Use of FAA Registration Data on Credit Inquiry

[Litz]

I found this to be interesting. When making a credit inquiry I was asked to answer a few security questions based on information contained in my credit file. The below question was one of them. I have never owned any of the other aircraft, so obviously the Phantom must be somehow part of my file. I am registered with an FAA "N" tail number, so I have to assume somehow that information was shared. Just a bit surprising since I never financed or extended any credit for anything related to my aircraft.

 

[grrquadman]

Uh Oh, what do we have here???

 

[GoodnNuff]

The last few times I've filled out an application for credit I was asked some very bizarre questions like that. They asked which of the following cars I'd ever owned, and offered a list, one was a 1968 Impala SS that I owned in High School in the early 70's! The only car on the list I'd owned. They also had several questions about addresses I'd lived at: each question presented a list of random addresses and asked which if any I'd lived at in my past. There were several questions like that, each with one valid past address. One address dated back to a college dorm room!
I assumed two things:
1) The credit bureaus know far more about us than we realize.
2) These questions were to assure I was actually who I said I was and wasn't trying to steal someone's ID.

 

[Nathan1994]

While I agree that it's creepy, it is public information once you have a N number. I'm in the same boat as the OP. But if you wanna go commercial, it's a necessary step to take.

 

[Formstone]

First - while creepy, yes it is public data and there are huge data warehouses that are mind boggling, I know, my day job is managing storage systems for that data. There are systems that do nothing but crawl public data and assemble profiles and such. It is the world in which we live.

Second - yes in fact those random odd questions are designed to help prevent ID theft. The only way to know the answers is by being you ( or someone that knows you well ) or a hacker good enough to access that data.

Anything registered through public records is out there.

 

[Buckaye]

agreed... it's public data and they are actually trying to use it to see if you are who you say you are by asking a lot of questions and seeing if you score fairly well with your answers.

 

[Litz]

I fully understand that they were verifying my identity, and that's a good thing. In the past I've always been asked about items which seemed logical as being part of my credit history. I've never been asked about other, random, government information.