Greg's Corner

This credit repair trick could get you arrested!

Since the 2008 Financial Crisis, consumer credit repair services have been popping up like weeds. While many of these services do offer legitimate assistance in repairing bad credit, there seem to be just as many who are just looking to take your money. While there are several types of scams that can be committed under the guise of credit repair, we’re going to discuss one in particular that can get victims of the scams arrested. What we’re referring to are Credit Privacy Numbers or CPNs for short. While there are legal uses for CPNs, many credit repair services are misrepresenting their uses.

CPNs are nine-digit numbers that anyone can obtain if they need privacy for their credit. They are mainly used by celebrities and politicians who need an additional layer of privacy for their credit reports. This keeps outsiders from trying to obtain their credit records by using the person’s Social Security number. CPNs are not a replacement for your Social Security number even though some credit repair services give this impression. It is a federal offense to put any number in place of your Social Security number on any legal form. You have every right to withhold your Social Security number as long as it’s not from a federal agency. However, if you do omit your Social Security number on financial forms, that institution has every right to deny your credit or loan request.

Some of these credit repair services will try to sell you a CPN claiming that you can use this number on credit applications to hide your bad credit. However, in a great number of cases, these supposed CPNs are just stolen Social Security numbers. They’re usually Social Security numbers that are stolen from children or the deceased. If you try taking out credit using one of these stolen Social Security numbers, there is a very high likelihood that you could be arrested even if you didn’t know the number was stolen.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM3z_iA90lo%5D

There is no quick fix to repairing bad or damaged credit. If you are looking for a reputable credit repair service you can find a list of credit counseling agencies that have been approved by your state government at the Department of Justice’s website.