https://www.myidscore.com/

Saw this on the CNN or MSNBC website yesterday. It's a company that calculates your ID score, as opposed to your credit score. Read what they have to say and decide for yourself.
My score was pretty darn low.

Wouldn't filling in your name, SS# and other info kinda be a security risk in itself? Joe - what credibility does the site have insuring it's not put in place to steal identities? I saw it was a secure site, is that enough to trust it? Is the VeriSign association enough? Just curious, I have issues with SS#s because my past employer handed them out like business cards for several years...

email me your credit card numbers (with cvv#) and i will give you a credit score. give me 3 of them and i won't even charge you the $19.99 fee. ;)

I like it when companies say they don't sell your info to other companies. That's all fine until the company is sold and the new owner doesn't feel the same way, or the company needs the money. You can only do so much to protect yourself; going out of your way to give your info away may not be the best thing to do, imo.

Wouldn't filling in your name, SS# and other info kinda be a security risk in itself? Joe - what credibility does the site have insuring it's not put in place to steal identities? I saw it was a secure site, is that enough to trust it? Is the VeriSign association enough? Just curious, I have issues with SS#s because my past employer handed them out like business cards for several years...

That's why I said read all the information. You don't HAVE to give them all the info like your SSN.
The article I read about it said the same thing. Give them as much or as little as you want. The more info, the more accurate.
I didn't input my SSN. I never, ever, ever give that to anyone for any reason unless it's absolutely imperative. In fact, my ID score is so low because I'm a ghost on the internet. I have many email addresses I use for different reasons. I make up addresses, birthdates, etc. Unless of course I'm purchasing something from a vendor or whatever.
I'd trust it.

What's the difference between them and the credit companies?

Hey Joe. I mistook you saying "read what they say" to being "check out what they say about you". My bad on that... The difference in providing your name, address and phone number to ecommerce and credit card companys is you are doing business with them in some form. I'm not saying the page you linked is not legit but I do ask "what do they get out of this?" You give them your info, they search the internet for data on you and provide info back to you. When I first visited www.myidscore.com I expected to see them using the page to make money by helping someone with a bad score secure their ID and lower their score. There is no hint of that, once you get a score do they offer suggestions or a way to help secure your ID?

I didn't see the news report you saw Joe but looked up the mother company www.idanalytics.com It seems to me they make their money doing background research on people for employers or anyone with the money to pay for it. I may be way off on this but when a company that makes money digging up info on people starts a website where people give them their information for free it seems like there is a connection there. The info may already be out there for the taking but how much more do they get when you give it to them sitting at your home computer? They may adhear to their privacy policies and not directly sell your info to a 3rd party for advertising etc. They may find it perfectly ok to use your info "in-house" when doing a background check on you for their customers though...

I may be overly cautious and thinking too hard on this one and info provided may not be used against you in this case, I just wonder about how they are going about harvesting it...

Side note: I recently signed up for online access with my medical provider. When I got to a point where I had to select security questions for future recovery of a forgotten password one question was "What is the name of a local affiliation you have?" It gave choices to pick from for the answer and one was the local camaro club I belong to! Where did that come from? I had never provided them that info, I was just signing up!

I got the same sense you did about them just plucking bits of info about me from wherever it happens to be. It makes sense really. How else will they check your presence in the world and calculate your score? That's the whole point..... use the provided info and see how vulnerable you are to certain things.
And they're a company like any other... they gotta make money.

Even if an online company says they won't sell or use your info for any other reasons, doesn't mean they won't. I'm not that naive. I don't know EXACTLY where they gleen their info about me from, but as I was answering their questions, they knew things about me that I've never told anyone. It turns out it was 'public knowledge' type info that they could get from all kinds of different records. The questions were designed to make sure I am who I say I am. Scary! :)

I didn't see the harm in it.... there are far more clandestine things going on in the cyber world that ARE designed to harm me that are invisible while I'm on the Internet. I didn't provide anything to them that they didn't already have or know.
Besides the fact that now I'm sure this computer has a couple new tracking cookies from them.
;)

I just saw on the news, that if a crook has your Name, Place, and date of birth, they can "guess" your SSN! Or place your SSN in a pretty narrow range of numbers.