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Annals of the Floored & Flabbergasted

Mass-Produced Identity Theft

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Hey. What’s a little identity theft when you can do it big-time? Why be a piker about it?

My beloved part-time, parsimonious employer, the Maricopa County Community College District, sent out a notice to a large number of its 8,000 employees and 2.4 million students to the effect that thanks to a couple of underpaid and under-competent IT workers in HR, a potentially vast amount of personal financial data has been breached. After dark on Friday evening, when of course it was too late for me to start calling financial institutions, I received a form letter from Chancellor Rufus Glasper reporting that “we determined that your…name, address, phone number, e-mail address, Social Security number, date of birth, financial and bank account information, certain demographical [sic] information, information related to your employment, education and training…may have been accessed.”

They’ve been emphasizing that this is a maybe situation.

But how did they find out about this? From the FBI, that’s how: last April, the feds found a website selling information kiped from the District’s HR records.

Did you catch that? Last April was seven months ago. They’ve known about a major data breach for seven months and are only just getting around to sharing this little tidbit of information.

So the only “maybe” about this is that “maybe” some of us will be able to protect ourselves by shutting down every bank and credit card account in our names and slapping iron bars around our credit bureau accounts.

They’ve hired some outfit called Kroll Advisory Solutions to do “continuous credit monitoring and enhanced identity theft consultation and restoration.” This company’s web page is inaccessible — apparently their servers have crashed, no doubt under the onslaught of tens of thousands of MCCD employees and students trying to get on. But when you call the phone number the District provided, the people you reach haven’t a clue. All they can tell you is that there “MAY” have been a breach. When asked exactly what their company does, they don’t have an answer. So that multimillion-dollar contract appears to be window dressing.

Holy cr@p.

Started making phone calls about 8:00 this morning and was on the phone — or on hold, or stumbling through interminable punch-a-button mazes — most of the day.

Fortunately, thanks to the PF blogging, I happened to have a number that would reach a human at Experian. It proved impossible to get past the robots at TransUnion and Equifax, but on the advice of Experian’s fraud expert, I managed to set up “security freezes” at all three credit bureaus.

A security freeze, as it was explained by to me, means that no credit reports can go out, no new credit cards can be opened, no nothin’ can happen without your going into the site, entering a PIN, and lifting the freeze, temporarily or permanently. This state of affairs can be left in place forever and aye, if you so please. Two of the credit bureaus gave me PINs over the phone, but one is sending it by snail-mail.

All Arizona college faculty and students are eligible to join my beloved credit union. Evidently every one of them was doing the same thing I was doing: frantically calling customer service. So, getting through by phone to a person there took over six hours. When I finally reached a CSR, she said they’re advising people to close their accounts and open new ones. That is going to create a monster hassle, since my bookkeeping includes a busy tangle of automatic deposits and payments. Including, of course, paycheck deposits from the college district.

I’ll be damned  if I want said district to have yet another bank account number for me. So tomorrow when I’m on the campus, I’m going over to HR and asking them to send my paychecks by snail-mail, thank you very much.

Off and on for the past couple of years, I’ve been thinking it would be good to move my money out of that credit union over to a different teachers’ credit union, which has a branch much nearer to my house. Right now every time I have to go up to my CU in person, it costs $3.00 to $3.60 in gasoline, since that branch is way to hell and gone out at the Great Desert University’s west campus, in a part of town where I have exactly zero other reason to venture. This other outfit’s branch is on my beaten path, making it possible to get banking chores done while I’m doing the grocery shopping.

Lacking all three credit-bureau PINs, though, that may not be possible. I sure don’t want to close the same bank accounts twice. So if I’m to move to a more conveniently located institution, I may have to wait on closing those accounts until after the third PIN shows up in the mail. Which, as usual, will be after dark.

This is infuriating. I don’t know what else to do… There doesn’t seem to be much else to do, other than bob around in the water like a sitting duck waiting for whatever’s coming to hit me upside the head. If ever there was good cause for a class action suit, this sure as hell is it.

If you have any other ideas for self-defense, lemme know.

Hey! Bosch Has Got REAL Service Reps!

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And — get this! — Bosch service representatives actually answer the phone!

Readers Elissa and Jestjack remarked that they thought the dishwasher repairman I described yesterday — the one with the side gig where he peddles cut-rate appliances to his employer’s customers — sounded a shade on the sketchy side.

