Easy, you just lie when people ask. Apply for store loyalty cards and similar with fake information to get that associated with your data broker profiles.
You could also open phone lines with fake information, ISP accounts and so on.
A good investigator with expensive access will still be able to track you down, but automatically exploiting your data will be much more difficult if it's a mess.
We're not talking about just any data brokers though, the parent comment mentioned credit bureaus specifically.
I'm not a lawyer, but if you're applying for a line of credit with false information, I'm pretty sure that's a crime.
If you're not applying for a line of credit, I don't think credit bureaus such as Equifax or "Transperian" (which I assume is a portmanteau of TransUnion and Experian) will base anything on that data, since it's so obviously easy to manipulate.
>I'm not a lawyer, but if you're applying for a line of credit with false information, I'm pretty sure that's a crime.
I'm definitely not a lawyer, but unless your intent is to defraud I wouldn't be so sure about that. I also don't see how you'd ever end up getting prosecuted for this unless you really piss someone off, in which case I guess you could get prosecuted for just about anything.
In any case, whether or not this is legal seems utterly irrelevant.
>If you're not applying for a line of credit, I don't think credit bureaus such as Equifax or "Transperian" (which I assume is a portmanteau of TransUnion and Experian) will base anything on that data, since it's so obviously easy to manipulate.
You would be wrong. That'd be an awful way to maintain up-to-date address data on people.
Besides, the first company named was "Lexis-Nexis".
> > If you're not applying for a line of credit, I don't think credit bureaus such as Equifax or "Transperian" (which I assume is a portmanteau of TransUnion and Experian) will base anything on that data, since it's so obviously easy to manipulate.
> You would be wrong. That'd be an awful way to maintain up-to-date address data on people.
Okay, could you cite this, please? I've been very clear that I'm just speculating, but if you're so sure maybe you have some insider information I don't?
My credit reports don't have my up-to-date address, so whatever they are doing is an awful way to maintain an up-to-date address.
>Okay, could you cite this, please? I've been very clear that I'm just speculating, but if you're so sure maybe you have some insider information I don't?
I don't know of public sources to cite, but I've seen the data. If there exists good public material about how these companies source their data, I haven't seen it.
These companies will accept data from essentially anywhere they can get it, not all of that will affect your credit score but it'll certainly affect your person profile. Name(s!),addresses,ssn(s!),dob(s!) and whatnot associated with an individual "person" id.
FWIW, the credit bureaus are not just credit bureaus:
“Honestly your honor, I wasn’t going to use the loan I applied for with false information, I was just trying to briefly confuse hackers and advertisers!”
But I really don’t know, because I’m also not a lawyer and therefore do not give people legal advice on the internet.
The idea is that you'd use the loan, and pay it just like you normally would. But instead of giving the lender your actual address you give them some other address, essentially indistinguishable from a regular data entry error.
I can't see anyone getting in trouble for this unless they're creating fake credit profiles or not paying their debts, the credit bureau dbs are chock-full of garbage data from garbage sources.
The advice provided by GP seems to be "Apply for store loyalty cards and similar with fake information[...]. You could also open phone lines with fake information, ISP accounts and so on."