gathering your personal information, selling it for a profit, subjecting it to security risks, then charging you for information about yourself

oh...and did I forget wasting your personal time and natural resources by facilitating the bombardment of your mailbox with relentless garbage offers from creditors of every sort?

You can stop that garbage coming in your mailbox and over your phones by filling out forms by the underfunded government institution charged with consumer advocacy.

Yet another 'pro-business' practice in the land of the free (to milk your butt for as much as I like 'cause I, corporate America, write the laws here) look to me like the definition of modern financial institution extortion.

Britannica defines extortion as:
extortion - n. - Unlawful exaction of money or property through intimidation or undue exercise of authority.

The only reason it's not extortion is because the corporations write their own laws, therefore it is lawful and, as many corporate law practices are in the States, completely unethical.

Gathering your personal financial information, selling it to any Russian mafia gangster who has a fax number at an incredible security risk - to as many entities as the information gathering entity wants to, then... in the greatest insult:

Selling you YOUR information back to you. It's like a parasite worm puking up the nutrients it's sucking out of your stomach and billing you for nutrients.

Yes, by law, you have access to your credit report at www.freecreditreport.com. And you think it's that easy? Try again. Since they only give you the tour once you've filled in too much information and invested too much time to turn back when you run into the inevitable demand for cc information, I am offering the following free tour as a service to you:

1. You must provide credit card information to enroll yourself in a subscription service you don't want but must remember to cancel within a period of time or you will then be billed by the service monthly.
2. You must provide a credit card. Many people with scores don't have a cc
3. After you are into your report you may think that's all the info out there on you: bull. The collection companies harvest tons more information than they show you.
4. One very important piece of info NOT included in the 'Free Trial' is your actual credit score. You must pay to find out what every landlord, employer with a snoop problem and others find out instantly about you.

It's pretty much a good example of an industry writing it's own laws running itself. You can thank the little known Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC ain't down with ME) of the US government for that. Their hilarious motto, "Ensuring a Safe and Sound National Banking System for All Americans." A little known entity with a big job, they're charge is 'regulating' the credit industry, essentially a high-level rubber stamping assignment.

If you're looking for a talking head apologist for the industry for your new dartboard, I suggest using the image of Julie Williams that leads this post. She's the stooge in charge of letting CC corps do as they like and has a fantastic time rapid blinking her eyes as she lies her way through Frontline interviews on their excellent expose "The Secret History of the Credit Card"