Caution on use of “free” credit reporting services

By Emerson Smith

South Carolina businesses have been advised by Governor Haley’s office to register for a free credit monitoring service with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) http://www.dandb.com/sc/ or Experian http://www.smartbusinessreports.com/SouthCarolina . 

D&B has responded to some businesses with emails saying that the business’ credit profile is incomplete and that the business owner should call a D&B Credit Advisor immediately.  The Credit Advisor is telling some businesses that the business needs to have at least four companies with which the business has credit to make the business’ credit profile more complete.  The cost to the business is $948. To further improve the business’ credit profile, the business can add eight credit-providing companies for $1248.

It is not required that South Carolina businesses pay D&B anything for credit monitoring. 

Obviously, D&B is pleased to have South Carolina businesses call them and give them information about the businesses. D&B can then market to these businesses for the many services, such as credit reports that D&B offers for a fee, for many years. 

What D&B offers free is only “credit monitoring” for one year. D&B does not provide a credit report for free.

However, Experian does offer a free credit report as well as free credit monitoring. Businesses can go online at any time after registering with Experian and check the business’ credit report for a period of one year

Sign up NOW for South Carolina business and individual protection

1. Today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. sign up for the free Dun & Bradstreet’s CreditAlert service. Go to www.DandB.com/SC or call customer service at 800-279-9881. Dun & Bradstreet is providing this service at no charge to the state or businesses for the life of the business.

2.  Sign up for the no-charge Experian’s credit monitoring and identity theft protection for individuals online at www.protectmyid.com/scdor. Enter the code SCDOR123 when prompted. Then follow the instructions to enroll. Do this for every member of your family including children 18 years of age and older. Also provide this information to your employees.

3  NEW: Experian is also now offering affected South Carolina businesses Business Credit Advantage — a self-monitoring service that allows unlimited access to a company’s business credit report and score. Starting today South Carolina businesses can sign up for the service at http://www.smartbusinessreports.com/SouthCarolina.
    
When you sign up for the personal Experian’s credit monitoring you will receive an email or letter explaining how to enroll your minor children on your plan.  It is extremely important for you to do this because the Department of Revenue records stolen by international hacker thieves contained the social security number of your children.  Your child’s social security number is prized by identity thieves because it is the easiest for the thieves to create a bogus credit profile in order to steal money.  The problem will not be uncovered for years and then your child’s damaged credit rating will stand in their way of getting jobs, enrolling in higher education and getting credit for any purchase.

Warning! Your business checking account is probably compromised

It’s not just your identity that might be stolen

If your business has paid your payroll taxes, sales taxes, or income tax to the S.C. Department of Revenue either electronically or by check anytime since 1998, your business checking account is at risk of being raided by international hacker thieves. This problem is a result of hackers recently gaining access to the Department of Revenue’s taxpayer database of 3.6 million South Carolinians and 657,000 businesses.

While the state is providing credit monitoring and identity theft protection for individuals at no charge and tomorrow morning will start providing free Dun & Bradstreet’s CreditAlert service for the state’s businesses, neither service will protect your business checking account.

Steps should be taken to guarantee your business checking account will not be drained totally or experience just a series of small withdrawals over time by the foreign thieves who already have your information, including account and routing numbers. This could happen today, months or years from now causing the following problems:

1. Loss of the use of your business funds to pay bills and payroll for some time until your financial institution puts the money back into your account after a fraud investigation.
2. Checks that you have written will bounce due to insufficient funds if your account has been raided costing you penalty fees.
3. Checks that bounce will cause delinquent payment charges and possibly late payment notices being placed on your credit history.

For maximum protection for your checking accounts that you have used to do business with the Department of Revenue and protection from other fraud, the following steps can be taken:

1. Close the business checking account and open a new one. Your bank or credit union will probably do this at no charge. However, there will be a cost for ordering new checks from the company that provides that service. This is also probably good advice for personal checking accounts that have been used to pay state taxes.
2. Sign up for the no-charge Experian’s credit monitoring and identity theft protection for individuals online at www.protectmyid.com/scdor. Enter the code SCDOR123 when prompted. Then follow the instructions to enroll. Do this for every member of your family including children. Also provide this information to your employees.
3. Tomorrow morning (November 2) from 11a.m. to 2 p.m., sign up for the free Dun & Bradstreet’s CreditAlert service. Go to www.DandB.com/SC or call customer service at 800-279-9881. Dun & Bradstreet is providing this service at no charge to the state or businesses for the life of the business.

If you have any questions regarding this matter, please call us at 803-252-5733.