Unfortunately, in order to "Opt Out", you have to provide your SS#.

I don't think so.

Great point Len!

Much like the Do Not Call list, if you want to "protect" your phone number and stop the telemarketers (except for those survey people), you have to provide them with the number you want "protected".

This is the same thing.  The credit bureaus are selling your personal information including credit info and your SS# to others.  If you want to protect your SS#, you have to provide it to them; their entire system is based around that piece of identification.

On the website you can view the privacy policy, and check into the encryption practices they use to safe guard your information.  The alternative is that you can call, or mail in a request.

Brian, reform of these trigger leads couldn't come soon enough for me.  I took out a mortgage two years ago.  Since then I have received well over 100 solicitations to refinance.

Brian, hopefully this will help with that type of marketing and solicitaion, but this is geared more towards the flood of junk and calls you would get if you applied for a refinance or to buy another home.  It is a different type of list and lead that is being used for Trigger Leads. 

The calls and junk mail you get now is probably just gathered from pubilc records. 

I hate spam, I must get 100 e-mails a day with crap offers, most are sent to my spam mail folder and I just delete them, the problem is you have to sift and make sure you don't delete a customers e-mail by mistake because it was sent to the spam folder by accident. What a pain!

Brian,

Thanks for spreading the word.  This practice needs to be dealt with and the sooner the better. 

Brain, this is a great tool. Have you used it? Is it working for you? I am leary of such sites as it usually increases  l let me know.

I am signed up, I get less general junk mail.  I encourage every customer I work with to sign up for both this Opt Out list, and the Do Not Call list.  I also give all my customers a heads up about these now.  I learned that the hard way.  I first learned about trigger leads the day after I got one borrower approved.  In 24 hours they had gotten 20+ calls from people trying to do a mortgage for them, some even pretending to be processors or something for me who needed to "complete the rest of the application".  Well that day I got a call from the borrower wanting to know what the heck I did (he used some stronger wording), and why I put him on the list.  I was able to figure out what happened and explain it to him.  He eventually calmed down, verified the explaination of trigger leads, and we still did the loan.

Mortgage trigger leads are nasty things.  There is a reason in the banking industry useing them is referred to as "snaking a deal"

What I don't understand is why the public has been relatively quiet on this one.

Could you imagine the outcry if REALTORs did the equivalent? If every time a consumer visited an open house, every agent in the state received their name, address, and phone number, the public would be outraged, and rightly so.  Confidential information should remain confidential.