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Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

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Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#241

Post by techsupporter »

i2shar wrote: post #239
cglouch wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thanks for the video. Curious why they say never to sign the letter.

You don't sign the letter because signatures have a way of magically[0] teleporting themselves onto documents that you've never seen.

0 - Using such fancy Merlin's wands of "Photoshop" or "scanning and then MS Paint copy/paste" or just "photocopy, cut with scissors, paste with tape, photocopy again."

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#242

Post by [deleted] »

i2shar wrote: post #239
cglouch wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thanks for the video. Curious why they say never to sign the letter.

[deleted]

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#243

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux »

cglouch wrote: post #205
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

There are court documents I've read that say, to this effect, that in absence of any returned mail, it is assumed that it was delivered as intended.

That's from the prosecution.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#244

Post by dionidium »

quuquuquu wrote: post #46
tertius wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, save, then buy if you still want to. You can buy a house with no credit history. Look it up.

According to credit suisse, only 33m people in this world have 1m+ USD of assets. So, out of 3.5 billion adults in this world, only 0.7% have the ability to buy a home in a large city in cash. What, then, should the other 99.3% of people do?

Move away from the coasts, for starters. Cheap housing is the rule in the U.S. You're thinking of the exceptions to that rule.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#245

Post by dionidium »

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…

You're looking at the cost of Bentleys and wondering how most people afford a car. They afford it by buying used Honda Civics.

Which is to say that there are job opportunities in Dallas and Indianapolis and Atlanta and so on and so on, which are all cities with the housing equivalent of Honda Civics.

If you insist on a Bentley (i.e. the largest coastal cities), then I guess I just don't know what to tell you except that you should reconsider a visit to the Honda lot.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#246

Post by kchoudhu »

KGIII wrote: post #237
wpietri wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth. I once happened to be in a hearing where the judge got the idea that the plaintiff's attorney might be jerking him around. It was an impressive display of wrath. Along with crocodiles and bears, federal judges are now on my "definitely do not fuck with" list.

Playing semantics games is almost guaranteed to piss off the judge. Pissed off judges are not nice. It's a very long-winded story, so I will try for the short version. Courts default to being open to the public. You can go down and watch them. Chances are, you can even make use of a law library. Anyhow, this is sort of a hobby of mine. I know, I'm a strange person - but I love watching the court. Like I said, it's a…

It boggles my mind when people think they can out-talk people trained to parse semantics.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#247

Post by Stratoscope »

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…

It sounds like several of you know more than I do about this, so I'm curious... I'm in the habit of using Priority Mail for things like this, because I can print out a mailing label at home and get a tracking number with delivery information.

Assuming I put the tracking number in the letter as you suggest, is there still an advantage to using certified mail and a green return receipt instead? Or is Priority Mail equally good?

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#248

Post by patio11 »

qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #243
cglouch wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are court documents I've read that say, to this effect, that in absence of any returned mail, it is assumed that it was delivered as intended. That's from the prosecution.

Yep ( http://federalevidence.com/node/784 ) ; mail properly addressed is assumed to be delivered. For related reasons, any mail sent to a business is assumed to have been read. This is a rebuttable presumption.

Even knowing this, many lawyers (and other savvy people) send certified mail with a return receipt. It strengthens your case in the event that the other party tries to disavow receipt of the mail, and it says (rather loudly) that there is a folder on your desk labeled Evidence and that every additional action the other party takes will join that folder.

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#249

Post by Miredly »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #221
chias wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Then you make a note of it, and send them a letter (certified, receipt requested).

Re: Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You

#250

Post by aptwebapps »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #171
aptwebapps wrote: post #116

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 acc…

It helps you in the worst case scenario. What would you have done had they never responded or taken any action? Or if they responded with incorrect information / misunderstanding the original claim like they did in the article thinking OP was talking about their child's birthdate, when OP was clearly talking about themselves? It's a relatively small price and additional amount of effort to protect you in a situation…

A paper trail is good, of course, but IIRC, I did receive amended reports from each of the CRAs with letters describing the actions taken.

I also suspect that I went through the process more recently than Patrick, I think it was about five years ago. In my case, I was able to select the problematic accounts, what the problems were, and the desired actions all via dropdown elements. There was an additional text box for any extra explanation. This is what made it seem routine and not a big deal.

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