[zxcvbn4038]

Synchrony branded credit cards do the same thing, they use your SSN to obtain phone numbers from one of the Transunion skip trace databases. So even though I’ve only ever given Synchrony my dummy number, when I try to change my password I get a selection of phone numbers that they want to send a verification code to, and those numbers only exist in that Transunion database.

You can’t correct or remove anything from the Transunion database, because it’s not used for credit decisions there is no way to force them to do it.

So instead I’ve made it a game to try and see how many phone numbers I can get added to the database. My goal is to request a free copy of my file one day and have it arrive on a pallet.

Maybe if I fill out a credit card application and list Kevin Bacon’s address as a former residence then they’ll add him to my list of known associates...

[luckylion]

Hey, if you can automate the process, you have a free backup service with unlimited storage ;)

[jrnichols]

I'm not sure if it's Transition, but those "verify information only you'd know" questions that credit card companies ask now has bogus data on me, and I've had trouble getting into my own accounts because of it. For example, "which one of these did you work at?" and all 4 answers are false. But they expect one of them to be true. It's a huge hassle.

[godzillabrennus]

When you figure out how to game the system charge others to do it.

People would pay to create fuzz in their records.

[zxcvbn4038]

I think they key is that data brokers are greedy and accept all inputs with little validation. Their data quality teams are more focused on algorithmicly removing “obvious” duplicates due to small transpositional errors and such. They are usually not geared towards stoping people from intentionally entering incorrect but valid data. Even in cases where they might hold back data because they are uncertain about, they don’t delete it, as soon as there are enough “signals” that it might be correct they pass it through.

So knowing that data brokers are greedy the trick isn’t to get governments to force them to delete and protect information, the trick is to give them so much bad information that the good data becomes indistinguishable.