Wednesday, January 5, 2011

You Gotta Know this....Seriously!

My friend and fellow Wad member Amy told me about a scary site that houses way too much personal info on us.

At first I thought she was joking
....could there really be a site out there that has my income, google picture of my house (both aerial and face shots), children/spouse info, etc...??


So I looked it up.


Holy Cats, Batman...she wasn't joking.

It made me sick to think this info is out there...and that for only $2.95 someone could even get my credit report and more detailed info.


On the bright side,
she also told me how to delete my profile from this lousy site and today, I'm sharing that with you all.


First, go to spokeo.com

put your name in the search bar (it's a painfully slow site but worth the time)
find your state, double click, find your specific name and address
double click on that (again, this may take some time to search but wait it out)

up comes your profile. At the top of the box you will see tabs...one is "property"..that's where they had pictures of my house. The income was way off (they had me as rich...woot!) but the spouse and my unlisted phone number, google map to my unlisted address was all there.

once your profile is up, copy the specific URL (that's in your top address bar)

then click on the tiny, gray "privacy" word on the page bottom.
follow the guidelines for removal...paste your specific URL in the designated box, leave an email and CATCHPA phrase then go to your email and follow up on the final deletion step.

It really does delete the info (though only from this specific site)

scary, scary stuff.

Check it out and report back...and spread the word....this is stuff NO ONE is entitled to. Seriously, what is our world coming to????

14 comments:

Anne Gallagher said...

Good God, this is scary. I looked me up at my old address and it popped me to my new one. It also says I'm married which is stupid, b/c I'm not, but it also lists my parents names.

Thanks for this heads up Tess. I can't believe it.

Kelly H-Y said...

Yikes!!! Thanks for the heads-up!

Tess said...

Looking at it a bit more...it seems the "income" is actually the house value (or estimated house value). that makes a little more sense but the google photos and unlisted phone numbers and childrens names are still unnerving!

Susan R. Mills said...

Holy crap! I'm going to check it out now. That is definitely some scary stuff. Thanks for spreading the word.

Susan R. Mills said...

Yeah, not a very accurate profile, but still... It was wrong about how many kids I have and the value of our home, but the rest was accurate. Crazy!

Windy Aphayrath said...

Thanks for the heads up. Heading over there NOW!

Cynthia Chapman Willis said...

This is really scary. Thanks for sharing, Tess!

Davin Malasarn said...

Wow, thanks for letting us know, Tess. I just removed my profile. Some things weren't that accurate...which I guess is a good thing. But, I don't want any of my information out there.

Anonymous said...

Ooh, I know! I was so mad when I saw this site. NOT COOL! Very glad you posted about it.

Jill Kemerer said...

I just heard about the site this morning. How infuriating! In this age of stalkers, it's mind-boggling this is even legal. I love how it says the information is all "public." Puh-lease.

Carla said...

Wow. This seriously bothers me. I'm spreading the word now!

~Carla (carla-jansen.blogspot.com)

Sharon K. Mayhew said...

Don't forget to look at your name at old address! I found both Walter's and my names at other address...TMI!!!!!! Thanks for the breakdown on how to delete it all, Tess.

Martin Willoughby said...

I shall also spread the word over the pond...as well as checking out my details.

Thanks for that.

Tess said...

Glad to share it ... the info isn't all correct but it is still way more than most of us prefer. I mean, google pics of your house and names of kiddos? Not cool.