Steve Jackson, a well-known game designer, got an offer for free credit report monitoring from his bank. When he called up the monitoring company, Intersections Inc, the customer service rep rattled off a boilerplate agreement and asked for his assent. When he asked if they would send him a copy, she said they don’t send out copies. When he asked then how he would have a record of what they agreed to, she got huffy and said, “This is free. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Preferring not to have his credit report read without a written agreement, Steve said no. A week later, a card arrived in the mailing congratulating him on signing up with free credit report monitoring services from Intersections Inc! It even included the Terms of Service that the rep said they were supposedly unable to send out.

A conference call later between his bank and Intersections his problem is on the way to resolution, but of the experience Steve writes, “Identity theft is a real problem. It happened to one of our staffers recently. But after this experience, I think “services” like this are part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Identity Protection . . . Not?! [Steve Jackson Games Daily Illuminator] (Thanks to John!)

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