LAWMAKERS, GODDARD SAY TWO BILLS WILL PROTECT CONSUMERS’ CREDIT
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By DANIEL J. QUIGLEY
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX (Thursday, April 10) _ A House Republican leader, a Democratic senator and Attorney General Terry Goddard joined forces Thursday to celebrate the passage of two bills they say will help protect Arizonans’ credit from identity theft.
Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, the House speaker pro tempore, sponsored HB 2587, which would require creditors to verify the identities of consumers who apply for credit. Sen. Amanda Aguirre, D-Yuma, introduced SB 1185, which would make it easier for consumers to place security freezes on their credit reports.
The bills passed the House and Senate and were awaiting Gov. Janet Napolitano’s signature.
“Today is a really good day for the consumers of state of Arizona in the sense that they now have protection which they can rely on and the ability to go out use it,” Robson said at a news conference with Aguirre and Goddard.
“It’s way overdue for Arizona and especially for consumers,” Aguirre said, adding that more than 20 other states offer similar protections.
Robson’s bill takes aim at thieves who try to borrow money under false names. If signed into law, it would require lenders that don’t use consumer credit reports to take “reasonable steps” to verify the identities of applicants, including checking official pieces of identification.
It would require creditors that use consumer credit reports to verify borrowers’ IDs when informed by a credit reporting agency that a consumer has been a victim of identify theft.
Creditors also would have to make the same verification for borrowers whose credit reports show fraud alerts or security freezes, which prevent credit bureaus from releasing a person’s credit report or without his or her consent.
“It puts a little bit of the onus on the business community in making sure that it’s the individual that you’re actually dealing with,” Robson said.
Aguirre’s bill would make security freezes easier and cheaper to help prevent identity thieves from opening accounts in consumers’ names. It’s a subject especially important to the senator because she was a victim of identity theft.
“All of the sudden I started getting phone calls from people in the industry asking if this was a purchase I made. It turns out someone was using my card,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, this can happen to anyone.’ It doesn’t matter how careful you think you are.”
Her bill would require reporting agencies to comply with requests for security freezes within 10 business days. Consumers would be allowed to lift security freezes by mail, telephone, Internet or other electronic methods approved by reporting agencies, which would have three days to carry out mailed requests and 15 minutes to carry out requests sent through electronic means.
It also would reduce the cost of freezing and unfreezing reports to $5 per reporting agency, rather than the standard cost of $10. Identity theft victims could do so for free.
Aguirre and Robson credited bipartisan support for the bills and collaboration with creditors, reporting agencies, AARP and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Goddard said the legislation is needed because Arizona’s rate of identity theft is among the highest in the nation.
“I believe it’s going to have very profound effect on reducing our rating for identity theft,” he said. “You know, we want to be No. 1 for a lot of things; this is not one of them.”
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CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-CREDIT-BILLS: Sen. Amanda Aguirre, D-Yuma, with Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, and Attorney General Terry Goddard joining her, speaks Thursday, April 10, 2008, at a news conference celebrating the passage of two credit-related bills that they say will protect Arizona consumers. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Daniel Quigley)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-CREDIT-BILLS: Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, with Sen. Amanda Aguirre, D-Yuma, and Attorney General Terry Goddard joining him, speaks Thursday, April 10, 2008, at a news conference celebrating the passage of two credit-related bills that they say will protect Arizona consumers. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Daniel Quigley)