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Identity Theft Hits The Brakes In Nevada - New Credit Freeze Law

Legal:Identity-Theft Article Guide

By: Robin J. Derry

Un-persuaded by federal legislators to go along with some form of federally mandated "universal credit freeze right" after you identity has been stolen, Nevada legislators are pushing back at identity theft and credit card fraud.

What Nevada law makers can see is plain and simple. Billions of dollars of identity fraud debts are created each year. Some of it takes the form of credit card fraud after cars or hand bags are stolen, or even US mail is intercepted by the more aggressive and entrepreneurial identity theft gangs. Almost 90% of identity theft goes undetected and un-prosecuted due to the camouflage provided to the Bad Guys.

Avoiding Other States' Mistakes. Nevada has not fallen in the trap like other states. Legislative stupidity knows no limits when law makers are uninformed or impulsive. Take for instance states like Florida compelling real estate appraiser to publish the social security numbers of clients. Or, how about California's version of "privacy protection" uncovered to be actually the selling of millions of Californians' birth records to private online direct marketing firms for fees. Paid to Californians? Heck no. Instead, State coffers get the rental fees. Meanwhile citizens are placed in a vulnerable position with key personal data hanging-out in unregulated unsupervised areas.

How Nevada's Credit Freeze Law Protects Residents. Nevada residents don't need a PhD degree to understand their risks after reading recent accounts where over 40 million MasterCard and Visa card holder records were accessed by unauthorized persons. Or how about the recent case where a high level Washington DC Department of Defense casually removed vital personal records for millions of vets? These sort of "system break downs" are only the public tip of the iceberg to the underlying problem. Estimates vary but realistically over 30 million Americans have been hit by identity theft in some form since 2000.

Nevada's credit freeze law basically says "no more"... no mas! Residents can provide a written notice to the Big Three credit bureaus...Equifax, TransUnion and Experian...with Nevada State backing and receive a 100% guaranteed lock-down of individual credit history records.

What The Nevada Credit Freeze Means To Residents. What the Nevada credit freeze means is that residents' confidential credit file information cannot be given out to any firm, and new credit cannot be issued unless and until the resident provides a written authority to release the information on a 1-time basis to an identified enquiring firm.

Criminals Blocked From Credit Applications Posing As You. In taking this step, which a likely 20% of Nevada's residents will do, no longer will criminals be able to phony-up a credit application, posing as you, then receive a new card to be max-ed out on a spending binge. Until the credit freeze law came into force, the situation was "open running room" for criminals and essentially zero protection for consumers. The typical conclusion on an identity theft and credit card fraud scam was a resident in, say, Reno or Las Vegas opening up her mail only to discover that in the previous month some new and unknown credit card had been issued "in their name"...thousands of dollars of gear had been purchased...and now she was holding the bill....her credit standing ruined...and now was even responsible for a portion of the purchases. "Whaaaa….@&%" is only part of the typical response once someone realizes what's happened.

Who Opposes The Nevada Credit Freeze Law? Criminals naturally want a stupid, poorly monitored easy-to-break-in system, so if they had a vote, they'd vote "no" to any electronic obstacle. However, the next level of "legitimate business" opposition to credit freeze comes from the credit bureaus and many of their customers, which include banks, insurers, employers, department stores, hardware and big box retailers, even some sporting goods stores.

What's going on? Answer is imbedded in the money trail. Each of the more than 150 million individual credit history records is a form of intellectual property for the credit bureau. They "sell" consumers' file information to major credit card issuers. Both business groups have an interest to control files. Neither group wants consumers to be able to control the file records. This would be like some peon dictating the timing and size of the credit bureaus' revenue, which is unpalatable. Similarly, credit card issuers oppose any restriction to free-and-easy credit...since credit ease is the same thing as an inducement to buy gear.

Learn more about consumer protection related to identity theft and credit card fraud. Learn about preventive measures such as credit freeze steps, along with how to repair your credit history if you’ve been victimized by identity theft. For more info and family protection strategies please go to:-

Avoiding Identity Theft: http://www.wise4living.com/lidtheft/fake-id.htm

Safeguard Against Online ID Theft:: http://www.wise4living.com/lidtheft/online.htm

Author Robin Derry is publisher for http://www.wise4living.com/ a specialty information site that gives solutions to health, household, sport, travel and legal needs.

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