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

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#201

Post by emodendroket » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:03 PM UTC

AmIFirstToThink wrote: post #193

AmIFirstToThink wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Follow up question: What if I said "I am recording this call" while I am in an Automatic Voice Response system waiting for an human to arrive on the line and talk to me? As far as I am concerned, human representative or the automated voice response system, both represent the company that I am interacting with. It's not my fault that the voice response system that the company used to talk to me (to answer my questions…

Well, when I used to work in a call center we were instructed to just keep repeating "I do not consent to your recording this call" or something to that effect until they said they stopped or they hung up.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#202

Post by ajb » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

"Do not sign up for credit monitoring; it is a great revenue source for credit reporting agencies but almost never a good purchase for consumers."

Further to this, UK customers can get free access to their Equifax credit report via Clearscore.com anyway. And the experian one via moneysavingexpert credit club.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#203

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:17 PM UTC

g051051 wrote: post #168

traviscj wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#204

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:19 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #188

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 It's as simple as "we will settle your qualms against our business in exchange for us not pursuing your wilful violation of criminal law in court". If you say no, a cheap state court filing would be routine for…

My understand of how criminal allegations work, at least in Australia, and I believe the other Western democracies aren't too dissimilar, is that: 1. the compfny would have to report the matter to police, 2. the police would have to believe there is reasonable grounds to lay charges, 3. the police / public prosecutor would have to believe that a. the case is worth persuing and b. there is sufficient evidence for a guilty verdict if the defendant pleaded not guilty and the case went to a hearing before a judge.

I'll admit a company could threaten legal action, and this would usually be sufficient for the lay person to back down.

I agree with you in that running your life as though no one will hold you accountable works until it fails. I've had a close call with a major indictable, the charges against me ended up being dropped nolle prosequi because the police fumbled the evidence. And from my perspective lots of companies and law enforcement are riding roughshod over their obligations to us as people, so in a sense fuck them.

It's worth noting this approach probably isn't worth the hassle... But it does seem to be a personality trait I'm evidently not interested in changing, otherwise I probably would have by now.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#205

Post by cglouch » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:25 PM UTC

andrewhillman wrote: post #175

"These days they have streamlined online applications for writing to them, but I suggest that you only send them paper letters. This is a really weird thing for a technologist to suggest, but when you send paper letters, you can establish and own a “paper trail.” When you type words into their godawful web applications and hit submit, you will likely fail to retain a copy of those words and fail to retain records abo…

Yep, for important written communications (e.g. CRAs, the IRS, debt collectors, etc.) I always use certified mail and request a return receipt. For any clueless millennials such as myself who are unfamiliar with the post office, this is a good video that shows exactly how to fill out the forms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLQLWdV1MZE

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#206

Post by dang » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:26 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #141

seanalltogether wrote: post #131

Does anyone know what I can do as an US citizen abroad to protect myself now? I tried to get a free copy of my credit report but it required a us address to process. I tried to set up an account to freeze my credit but those require a us address as well.

Read TFA.

Would you please not break the site guidelines like this? If established users set such a bad example I don't see what hope there is for new ones.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#207

Post by Natsu » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:27 PM UTC

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.

Due to getting a new cell phone number that apparently once belonged to a deadbeat I know nothing about, I got a large number of debt collector calls. I wish I had a good way to get their address and record who is calling.

The only problem is that they all ask for , give me no information about themselves, and hang up right away. I blocked a lot of them, but there's no good way to make that go away.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#208

Post by saryant » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:33 PM UTC

tertius wrote: post #41

lettergram wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a brief list of where I use credit cards (which I always pay off monthly): - Car payments (they let me use credit cards with no fee, >$9 / month rewards) - utilities ($1 fee, with >$1 rewards) - Food (>$20 / month rewards) - Gas (>$5 / month) There are more, but that's what $40 / month. If you then use a churning method to get more points, like opening a new card where you spend $4000 in three months get $500…

Then you have to pay income tax on the churn.

Income tax is only assessed on deposit accounts that offer sign-up bonuses. Credit cards aren't deposit accounts.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#209

Post by KGIII » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:36 PM UTC

astral303 wrote: post #200

Cederfjard wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 connotati…

Yes, your meta interpretation is what I was getting at.

Also, will vs. shall.

The defendant will comply by...

vs.

The defendant shall comply by...

When in doubt, use the latter.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#210

Post by knicholes » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 10:37 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #124

mistersquid wrote: post #98

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,…

Very useful links. Thanks. I'd like to know how I can determine what services have such a hold in place for me. This is all pretty absurd. Why should we have to pay to not have our credit history disclosed? We should pay when we want to have it disclosed. Then I would have to pay THREE different companies to not disclose it. Or keep track of which ones won't disclose it. The European model of you owning your own info…

It sounds like extortion to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the data leak was an intentional move to provide incentive to people to sign up for their credit monitoring services or unfreeze fees.