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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#111

Post by analog31 »

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,…

It might not be a formal difference, but here's something that I first noticed when reading the opinions of the Church Fathers when I was a grad student at Notre Dame.

They always wrote in a language suggesting that their opinions emanated solely from objective facts that were not of their own choice. "The law requires you to comply" is a statement of fact. "I want you to comply" sounds more like a personal feeling.

It may be that "require" expresses the former, and "demand" the latter.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#112

Post by sly010 »

AmIFirstToThink wrote: post #99
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.

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?

Perhaps answering every notice of recording with "me too" is enough?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#113

Post by JonDav »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106
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…

Recording phone calls without the other party's consent is super illegal, as in criminally illegal, in all-party consent states [1]. Needless to say, one gives up leverage when one commits a crime. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws

And that is why you state you are recording the call.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#114

Post by creeble »

tptacek wrote: post #17
patio11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not care about your credit rating but your credit rating, unfortunately, cares about you. Do you want to rent an apartment in the United States? You will, in many geographical markets, expect to have credit pulled as a matter of course. This is partly to determine ability to pay and partly to determine whether you are socially established; "I have mountains of money, why would I need credit ?" is something…

This was a really excellent post, the best I've seen you write up this material, and among your top 5 posts ever. Having said that, I'm tentatively going to disagree. I made a conscious, somewhat coerced choice in my early 20s never to rely on revolving credit. A combination of random course-of-business (of course resolved) delinquencies and no history of revolving credit resulted in my having relatively poor credit.…

I would suggest that your disagreement with patio11's post bears no relevance with people who already have credit ratings, have been caught by the Equifax leak, and are at increased risk for identity theft as a result (which, I think, are those the post addresses).

It seems to me you are simply gloating in your ability to avoid credit. Those who are able to avoid credit have little interesting to add to the conversation about credit reporting agencies.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#115

Post by chimeracoder »

yebyen wrote: post #109
scarmig wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any metric is gameable. And, if the current algorithm is the best way to predict "credit-worthiness," publicizing its details will drive consumers toward different behavior, which makes it less powerful Imagine Google made its own credit score, based on your searches, social contacts, etc. It turns out that someone clicking on ads for product X have a very high likelihood of repaying their debt. This information ends…

Not any metric is gameable. A reliable indicator of whether you will pay your bills in the future might be whether you paid your bills in the past. There is no way to game this metric, other than by paying your bills. You just chose a metric that would be easily gamed and said that any metric is gameable.

> There is no way to game this metric, other than by paying your bills.

Except the exact situation outlined above, in which a person generated bills that they otherwise wouldn't have needed, for the sole sake of having more bills "paid on time".

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#116

Post by aptwebapps »

If I saw a new account opened in my name I would be pretty concerned and would probably come back to this post for advice. However, is it necessary to get be this thorough (going to the police, etc) for things like incorrect tradelines in your report?

When I first requested my free reports a few years ago all three had multiple tradelines that were not mine and two had a similar situation as Patrick's - namely an account older than me. I used the CRAs' online forms to request they fix them and they did within a few weeks. Didn't seem like that big of a deal.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#117

Post by ams6110 »

harryh wrote: post #23
brndnmtthws wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have rented several apartments over the years (mostly in and around San Francisco) and have never once had my credit history checked by any of the rentees. I have a car which I own completely (no loan) and I pay the absolute minimum amount of insurance required in California, which amounts to about $264/year. I'm not saying credit doesn't matter, but the more you can do to limit your attack surface, the less likely…

I can safely publish my SSN without giving one single fuck. You should do so right here.

The CEO of the so-called credit monitoring services (can't recall which one) did that. Had his SSN published on billboards and other advertising.

Used to be pretty common to have SSN pre-printed on personal checks, also. It wasn't until the rise of online fraud that SSN became such a sensitive piece of information.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#118

Post by harryh »

ams6110 wrote: post #117
harryh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can safely publish my SSN without giving one single fuck. You should do so right here.

The CEO of the so-called credit monitoring services (can't recall which one) did that. Had his SSN published on billboards and other advertising. Used to be pretty common to have SSN pre-printed on personal checks, also. It wasn't until the rise of online fraud that SSN became such a sensitive piece of information.

Really? That's awesome. Respect to that guy.

EDIT: Though it looks like it didn't necessarily turn out so great for him.

https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft/

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#120

Post by bittercynic »

tertius wrote: post #42
skinnymuch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can spend completely normally and still make money from CCs if you pay them off. Everyone needs basics like food (supplies), transportation costs, and household/hygiene items. Maybe you're better than us, but most people also have utilities like internet and cell phone bills. You likely paid for however you typed that comment. Putting that on a credit card with rewards and paying it off asap wouldn't hurt you one…

> discipline not to over spend Like the discipline to never use Facebook? Extremely rare. And psychologically expensive.

For some, it only takes discipline while you're establishing the habit, then it is very easy to keep it rolling.
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