311–320 of 551 posts
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The NYT story states that they are already offering this to affected consumers: https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/potential-impact/ .
I went there and used the site and guess what? It doesn't work. It just said 'Thank You!' and gave me an enrollment date. It gave me no info as to if I was one of the people affected.
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Precisely. In no way was Alice's identity stolen - that's tautologically impossible. Rather, the bank was defrauded by the criminal - Alice is of not a party to whether or not the bank recovers from its own loss. Alice's ownership is entirely unaffected, though the bank's internal processes might not reflect that - again, their problem, not Alice's. Further - this rat race, where I have to give ever more intimate det…
All financial companies are required to have you SSN for reporting income for taxes and also report money movement under the anti-money laundering laws(AML). Know your customer(KYC) requires a financial company to gather documentation and information to verify your identity and to ensure your not on any list of people we're legally not allowed to provide services eg terrorist watch list. You don't need to provide a S…
Suppose Alice is a "victim of identity theft". BigBank gives $10k to Fraudster as a loan, thinking that Alice is the actual recipient. Experian, Transunion and Equifax report this loan as a debt which Alice owes to BigBank. Who is the real victim? The credit reporting agencies want to convince people that the consumer is the victim, and so Alice bears the burden and risk of clearing her name. But it is the credit rep…
The only thing she could expect from BigBank was politeness while explaining to her that she was duped. If it's a very friendly bank, she may tie up a manager for a couple hours, but that's it. If she keeps coming back, she'll soon be escorted out by security, or the cops.
Now, what if she started falsely telling others that BigBank took her money, and that significantly affected BigBank's reputation? Are we talking jail time, or just civil penalties?
Suppose Alice is a "victim of identity theft". BigBank gives $10k to Fraudster as a loan, thinking that Alice is the actual recipient. Experian, Transunion and Equifax report this loan as a debt which Alice owes to BigBank. Who is the real victim? The credit reporting agencies want to convince people that the consumer is the victim, and so Alice bears the burden and risk of clearing her name. But it is the credit rep…
What Alice is the victim of is slander , not fraud or identity theft. The bank lent some money to someone who claimed to be Alice (though the bank only relied on the fact that that person knew Alice's SSN as proof of that fact). Then when the bank didn't get paid back, they told a bunch of credit check bureaus that Alice was a credit risk. This was a lie about Alice, which has a material impact on Alice's reputation.…
Is this grounds for a class-action lawsuit?
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Work at a financial firm and have built a bunch of identity theft detection features. Curious what your fix would be. Identity theft and friendly fraud losses are in the tens of billions annually and identity verification services is a huge industry.
I've never talked about this with anyone who knows the industry so it may be stupid in some obvious way, but I would gladly accept the inconvenience of having to go to my bank in person, carrying official ID, when opening lines of credit, if it would make the whole process secure. Banks could serve the process of relatively slow but reliable authentication for specific financial transactions, and communicate those au…
It's probably not hard to forge a social security card and birth certificate if you have the relevant information. From there, a state ID (or maybe even passport) should be possible to get. I don't believe there is any biometric security on either. A determined identity thief might go that far.
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You just put the money in an account, pay the capital off every month, lose a little bit of interest and in 2 years you have a shiny credit rating even though it means zilch. I don’t really get that - doesn’t it mean that the person who took a loan is relatively responsible and was able to pay their loan back on time? Any system can be gamed, but I don’t get the impression that credit agencies are attempting to elimi…
For £100 you get a shiny credit rating for no risk. That'll get you a mortgage for £100,000s. In the 60s/70s it was about knowing your bank manager, so he knew you'd be able to pay. I appreciate that it probably benefited a certain type of person, but the new system probably has the same prejudices built in. Now it's all about the ephemeral and easily game-able credit score. Until a few years ago you would get negati…
But you were- you had access to a parent with money to bail you out.
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This is actually a major inconvenience. You won't be able to apply for credit cards or get a loan to buy a car if you have a credit freeze. You have to unfreeze and re-freeze each time you apply for a credit card, and this costs about $30.
It depends on your situation. I've done this for the last 3 years, and have only had to lift the freeze a 2 times, both times actually for job offers (it's pretty routine for companies to run background checks on new hires, which includes a credit history check). It does cost ~$30, but can be done online, and takes little time. You can also reduce the cost by asking whoever wants to legitimately check on your credit…
Suppose Alice is a "victim of identity theft". BigBank gives $10k to Fraudster as a loan, thinking that Alice is the actual recipient. Experian, Transunion and Equifax report this loan as a debt which Alice owes to BigBank. Who is the real victim? The credit reporting agencies want to convince people that the consumer is the victim, and so Alice bears the burden and risk of clearing her name. But it is the credit rep…
> It is Experian, Transunion and Equifax, by holding this fraudulent loan against Alice, who are victimizing Alice. Credit Reporting agencies report the data passed to them by companies such as banks. In your scenario BigBank thinks it's given a loan to Alice, and when they don't get repaid, report that to the CRAs. Alice is a victim of the thief because her identity was appropriated to secure the funds. BigBank is a…