If you have a credit card of any type, you probably have received a Privacy Notice from the credit card company, usually included with one of your monthly statements.  It is a typical corporate notice, identifiable by the tiny print on several pages of legal sounding disclosures.  If you are like most people, it likely ends up in the trash or recycling bin with all the other solicitations that are packed into your credit card bill these days.

WHY IT MATTERS
Companies that you have credit accounts with share your information with other divisions of their company.  Not too surprising.  BUT they also share or sell your personal information to other companies owned by their parent company AND to outside, third-party companies that have no affiliation with them what-so-ever.  With the increasing rate of corporate data breaches, having your information shared or sold to an untold number of companies puts you at further risk for identity theft.

WHAT TO DO
Look through every Privacy Notice you receive to locate the section with instructions to OPT OUT.  You can do this rather quickly either online or with a toll-free phone call (some companies require their form to be mailed in).  Be sure to do the complete OPT OUT that prohibits the company from sharing or selling your information with any other companies, affiliated or third party.  You should only need to do this once for the entire time that you have the account.

You can also request a complete OPT OUT when you first open a loan or credit account to be sure that your personal information is not distributed outside of the specific company you are choosing to do business with.

For more information, see Identity Theft Prevention Tips.  You can also search the articles on our site under Identity Theft.