Lucas Gebhart
Editor-in-Chief
Last week, I applied to rent a house. My potential landlord wanted to run a background and credit check, which I get. They wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to run a meth lab and that I could pay my rent on time. That’s normal.
I don’t have any credit and I feel this isn’t a huge abnormality for college students. I don’t have any student loans and I don’t own any credit cards, so I had to get my dad to co-sign on the lease with me and they basically ran his credit instead of mine while they ran the background check on me. Again, this is normal.
Where this becomes abnormal was the next step in this process. I was sent an e-mail by SmartMove, who runs background and credit checks through TransUnion. Because I didn’t have credit, I essentially didn’t exist, according to TransUnion, and I was given a number to call.
On the other end of the phone was somebody who barely spoke English who then asked me to email, yes, email, a photo of my driver’s license or other government identification to what was an obvious automated email account. They also wanted a bank statement or utility bill to verify my address. My current roommate pays the bills and I pay him my share – again not an abnormal thing for a college student – so I had to send them a bank statement.
Only issue here was the address on my bank statement is my parent’s address and doesn’t match the one on my driver’s license, which also, since I have moved four times in the last three years, doesn’t match my current address. Basically, they were going to get three addresses for one person.
I explained this to them and I was assured that it wouldn’t matter, and more red flags popped up. I got the sense that this person was trying to do anything they could to get my personal information in their hands. This screamed scam to me, and I was talking to one of the top three credit agencies in the country.
I asked why they needed this information. I was told they needed it to complete my profile and that it was “their policy.” They already had my social security number, knew what my high school mascot was, knew my grandfather’s first name and knew what city I was born in, so I asked why it was their policy. I was again told that it was “their policy.” I asked if there was another way to give them this information and I was told “No, sir. This is our policy.” Again, I was talking to TransUnion, a top three credit agency, who was asking me to email a photo of my driver’s license.
Every red flag I have ever been taught about cyber security and scams was up, so I refused to send them the information, citing that I wasn’t comfortable sending the required documents over an unsecure email, which I felt was pretty good reasoning.
But it was non-negotiable. It was either send the information or I don’t get the house.
I called everybody, my mom, my dad, my potential landlord, my sister who works in cyber-security. All of them had the same answer. The answer was that I was right to be cautious and that yes, there has to be a better way, but these companies refuse to protect our personal information, which is why congressional oversight is needed within this industry. They won’t do it on their own, so Congress should make them do it.
A company, whose product is people’s personal information, should, in theory, take every precaution to protect that information. But as we learned with the Equifax hack last year, they don’t. Better yet, Equifax had the nerve to charge people to freeze their own credit when Equifax’s server was hacked, further showing the lack of respect these companies have. This is why Congress needs to act.
