The FTC FACT Act

In December of 2003, President Bush signed the Fair and Accurate Transactions Act, which has become known as the FTC FACT Act or simply FACTA.  This legislation helped set forth some regulations that help prevent identity theft.  The regulations include, but are not limited to:

All credit card receipts must show only the last five digits.

All consumers are allowed one free credit report per year at annualcreditreport.com, or by calling 1-877-322-8228. 

Anyone victimized by identity theft need only to contact one of the three credit report companies in order to effect a national credit alert on their account.

All banks are required to advise prospective borrowers of their credit score, whether they are accepted for the loan or not.

These steps toward  have gone a long way toward stemming the tide of identity theft, but in June of 2005, further legislation was enacted to to set forth guidelines for the correct disposal of consumer documents, which call for burning, pulverizing or shredding documents before they are discarded.  This Disposal Rule has given businesses and individuals guidelines for protecting private information, and has as an unintended effect brought about a great increase in home paper shredder sales and the shredding service industry.