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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

kalzumeus.com

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#91

Post by kejaed »

patio11 wrote: post #87
milkytron wrote: post #83

> Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails, though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. Your bank’s customer support representatives are taught to evaluate whether someone looks like they’re competent and collecting a paper trail. If they are, the CS rep is supposed to stop touching the case immediately and instead escalate them to a supervisor or to the legal department. This is…

Important not-a-lawyer advice: recording phone calls without the other party's consent is illegal in wide swathes of the U.S., but keeping copies of letters is legal everywhere.

Are you automatically covered if they give the standard boilerplate that they are recording the call?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#92

Post by Cederfjard »

astral303 wrote: post #58

"Angry people demand; professionals “require.” " YES YES YES--it's not enough to merely be aware of the connotations of your words. You must also be aware of any unintended information conveyed through their use. For example, despite being synonyms, the use of the word "demand" in this context exposes one as an amateur. It doesn't matter if you think this is unfair. It matters that you know all information conveyed,…

Sorry, I know this is very minor and beside the point (ironic, given what you just said about relevance), but isn't that exactly what connotation means?

>a : the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes⁰

Or is this perhaps even more meta than that - the choice itself can convey something apart from the semantics of a word, and this isn't something that the word connotation covers?

My apologies for sidetracking, you just got me wondering. I'm neither a native speaker nor a linguist, so it's tricky for me to think about these things sometimes. I agree with what you're saying, by the way.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/connotation

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#93

Post by milkytron »

patio11 wrote: post #87
milkytron wrote: post #83

> Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails, though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. Your bank’s customer support representatives are taught to evaluate whether someone looks like they’re competent and collecting a paper trail. If they are, the CS rep is supposed to stop touching the case immediately and instead escalate them to a supervisor or to the legal department. This is…

Important not-a-lawyer advice: recording phone calls without the other party's consent is illegal in wide swathes of the U.S., but keeping copies of letters is legal everywhere.

This is correct, if anyone is considering this then definitely look into your state laws before proceeding.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#94

Post by lotsofpulp »

tertius wrote: post #60
lotsofpulp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an operator of multiple businesses, I much prefer customers who pay with cards than cash. There is a high cost to handling cash, making sure employees don't steal, counting it, getting change from bank, depositing it, etc. Therefore, it might not behoove the owner of the business to provide a cash discount.

Direct debit (or cash). Rental is more often done with direct debit than credit cards.

It would be nice to offer a discount for debit cards, but unfortunately, the card processing systems I've seen don't have the capability to determine credit vs debit and charge different price for it. It would be great if merchants could automatically charge people with rewards credit cards more.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#96

Post by quuquuquu »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #51
quuquuquu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to credit suisse, only 33m people in this world have 1m+ USD of assets. So, out of 3.5 billion adults in this world, only 0.7% have the ability to buy a home in a large city in cash. What, then, should the other 99.3% of people do?

Improve your skills, increase income, invest and save, live with roommates, learn that consumerism is programmed into people through TV ads and thus is completely unnecessary. Mr. Money Mustache[1] has been blogging about this for years, and it's a great place to start for people who don't understand personal finance. Also check out the personal finance[2] and financial independence[3] subreddits. [1]: https://www.mr…

I don't mean to be snarky at all, but I already do those things!

I really don't think there is a way to shoe-horn this for everyone.

If there was an easy way for everyone to be able to afford a house, it probably would have happened by now??

There are only so many 100k per year jobs available, and there's only so much expense cutting you can do.

At some point, the asset is just priced too high, often for artificial reasons.

See also: en wiki . org / 2007 mortgage loan crisis

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#97

Post by SnowingXIV »

This is good advice I think in general working with most CS groups. I'm taking this to heart right now in a completely different setting. I'm close to becoming heated but I realize that's not going to help anything.

Unfortunately, I've recently had our business credit card blocked from Facebook Advertising after a year of use without warning. Potentially suspending on going campaigns. On Thursday it was removed without my knowledge and was unable to be readded. There is no call center or email at Facebook to reach out to. You're the mercy of their overloaded support inbox system. No matter how much you spend. It's now Saturday and I am receiving multiple calls a day from owner's asking if it's been resolved. I have no recourse aside from praying that I get a response and a correction done.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#98

Post by mistersquid »

The kalzumeus.com article is informative and accessible, especially if your identity has been stolen.

If your identity has not yet been stolen, the NYTimes has an article titled "Equifax's Instructions Are Confusing. Here's What to Do Now." [0]

tl;dr: Freeze requests for your credit data at the big 3: Equifax [1], Experian [2], and Transunion [3].

(Note: these services may require multiple attempts, some persistence, a service fee, or a phone call to an automated system. YMMV.)

  [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/your-money/identity-theft/equifaxs-instructions-are-confusing-heres-what-to-do-now.html
  [1] https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp
  [2] https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
  [3] https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze
EDIT: missing word

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#99

Post by AmIFirstToThink »

patio11 wrote: post #87
milkytron wrote: post #83

> Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails, though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. Your bank’s customer support representatives are taught to evaluate whether someone looks like they’re competent and collecting a paper trail. If they are, the CS rep is supposed to stop touching the case immediately and instead escalate them to a supervisor or to the legal department. This is…

Important not-a-lawyer advice: recording phone calls without the other party's consent is illegal in wide swathes of the U.S., but keeping copies of letters is legal everywhere.

Question: When the party states that "this call may be recorded for quality or training purposes", does that give you reciprocal permission to record the call or do you have to explicitly ask for it?

Any lawyers with opinion on this?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#100

Post by ptero »

kejaed wrote: post #91
patio11 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important not-a-lawyer advice: recording phone calls without the other party's consent is illegal in wide swathes of the U.S., but keeping copies of letters is legal everywhere.

Are you automatically covered if they give the standard boilerplate that they are recording the call?

IANAL either, but I think either of informing the party upfront or soft beeps in the background are acceptable.
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