More Free Reports: Your ChexSystems Banking and Medical Information
Here are two more consumer reports which you can request free once every 12 months. Isn’t it scary how much of your information is floating around out there?
ChexSystems Banking History
ChexSystems is a consumer information database used by an estimated 80-90% of all banks to help determine the risk of opening new accounts. Think of it as the bank’s version of a credit bureau. If a person commits check fraud or overdraws their account, it will be listed here. In addition, the simple act of opening or closing a bank account may be recorded in their database. Getting an negative ChexSystems record can leave you blacklisted from opening bank accounts at most major banks. Via Fatwallet and my previous post asking Can You Apply For Too Many Bank Accounts?.
See here to get a free copy of your ChexSystems consumer report.
Medical Information Used For Insurance Underwriting
MIB (previously known as Medical Information Bureau) is run by 470 insurance companies and has a “primary mission of detecting and deterring fraud that may occur in the course of obtaining life, health, disability income, critical illness, and long-term care insurance.” Your consumer report “contains information of underwriting significance (medical and avocation information) about North American consumers who have applied for life and health insurance with MIB member companies.” If you have not applied for individually underwritten life, health, or disability income insurance during the preceding seven year period, then you probably don’t have a record. I’m still interested to see what’s in mine before I apply for life insurance.
See here to get a free copy of your MIB consumer file.
Find more in Banking, Insurance | 6/5/08, 1:55am | Trackback
June 5th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Lol J! You might want to paste this in slickdeals before Ciked “The Plagiariser Troll” comes and does a Ctrl-C Ctrl-V number on you!
June 5th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Maybe I should see what ChexSystems says on me since I open a lot of bank accounts to get the bonuses.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:49 am
MIB is the big reason that you need to be careful when applying for life insurance. When you apply for a life insurance policy, the first thing that the underwriters do is check your MIB records. If you a lie on an application to one company then they’ll report it to the MIB for everyone to see. It could affect you getting reasonable coverage in the future if you are branded as someone who might be an insurance fraud risk. They also make sure that you don’t tell one insurance company about a prior health problem, get rejected and then go to another company and try to hide the problem.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:56 am
requesting for the report is just a click away, but to opt out of them ‘sharing your information with pre-screened offers’ you’ll need to call them.
”
How can I opt-out of pre-screened offers of credit?
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), consumer credit reporting agencies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make “pre-screened” offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you. The FCRA also provides you the right to “Opt-Out”, which prevents consumer credit reporting agencies from providing your credit file information for “pre-screened” offers. If you choose to opt-out, your name and address will be removed from the lists these offers are based on. You may opt-out with the nationwide credit bureaus at 1-888-5 OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688). You may opt-out with Chex Systems, Inc. at 1-877-OPTOUT 5 (1-877-678-6885).”
June 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I just saw something about Google trying to make it easier for people to access information from their medical records.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Nice posting! MIB is the big reason that you need to be careful when applying for life insurance. Thx for this information
June 6th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Everyone overlooks their Chexsystems report. It’s a pretty important one to order. Here’s one reason why: one scam identity thieves use is to steal your ID (name, address, ssn) and open a bank account. They then apply for a bunch of online payday loans and have the money deposited into the new bank account. They then drain the account and move on. The bank account (which is in your name) gets debited by the payday companies. Of course, there’s no money in the account, and the account owner (supposedly you), gets hit with tons of NSFs. All of this gets reported to YOUR chexsystems report. This type of thing KILLS your banking record. If you don’t catch these types of items on your ChexSystems report, it can lead to lots of problems down the road. Order your report — it’s free and only takes seconds!
June 8th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Chexsystems is quite like a credit reporting agency but is done in regard to checking accounts through banks and credit unions. The problem with them, unlike traditional credit reporting is that they only report the negatives and do not include any positive reconciliations or accounts in good standing.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:46 am
I tried the chex systems link and, after filling in my info, it showed a page saying “thank you for your submission” and nothing else…did this work for you?
June 19th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Banks may use ChexSystems to determine if potential customers left a previous bank without fulfilling an obligation. Sometimes mistakes are made. You can straighten things out with them, but what do you do until you can open a checking account again?