
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 25, 1993                   TAG: 9309250055
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CREDIT AGENCY BARRED FROM SELLING CONSUMER LISTS

A major credit bureau was barred Friday from selling lists of thousands of consumers to telemarketers and direct-mail advertisers. The decision was based on federally protected information in its files.

Administrative law Judge Lewis F. Parker upheld Federal Trade Commission charges that Trans Union Corp. of Chicago had violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act in compiling and selling the lists.

The act governs the privacy of the consumer credit information collected and sold by credit bureaus. Trans Union is one of three major credit bureaus in the United States.

"Trans Union's target-marketing lists reveal much more information about the consumer in its data base than is allowed," Parker ruled.

There was no immediate reaction from Trans Union. But it denied the FTC charges when they were filed in January.

Parker found that TransMark, a Trans Union division, illegally rented tapes, which on average contained the names and addresses of 30,000 consumers who met its customers' criteria. Trans Union had advertised the lists in direct marketing publications.

But the company failed to require that those customers make a firm offer of credit to each person on the list as required by federal law, the judge said.

Parker rejected Trans Union's arguments that the information was not credit-related. He found that the lists are "consumer reports" because they contain only the names of consumers with at least two credit accounts.

Parker's order prohibits Trans Union from compiling or selling consumer reports in the form of target-marketing lists to anyone unless it believed the buyer intended either to make a firm offer of credit to each person on the list or use the lists for other purposes permissible under the act.

The act permits credit bureaus to release consumer information in connection with, among other reasons, applications involving credit, employment and insurance. Parker's decision becomes final unless appealed to the full commission within 30 days.

by CNB