Credit Reporting Agencies besides the big 3

[rayt168]

In light of the Equifax data breach that was reported last month, I put a credit freeze with Equifax.  I had completed my freeze with the other two agencies (Transunion & Experian) years ago.  I forget the reason why I didn't complete my credit freeze with Equifax.  Anyway, I was reading on BogleHeads forum that there were two other credit agencies besides these 3.  The names are Innovis and ChexSystems.   

I did a Google search and got the following sites.   https://www.innovis.com  & https://www.chexsystems.com

Since I have never heard of these two, I am a bit leery of putting my personal information out there in case the site is NOT authentic.  How can I tell?  Or does anyone have personal experience with these companies?  Thanks in advance.

[jamesbond007]

Innovis is legit. I took a car loan once and they pulled the report off of Innovis. Also, they don't charge for credit freeze.

[bacchi]

Chex is also legit though they only follow bank accounts.

There's also MIB, which tracks your medical history. https://www.mib.com/request_your_record.html

[BrickByBrick]

Another one on your to do list: LexisNexis

To be fair, they're not primarily a credit agency - but they collect a lot of info on your housing/mortgage history (like Innovis), your insurance history (home & auto), and a lot of public info.

If you by chance know an institutional debt collector, most likely they are very familiar with LexisNexis.  Most of the info they obtain is from the public records, but not all of it, and the skeevy thing about them is how they organize and use all that information to sell others dossiers on you.

They're pretty sneaky, if you go to their security freeze information site, https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/freeze.jsp, they insinuate that getting a freeze at the big three is what you should do - but that's not the full story.

By looking through google results I found how to freeze your consumer file (I could not find this on the website itself).

Freeze your LexisNexis Consumer File: https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/pdfs/nc_freeze_request.pdf

If you keep digging you'll find additional actions that are not even on their "Consumer Personal Reports" website, instead it's here: https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/privacy/default.page

Other Actions to Take (as these are not covered by FCRA):

LexisNexis Information Suppression - https://optout.lexisnexis.com/oo.jsp
(They claim they need a good reason, but I didn't give one and they still did it)

Direct Marketing Services Opt-Out - https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/directmarketingopt-out.aspx

Credit and Insurance Offers Opt-Out - https://risk.lexisnexis.com/prescreened-offers-optout

See what they have on you - https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/pdfs/CD107_CP-File-Disclosure-Request-Form_pg-3.pdf and https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/for-consumers/CD307_Accurint_Person_Report_Info_Form.pdf

Unfortunately it's pretty voluntary on their part, but it can't hurt to try and further restrict access to your personal information.