A complete stranger walked up to me today, and asked about my sons.
He knew their names and ages. He went on to tell me my age. And that of my spouse.
I was raking leaves in the front yard, at the time - and was stunned.
Then he roared with laughter. He said that all he did was Google my name, and up it popped at a website called INTELIUS. Intelius freely lists a trove of information about people and their immediate family.
These freebies are just tidbits to lure customers to pay for even more in-depth snooping.
One major problem that we have with this: my sister freelances in a youth oriented field, and is nowhere near as young as she looks. Without a doubt, she will lose out on job interviews, if she hasn't already.
Another problem: when the bank asks an identify thief "his" mother's name, he will have it handy.
My sister complained to Intelius, and begged them to remove her age.
Intelius says that they will only remove it if she submits a legal document, like a driver's license to verify that she is the actual person.
She was outraged. Why should she have to jump through hoops when she never gave Intelius permission
There is no way that she would send this company even more information - that they could easily use to identity theft.
This kind of thing has been going on for quite a while, but the sleaze companies
would remove information when politely emailed.
Intelius is seeing to it that privacy is an exclusive luxury of the government and the wealthy.