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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#221

Post by throwaway613834 »

chias wrote: post #142
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?

IANAL, but if you live in a two-party (all-party?) consent state, its only illegal if you don't tell them. You can do exactly what they do: prefix your call with "this call is being recorded for my records". Remember, your goal isn't to secretly pull out a recording that proves they're lying while in court. You don't want to go to court at all. To that end, you want them to know you're keeping a paper (or virtual pap…

The problem is, what if they hang up? They have an unfair advantage here since they can refuse to consent to your recording, but you can't do the same thing. (I mean, you can, but then they're holding whatever you need to get done hostage.)

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#222

Post by smallnamespace »

patio11 wrote: post #101
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…

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.…

What you say might be true, but it isn't covered by Google's denotational definitional of the word connotation:

connotation - 'an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.'

That seems to also cover whatever meta- preferences that a particular word choice may signal.

Funnily enough, we're now in the realm of debating the connotation vs. denotation of the word 'connotation' itself.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#223

Post by whitenoice »

dctoedt wrote: post #187
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…

> YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's the green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives your letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of delivery and acceptance.) Also: 1) Get the actual green-card form beforehand; 2) type the green-card serial number above the inside address of the letter; and 3) keep a photocopy. Otherwise the reci…

Curious, can you not ask them to produce the other letter then? As they signed the green card.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#224

Post by LurkersWillLurk »

dctoedt wrote: post #187
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…

> YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's the green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives your letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of delivery and acceptance.) Also: 1) Get the actual green-card form beforehand; 2) type the green-card serial number above the inside address of the letter; and 3) keep a photocopy. Otherwise the reci…

Is the date that the green card was bought recorded by USPS? Basically, how exactly does writing the tracking number within the letter prove that the letter was mailed with that envelope?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#225

Post by ptero »

e40 wrote: post #105
ptero wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've been informed by the other side many times that the call was recorded, and never once heard soft beeps. I think the announcement must be enough. EDIT: IANAL

Yes. I believe either is sufficient, not that both are required

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#226

Post by dredmorbius »

dang wrote: post #206
dredmorbius wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough and I attempted correcting that in a second follow-up.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#227

Post by mark212 »

tedmiston wrote: post #172
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This comment glosses over the fact that most US states are one-party consent states not requiring notifying the other party that a telephone call is being recorded. From your source: > States that currently require that all parties consent to the recording include: California,[21] Connecticut,[22] Florida,[23] Hawaii (in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in…

This is not accurate. California makes it illegal to record "confidential" communications, which is sometimes called "two party consent," but that shouldn't be interpreted to mean that affirmative consent is required. Notice that the call may be recorded defeats any presumption of confidentiality and makes it permissible for any party to record the conversation. (I am a lawyer and have litigated these cases. But I'm not your lawyer and this is not legal advice.)

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#228

Post by mark212 »

Natsu wrote: post #207
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.

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.

The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 USC 227) says that each of these calls is worth $500 minimum in statutory damages -- and may be trebled to $1500 per call if shown to be willful. Assuming you live in the US, this is a great case and you should keep track of the calls.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#229

Post by dredmorbius »

LurkersWillLurk wrote: post #224
dctoedt wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SEND LETTERS WITH 'USPS RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.' (It's the green card you get at the post office and once the recipient receives your letter, you will get a green card in the mail serving as proof of delivery and acceptance.) Also: 1) Get the actual green-card form beforehand; 2) type the green-card serial number above the inside address of the letter; and 3) keep a photocopy. Otherwise the reci…

Is the date that the green card was bought recorded by USPS? Basically, how exactly does writing the tracking number within the letter prove that the letter was mailed with that envelope?

Under civil law in the United States, the legal burden is not "irrefutable proof", but "preponderance of evidence".

If you produce copies of a letter with a given return receipt number indicated on it, the return receipt stub, and the received receipt, and the opposing party claims that "this could have been faked", then, unless your credibility is otherwise impeached, you have established a preponderance of evidence for your claim.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#230

Post by psyc »

yardie wrote: post #74
JoBrad wrote: 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.

> It is the business of credit agencies to serve as proxies of your credit worthiness. Please, the dogma they preach they might as well be a religion. * Where you live affects your credit worthiness. * How long you live there affects your credit worthiness. * The title of your job affects your credit worthiness. * Marital status affects your credit worthiness. * The degree and school you attended affects your credit…

In the U.S., your credit score is overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, determined by the status of your credit accounts.
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