Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You • Hacker News Board

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#161

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

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

> super illegal

Trafficking large quantities of drugs, aggravated assault, serious sexual assault, murder. These are super illegal. No one is going to prison for recording a support call that reveals impropriety on behalf of the company providing support.

Many people here seem obsessed with laws, as if they possess value and worth in and of themselves, when really they are a very high latency side channel of society and power. The steps that would necessarily have to occur in order for a case to be brought against you because you illegally recorded a support call that revealed impropriety of the other party are fairly preposterous.

Anyway, all of this can be avoided by simply stating something along the lines of "I am recording this call for my records. Please advise me now, or at any stage, if you wish the recording to cease."

The illegality of acts like those I mentioned above can't obviated by stating your intention to commit them and offering an opportunity for the other party to decline to participate. In some jurisdictions it is a form of assault to seriously state your intention to harm another.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#162

Post by tertius » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:28 PM UTC

pwg wrote: post #158

tertius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No facebook account here. Never had one, never will have one. Also pay off CC in full every month, so no interest payments on what are effectively short term loans. Neither is at all psychologically expensive. However paying off CC in full every month does require sufficient income (and/or restraint in spending for those without the sufficient income) to be able to do so.

Spending cash is a lot harder psychologically than spending money with a CC. Dopamine is in effect.

Much easier to keep scrolling and consuming on FB than stopping.

That's the comparison.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#163

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:29 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #154

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a maverick not a lawyer, it's worth noting that what this means in practice is that evidence of a crime obtained by illegally recording a telephone conversation may not be admissible in court. I say may not be because a judge could decide to allow the evidence if the alleged crime is sufficiently serious. It's extraordinarily unlikely a criminal or civil case will be brought against you because you revealed to a c…

How do you record the consent itself? Or is it going to be a case of he said/she said? I'd assume you'd need proof that you had asked for consent prior.

> How do you record the consent itself?

I suppose using a call recording device for a fixed line telephone, or an app for a smartphone.

> I'd assume you'd need proof that you had asked for consent prior.

My point is: even if you neglect to ask for consent, no company is going to sic their lawyers on you if you play back to them a call recording that proves they lied and therefore failed to meet their contractual obligations.

Edit: Oh, sorry, I see what you mean now about recording consent. You start by recording the call by default, if the other party requests the call not be recorded you cease recording. It would probably be okay to retain that portion of the recording.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#164

Post by tertius » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:29 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #136

tertius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd say FB is way different than the discipline to not over spend on CCs in a community like this. Not over spending on CCs being far easier.

It depends on what your choose to define as overspending.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#165

Post by ballenf » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:33 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #154

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a maverick not a lawyer, it's worth noting that what this means in practice is that evidence of a crime obtained by illegally recording a telephone conversation may not be admissible in court. I say may not be because a judge could decide to allow the evidence if the alleged crime is sufficiently serious. It's extraordinarily unlikely a criminal or civil case will be brought against you because you revealed to a c…

How do you record the consent itself? Or is it going to be a case of he said/she said? I'd assume you'd need proof that you had asked for consent prior.

The pedantic way (and maybe required under some theoretic draconian regulatory environment):

- no active recording -

Mr. Wants-to-record: "May I record this phone call?"

Ms. Recordee: "Ok"

- start recording -

Mr. Wants-to-record: "I am now recording based on the permission you just gave prior to starting recording. Are we in agreement?"

Ms. Recordee: "Yep"

----

FWIW, I've had conversations pretty close to that when doing mortgage applications over the phone.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#166

Post by tertius » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

quuquuquu wrote: post #96

brndnmtthws wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

1. You don't need a $100k per year job to buy a house. 2. Easy way = not spending but rather saving. It's simple, but not fun in the short term. 3. House too expensive? Save more or buy cheaper. 4. 2007 loan crisis. I.e. don't buy a house that's too expensive.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#167

Post by tertius » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:38 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #90

brndnmtthws wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What can Money-Moustachism do about the fact that the well-paying jobs are increasingly concentrated in a few cities on either coast? Is the future that everyone becomes a down-at-heel rentier just like he is? Are we all supposed to be cheap John Arillagas living off the people who do actual, productive work?

Do work, save, don't go into debt, invest.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#168

Post by g051051 » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:38 PM UTC

traviscj wrote: post #153

g051051 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "sensitive financial data"?

Card numbers.

> In addition, credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 consumers and certain dispute documents, which included personal identifying information, for approximately 182,000 consumers were accessed.

That's not "half of U.S. adults" as the OP stated.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#169

Post by tertius » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:39 PM UTC

quuquuquu wrote: post #157

moduspol wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems odd to extrapolate to the entire world's population of adults, yet rule out the possibility of living anywhere that houses cost less than a million dollars.

Thanks for writing :) I suppose the issue here is that the "wait and save" approach does not always have success, especially in the Bay Area. The reason for that is because there is a finite number of houses, and an excessive number of bidders. These bidders use loans and leverage (other people's money) to pay a higher price than they normally would be able to afford. Thus, waiting and saving is tougher. Of course th…

Save and wait. Save more than you're comfortable with. If you work in the Bay area and you can't save. Get out.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#170

Post by throwaway613834 » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

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?

I would love to know the answer to this question.

Alternatively, I wonder something else: When they say "this call may be recorded" could you legally interpret "may" to mean as giving you permission, rather than as "might be recorded"? It would seem like they might have a hard time arguing "this call may be recorded for quality purposes" doesn't imply that you may (= can) record the call for quality purposes.