ECMC Used scare tactics about a data theft from their facility in Oakdale MN. I have no student loans with them. Chanhassen, Minnesota

I received the letter as well (in April) and thought it sounded fishy until I investigated and saw it was a legit company.  I decided not to get the Triple Alert at the time BUT...

Today I decided to get the free credit reports you are allowed once per year for free from annualcreditreport.com but when I finished printing those out I noticed you had to pay for credit scores.  So I decided to enroll in Triple Alert from the ECMC letter for free and discovered that you have to PAY to see credit reports and scores.  It is just for monitoring.

On the page once you login under the heading My Credit Reports you get text saying Check the details of your Credit Report regularly to confirm there's been no suspicious activity. [Order a New Experian Credit Report and PLUS Score] [Order all 3 Reports & Scores]... so to get 3 reports and 3 scores it costs $29.95, 3 reports and experian score $19.95, $10 for just your Experian credit report, no score.  Trying to scare you into ordering reports that should be free with no option to just order your scores which is all you should be charged for.  There is no mention of getting your 3 credit reports for free unless you read the FAQ, but most people are not going to go looking in there since the [FAQ] is a small link below the 3 big links for ordering reports/scores.

And I don't think it is coincidence that on May 5th 2010 ECMC announced a for-profit affiliate.  http://www.ecmc.org/details/newsECMCSolutions050510.html  This scare tactic to get signups and sell reports and scores could have helped fund it although this part is purely conjecture.  It certainly lends more credence to the shadiness of the whole thing.

Hi,
Did the police report or the contact you spoke with at the PD, inform you that all the data was recovered intact, not accessed and encoded, just three days after the theft? Apparently the police found the data discs but held onto them for a while because they didn't know who they belonged to. That makes me wonder how long ECMC waited to file a report of the theft. Something in the milk ain't clean with this whole situation and their data theft/recovery/solicitation for Triple Alert.

A link to an article about the recovered data...
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2010/04/12/daily41.html

Hello everyone,
My husband also received this letter from ECMC. It was sent to his parent's home. He hasn't resided there for close to 20 years. He did not recall having a loan through this company nor making payments to them at any point after his college graduation but thought perhaps at some point, the info was sold to them. He had no recollection of his loans being transferred or sold to ECMC but of course that doesn't mean that that neither event occurred. It seemed fishy to me so I did some digging and learned that there is a legitimate company that had data stolen but it was recovered by the police three days later, intact, not accessed and still encoded. The letter sent by ECMC stated that that the theft occurred three weeks prior to the printing of the consumer letter but said no police report was available. They said you could contact the Minneapolis Police Dept for a copy of the report. They didn't mention that the police recovered their data about 2.5 weeks prior to their consumer letter being sent out and that is the suspicious part to me. Here is a link to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal article that writes about the data recovery.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2010/04/12/daily41.html

I still have a creepy feeling regarding this whole theft and subsequent offer of free monitoring. Many have said that they appear to offer free credit reports but when you call, you are asked to pay for credit reports. The monitoring service is free for the first year only. I would bet that after that year, they try to continue charging you so, do not provide a credit card to Triple Alert for your "free" year, if they tell you that you can cancel after the first year and avoid charges. Why do I wonder if ECMC found a way to take advantage of an unfortunate situation? Could they have partnered with Triple Alert in this case and possibly reap some benefit for anyone who does call and sign up for the free year? The paranoid consumer in me wonders about the data theft and random recovery of mystery discs by the police three days later, to begin with. Apparently the stolen data wasn't in their computer systems and hacked into. It was old data, stored on encoded discs in a storage facility. The whole thing leaves me feeling uncomfortable about ECMC and Triple Alert.

My recommendation to my husband was to continue to monitor his credit reports as he has been diligent in doing all along and not to sign up for anything offered by this company.

This is an update to my previous rebuttal...Triple Alert, the company used by ECMC to protect consumers from their recent data theft, does not ask for any payment information (credit, debit or otherwise) from those who have received the notice from ECMC--only the activation code provided in their letter to consumers.  As far as I can tell there is NO WAY for them to charge the persons who have been offered this protection.  Also, the police report from Oakdale, MN can be accessed (and downloaded) online after the persons who received the letter call the number to the Oakdale Police Dept. (found on the last page of the letter from ECMC).  This is totally legit folks...don't be so paranoid that you give others the opportunity to really mess with your credit.

I verified it on snopes.com and then googled it and found several news articles on many reputable news websites.  I plan on calling for the police report and checking it out further tomorrow.  Don't know if there is a fee for the 12 month service, but if you read the bottom of the letter, you can get a 90-day fraud alert at no charge, but looks like you have to call the number provided.

I also received a letter from ECMC.

ECMC is a legitimate company - they manage federal student loans - I had outstanding loans about ten years back and paid the loans thru them.

It could be that your information is in their archive or database - in other words, probably an old federal student loan you had and paid off years ago.

The university I went to also had an identify theft incident - and they offered a very similar program - free monitoring for a year.

If I were you I would take them up on it - I know I am.

 

I also received the same letter and do have student loans with this company.  I read your comments first and then contacted the North Carolina Department of Justice to follow up.  The incident was reported as having occurred.  Furthermore, my banking institution cut off my debit card and re-issued me another one around the same time the incident was reported to the NC DOJ.  They could not tell me who or what had compromised my account causing them to shut off my card but they gave me the date it was reported to them (which was around March 22nd--the same time the report was filed with the NC DOJ). I believe that this is not a scam but that ECMC cannot afford to pick up the tab for 3.3 million people for the service indefinitely.  I am going to take them up on their offer of 12 months as a precautionary measure.  I will keep everyone posted as to how it turns out after I activate my "12 months of free Triple Alert coverage."  Maybe someone has taken out a student loan with ECMC using the original reporter's personal information (?).  To be safe, I would advise everyone who receives a notice to follow up with their state's Department of Justice or (at the very least) with their own credit report.

First of all, since you don't have a student loan, What makes you so sure that no one has stolen your information and used it from the first place? 

We received the same letter.  ECMC is a guarantor (sort of like an insurance agency) of your student loan, not the lender.  Check with your lender to confirm this letter.  I just checked, and have verified that the data theft did indeed happen.  You should take steps to monitor your credit.  ECMC is paying for the 12 months of credit monitoring.