Just sent my credit report to a spammy URL, am I screwed?

November 21, 2015 4:10 PM

I just sent a PDF of my credit report to the wrong email address. (I left out two letters in my broker's email address). Am I totally screwed? What steps can I take to protect myself?

This is in the U.S. Looking at the site (I'm won't link directly to it, but it's corcoran.com without the first 'r'), it looks like something is happening there. I didn't receive an bounceback, either. Can nefarious deeds be done with my credit report, or am I freaking out for no reason?

posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

On my credit report, my SSN and account numbers are partly redacted. The credit card accounts are missing the expiration date and CVV, which people need to buy stuff. My birthdate is on it, and obviously there's my mailing address, but those are easily findable by anyone.

I wouldn't worry much, just keep an eye on things.
posted by desjardins at 4:26 PM on November 21, 2015

If cocoran dot com is the domain of the address you sent it to, it does not appear to have MX DNS records which are necessary for proper email delivery. Most likely you'll see your bounce after a while when your email provider decides to stop trying to send email to the bogus address (usually after a day or two).

That said, email isn't secure enough for me to want to trust it for sensitive information even if you do get the address right. I'd consider looking into an alternate method of sending sensitive documents in the future.
posted by Aleyn at 4:33 PM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you're really worried you can put a fraud alert on your credit report which forces additional oversight when opening a credit account.
posted by bitdamaged at 8:12 PM on November 21, 2015