data bureaus profit from own incompetence

something's very wrong with this picture.

Firms Hit by ID Theft Find Way to Cash In on Victims

By Joseph Menn
Times Staff Writer
Mon Aug 22, 7:55 AM ET

Elizabeth Rosen was plenty angry when ChoicePoint Inc. sent her a form letter acknowledging that crooks might have perused some of her most sensitive personal and financial data.
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But the Hollywood nurse was flabbergasted when the company, one of the nation's largest collectors of consumer records, also offered to sell her some of the same information so she could see what might have been compromised.

Rosen was among the 150,000 people whose records were released to identity thieves who scammed their way into ChoicePoint's databases, which the company says constitute the largest private collection of court records,
Social Security numbers and other public and personal data in the country.

Insurance companies, banks, law enforcement agencies and many arms of federal and local governments buy information from ChoicePoint to perform background checks on potential clients, tenants or employees. Now the Alpharetta, Ga., firm is finding a lucrative new business charging consumers worried about identity theft for access to their own criminal, education and employment histories.

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