fashion to re-use or display in any way; providing fraudulent information to the Site and our affiliates/partners (i.e., unauthorized/fraudulent credit card information, false names, etc.), or using information obtained from the Site for any purpose covered under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. §1681, et seq.), will be investigated and subject to appropriate action, including, without limitation, termination of your Site account and formal civil, criminal, and injunctive redress.”
They even mention the FCRA, but I don’t understand what the violation would be.
The domain registration is private:
Registrant:
Confi-chek, Inc.
1821 Q Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
US
Registrar: DOTSTER
Domain Name: PEOPLEFINDERS.COM
Created on: 22-MAY-02
Expires on: 22-MAY-13
Last Updated on: 25-JAN-07
Administrative, Technical Contact:
Miller, Rob
Confi-chek, Inc.
1821 Q Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
US
(800) 718-8997
(916) 443-7420
----------------------------------
There is no active corporation listed in Cal.
I suppose you have to file a lawsuit against them and get a subpoena to find out who owns the domain. This is really weird.
http://background-check-services-review.toptenreviews.com/
There are a whole bunch of services providing the roommate / relative info. I really don’t understand how Experian can LEGALLY sell the personal data.
I agree with you, I don’t understand at all how Experian can be *legally* selling this data.
I’ve been swamped for the last 6 weeks (your comment email was in my inbox all this time!), but I’m hoping when I have time to research this more, and possibly contact some federal authorities to see if/how what they are doing is legal.
If you do, please let me know what happens. My own attempts at getting regulators to enforce the law have been futile.
Pre Bush administration, in the 90s, the FTC would actually investigate and even publish opinion letters.
But it would be a good start.
In my own case against the CRAs for inquiries I will definitely bring it up.
