Are you concerned about your privacy when using the big car pricing sites? You should be.
The information you provide when you request a car quote through any number of internet sites such as Edmunds, Kelley Blue Book, Cars Direct, and others is valuable to many other consumer oriented companies.
Do you think for example that Toyota would be interested in how many people requested a quote on their vehicles? How about knowing where the quote was requested from, on what vehicle, what options were specified, etc.
The car quote information that you ask to receive online is also sent to the dealer’s that sign up to receive them from the lead generating sites listed above.
Even if the car pricing sites don’t do anything else with your information, how do you know what the car dealership does with it?
While companies are specializing on halting the problem of identity theft, the problem continues to grow. According to statistics, from 2008 to 2009, identity theft grew by 11% in the US.
That’s about 11 million people who have had their identification stolen in one year.
Be careful what information you share with anyone on the internet. If you share anything more than your name, phone number and e-mail address you’re giving the ID thieves more ammunition to steal your identity.
Be extremely careful with sharing your social security number (SSN), birthday, or home address with any company online. Make sure that the company has a privacy policy that explicitly states that it will not share your personal information with anyone.
How valuable do you think your personal information is to an auto insurance company? Do you think ACME insurance (made up name) would be interested in buying the information collected through a car pricing site to send either an e-mail or regular piece of mail to you promoting their auto insurance?
Of course they would! Not all of these car quote sites share the information but, it’s not always easy identifying who you can trust.
Have you ever received unsolicited e-mail’s (OK, we all have) and thought about where they would have gotten your information from?
How about unsolicited mail from the postal service? It happens every day and you are at risk if that information gets into the wrong hands.
If you use these big car pricing services, you’ll have to enter the information into the online boxes provided. You can also contact the dealerships directly but, you’ll risk spending hours speaking to all kinds of people that will try to extract the same information from you over the phone.
If you dare to call to ask for a quote over the phone, they’ll tell you they have to check the price or availability and they’ll ask you for your name and phone number to get back to you. That's also risky as more companies are popping up that allow others to identify you simply by your phone number.
The better solution is to use a professional auto buying service that offers multiple options to assist you with your purchase or lease of a new or used car.
A good auto buying service won’t ever share your information with anyone, especially a car dealer. When professional auto buying services negotiate and bid on your behalf with car dealers, they NEVER should share any information about you, not even your name!
Once the auto buying service gets the best deal for you and you accept it, they will give you the dealer contact representative so that you can finish the deal on the vehicle with that person knowing that your personal information has not been sent or sold to other companies.
It’s that easy! It’s also the safest way to insure that your personal information stays personal and that way, you won’t have to worry about identity theft.
Most of you have probably heard about the leader in identity theft protection, LifeLock. Here's a link to their site if you want to check them out.
Help Protect Yourself From ID Theft. Get help with LifeLock. Enroll Now.
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ProAutoBuying.com is a leading auto buying service that never shares ANY personal information and always gets its customers the best deal on wheels. Contact us now through our secure website.
