He says both Equifax and TransUnion placed a fraud alert on his account, which triggers a notice on someone's credit report, saying they may have been a victim of identity theft. "I thought I was doing the proper due diligence that one needs to do when you have your ID stolen or your wallet stolen," said Darch.
When Robert Darch had his wallet stolen, the North Vancouver man knew one of the first things to do was to alert both credit bureaus. "In many cases, these provide nothing more than a false sense of security." Fraud alerts: 'They definitely didn't protect me' "No amount of monitoring will give you 100 per cent guarantee that you're going to be protected against identity theft."Įven if a consumer does cough up the hundreds of dollars each year, Popa says credit monitoring won't do anything to prevent identity theft. "Definitely it's a flaw in the system," said Claudiu Popa, a cybersecurity expert and author of The Canadian Cyberfraud Handbook.
How a simple credit card scam can kick off a 'perpetual cycle' of identity theft: Read Part 1 of Marketplace's investigation.
TRANSUNION FREEZE LEFT FULL
This means that in order to ensure consumers are getting a full picture of their credit reports, they would need to sign up for monitoring with both bureaus, at a cost of nearly $500 a year. (CBC)Įquifax and TransUnion both declined requests for an on-camera interview, but each credit bureau told Marketplace through email that financial institutions typically pull credit reports from only one bureau. Some of the sensitive information leaked to Marketplace included credit card numbers, social insurance numbers and addresses - even recent account balances. As each bank made inquiries into the producers' files, an email notification was only received from one credit bureau - never both - and always one day after the application was submitted. The two producers then applied for six different credit cards - three apiece - with major banks across Canada. Call-centre staff for the companies said that with these products, clients can expect an email notification whenever "key changes" occur to their credit reports, including any inquiries or new accounts opened. Marketplace tested each bureau's recommended plan, at $19.95 a month, by having two producers sign up with both companies. The top advertised product for both Equifax and TransUnion is credit monitoring - a service that costs between $11.95 and $29.95 a month, depending on the plan. Credit monitoring: 'It's a flaw in the system' Marketplace began looking into identity theft protections after receiving a leaked database of nearly 3,000 Canadians who fell victim to a low-interest credit card scam operating out of one overseas call centre.Īs part of its research, Marketplace tested two services offered to identity-theft victims by Canada's two credit-reporting bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion, and learned that they won't necessarily prevent the risk of fraud. From data breaches to phone scams seeking to collect your information to sell on the black market, it could happen to anyone.īut as some 27,000 Canadians report being victims of identity theft every year - a number that the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says is vastly underreported - a Marketplace investigation reveals Canada is doing little to match the strength of protections offered in the U.S. There's no shortage of ways for thieves to steal your identity.
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