honhill asked:
I am in the process of divorcing and I recently found out that my husband hired a private investigator to obtain personal info about me. I accept the fact that much information is publicly available to anyone with the time, knowledge and/or money to find it, but is it really legal for someone other than myself to obtain my credit report? I don’t owe my husband any money and I have not hidden any assets, and he never even asked me for it, he simply had a PI gather my credit report along with other info: checking to see if I had ever been married, etc. I just feel that it is a big privacy violation and I am wondering if I can complain about it to any agency. I did not think that consumer credit reports were considered public information, but please correct me if I am wrong.
LELAND
I am in the process of divorcing and I recently found out that my husband hired a private investigator to obtain personal info about me. I accept the fact that much information is publicly available to anyone with the time, knowledge and/or money to find it, but is it really legal for someone other than myself to obtain my credit report? I don’t owe my husband any money and I have not hidden any assets, and he never even asked me for it, he simply had a PI gather my credit report along with other info: checking to see if I had ever been married, etc. I just feel that it is a big privacy violation and I am wondering if I can complain about it to any agency. I did not think that consumer credit reports were considered public information, but please correct me if I am wrong.
LELAND
#1 by M k on January 19, 2010 - 9:29 pm
ROSCOE
This is most definitely not public information and the PI had to use your SS# to obtain this. Your husband likely provided him with this information. This could be a form of credit fraud. In divorces, a party can ask teh court for permission to obtain the other person’s credit report and get an order for such, but other than that, this is not right. I would talk to my attorney about this issue.
#2 by cybersharque on January 22, 2010 - 9:42 am
ZACHARY
It’s a violation of the FCRA, Federal Credit Reporting Act. The penalty for the PI is severe, since he commited wire frauf when he pulled your credit report. Some of the smelly stuff will splash onto your Ex. Tell your attorney and step back, let him play with this, it’s actually fun to do this to slimy people (which your Ex and his PI definitely qualify as).