Comments on: Privacy alert: Intelius database could have your cellphone number

By: JD

JD — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:58:51 +0000

Intelius is a huge scam, they did the same thing to me as they did to hvygee . Problem is also after you notice the unauthorized charges, it takes you days to get in touch with these people. Their phone number is hidden deep in the site and they do not respond to e-mails. Once you find the number you are left on hold for 45 minutes until you talk to some customer service rep who sounds like they did not graduate 4th grade and could care less about your problems. (most likely due to the fact they deal with the same complaints all day long) I don’t know how this company still conducts business.

By: hvygee

hvygee — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 13:50:38 +0000

They got me too … looking at real estate values on line in North Myrtle Beach, SC … purchased ONE report…they grabbed my number and automatically sign ed me up for theft protection @ $20.00 per month … didn’t discover it until just today, after 3 months of charges … largely my fault for not checking, but this is illegal … is there any recourse against them

By: Concerned

Concerned — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:00:07 +0000

Intelius Revealed as a scam

It turns out that the facts are in and there is no question that Intelius is a scam. What they do is outright theft from consumers. For all of the details, see the excellent blog at: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/29/naveen-jains-intelius-prepares-to-go-public-how-much-of-their-revenue-is-a-scam/

Many people on blogs and comments have said they felt that these guys at Intelius deserve to be in jail. Read the TechCrunch story and the various comments and decide for yourself. There are also numerous web site where consumers have complained about these guys.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:56:09 +0000

I notice the article stated that you can opt out by faxing them a request along with some sort of identification…like your license. Yeah, that’ll be a smart thing to do, give those bastards more info to profit from. Screw them.

By: trystero

trystero — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:46:37 +0000

Man, this is evil! We really need a national tech-savvy dialog to highlight the very very important differences between Privacy and Security… In my mind, there’s a very important difference between giving your contact information to a business in order to recieve a product or service (see Pizza delivery) and the assumption that giving them your contact info is a tacit consent for the business to share and resell your information!

Though I was one of the first people I knew on facebook back in the day, I’ve since significantly reduced my usage of social networks for fears of privacy and portability of my personal networks. My relationships should be MINE to own, MINE to create, MINE to destroy, and MINE to take with me if the company supporting the social network infrastructure turns out to be evil and starts selling my contact information.

Privacy for digital information is exponentially more important than physical privacy because of the danger of accidentally or maliciously copying or releasing information that would normally be private if it existed in physical form.

If social networks are to succeed they must uphold the user’s assumption that they own the data about themselves!