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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

kalzumeus.com

211–220 of 292 posts

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#211

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…

Intent and reasonable expectations will come in to play.

Unlike the movies, judges hate word games and attempts to skirt the laws. As in, they really frown on it.

This is not legal advice and I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified legal representative in the appropriate jurisdiction.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... Anyway, if you continue down that path, you will get less religious. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Religious flamewar (which this crosses into) is off topic on HN, so please don't post like this.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#213
post #81
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge differences in quality between your first and second paragraphs. It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness. They prosper when more people are in the credit pool and are able to take out loans.

If credit agencies' business is just to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness, why is regulation of them necessary at all, since they'll always be consumer friendly? Or maybe there's more to it than that?

Who do you think the consumer is? Unless you're issuing credit, you're probably the product, not the consumer.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#214

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…

The word connotation is typically used to describe inferences that you'd make about a statement given the word used which are widely available to native speakers of that language. Thin, skinny, and gaunt all mean the same thing; only "gaunt" has the connotation that the person described necessarily has a problem. The other poster is describing something a bit more meta than what the word connotation typically covers.…

Isn't this what semiotics[1] is all about? The difference between connotations and denotations?

My parents were really into that sort of thing "Words have power" - So during my 'bratty teenager' phase, I standardized on the word with the most negative denotation that had the correct connotation in my speech. I still do it sometimes, as a joke, but it's... funny, because while I have the feeling that the connotation is somehow less important than the denotation, and when I do the above, I'm attempting to point that out, nobody else seems to see it that way. To 'hire someone profitably' is a dramatically different thing, in most minds, than to 'exploit someone', even though the two words have an identical denotation.

I used to see my lack of understanding here as a sign of how most people cannot see past their own emotions; I now see my lack of understanding as a sign of how I am not in touch with emotions in a fully human sort of way.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#215
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Easiest thing in the world and it is psychologically a gain, not a cost.

What exactly?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When a company "pulls" your credit they are not given the report for free. Equifax and the like sell a credit reporting service to banks and other companies who would want to see your credit history. When you freeze your report, reporting agencies are not allowed to sell your report to anyone, at your request, meaning they are losing revenue. The freeze fee makes sense when you realize your report is the product they are selling. "You're not allowing us to make money? Fine, then you need to help make up the difference with a fee." Just like stockbrokers, they are intent on making money both coming and going.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#218

"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,…

There are occasions where legally a "demand" is exactly what you need; e.g. A "formal demand notice" is a specific type of notice that a debtor is required to pay up immediately (i.e. 7 or 14 days) before a creditor files for involuntary bankruptcy (i.e. to force you into bankruptcy). Having said that you should never say "I demand" or "I require", it is always used to reference a document, a signed contract, a law, etc.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#219
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... Anyway, if you continue down that path, you will get less religious. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Religious flamewar (which this crosses into) is off topic on HN, so please don't post like this.

My apologies, and thanks for the reminder. I was hoping, in some misguided way, to comment on the debate tactic rather than the underling religious content.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#220
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a good cash-back rate of 2%, $2000 spent on the credit card for $40 back. The point being he's spending the $2000 anyway, so he'd rather get $40 back from his credit card company rather than $0 back if he used cash or debit.

But cash-back is not the same as reward points. Cash-back is "money", reward points (more or less) is "discount on given good".

Many cards let you cash out rewards points now. With Chase, for example, you can get a check in the mail, use points to pay off your CC balance directly, or use points on amazon (at full value).
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