Well, come to think of it, so did I. And when I went online to try to learn more about the worn-out “impeller” he claimed was the problem ($350, + …maybe not worth it if he could come up with a new Bosch for $450 or $500), a great deal more suspicion was cast upon “Richard” and his line of bull.

A Google search with terms combining “impeller,” “Bosch,” and “dishwasher” in various creative ways comes up with next to nothing. The most intelligible post I could find on the subject claimed that if the “impeller” isn’t working, the washer won’t drain. But this washer drains just fine. Otherwise…scarcely a mention. Eventually it occurred to me to call the customer service number glued to the side of the dishwasher door, on the same tag that reveals the model and serial numbers.

So having remembered that customer service number in the middle of the night, by light of day I called Bosch and asked the owner of the male voice that answered if he could please tell me what an “impeller” is, what it looks like, and how the washer would behave if it’s not working.

He said, in short, “Huh?”

I explained that I thought a repairman was trying to scam me and recited the story.

He said, “Maybe the guy defines an ‘impeller’ differently than I do, but … take a look on the inside of the tub.”

“Yeah?” from inside the washer.

“See that pipe going up the back?” I’d have called it a small duct, but yup, I saw the pipe going up the back.

“The impeller is what pushes water from where the lower spray arm is, in the bottom of the tub, up  that pipe to the top spray arm, the one that’s attached to the upper rack. All it does is get water to the upper spray arm.”

“Uh huh…”

“What’s your washer doing? What’s wrong with it?”

I explain that it fills with water fine but then the wash cycle doesn’t kick in. He says probably the problem is the circulating pump, which is what causes the water to slosh around inside the machine to wash the dishes. A new one costs $138. Plus of course the cost of labor.

Bosch has one, count him, (1), authorized service man in this area. He says the guy will charge me $99 to walk in the door. I say I’ve already paid $90 to get a crook in the door but I don’t object to paying about the same to lure someone who’s not going to rip me off. He says Bosch will eat the “diagnostic charge” if I will pay the parts and labor. I remark that I have no objection to paying for the replacement part or for the guy’s work, since a man has to eat, after all.

In the course of conversation, I say that repairmen have told me all appliances on the market today are engineered to give out in seven years, and the Bosch in question is about nine years old. So I’m not anxious to do repairs on something that’s going to fall apart like the minister’s one-hoss shay.

He now says that a dishwasher is a surprisingly simple device. It basically consists of a couple of pumps, a water heater, a couple of spray arms, and a control board. As long as the tub doesn’t rust out — an unlikely event given that mine is made of stainless steel and does not get banged around — the thing should run practically forever on the strength of an occasional replacement part. Forever, or until Bosch quits making the parts, which isn’t happening anytime soon.

The Bosch CSR’s attention now turned to Accredited Appliance and its service dude, Richard. He wanted their phone number. Expressing considerable interest in Richard’s sales tactics, he took the time to look the company up in Bosch’s records. It appears that Richard is about to land squarely in the dog house.

LOL! Nothing like the hive mind, is there?

😀

Bosch Customer Service:
1-800-944-2904

Chase, UPS, and Credit Card Application Fraud

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DebitCardWhile I was spending half the day on Monday dorking around with the latest identity fraud moment, it did occur to me to wonder why on earth a person would apply for a business credit card under a fake name and then fill in the business’s correct address. Wonder-Accountant speculated that the form may have had a mailing address as well as a street address. But if that were the case, then Chase would have sent the letter asking for more information to that mailing address. Instead, they sent it here. I had about concluded that what appeared to be application fraud was really more like a prank when I came across this amazing report, detailing an alleged collaboration between insiders at Chase credit card services and UPS.

Now, I have no way of knowing whether what this guy says is true. But it would explain why the perp would ask to have his fraudulent credit card sent to my business’s real address.

JoshEAC, the post’s author, describes learning that a credit card had been ordered from Chase, supposedly by his wife. After considerable argument, in which a Chase customer disservice representative suggested that his wife was lying to him when she denied ordering a card, he managed to obtain the UPS tracking number for the card Chase claimed to have sent. At this point he began to proactively track the package wending its way toward him via the Brown Trucks. In the middle of the afternoon, he saw that the package had been diverted from home delivery to the pick-up counter at a UPS station. Three hours later, the tracking system reported that his “wife” had changed her mind and asked to have home delivery after all.

And lo! A day or two later Chase calls to inquire about the fraudulent charges being racked up on the “wife’s” new credit card!

Two possibilities presented themselves to JoshEAC: gross incompetence on Chase’s part — altogether credible given the outrageously ridiculous interactions he had with the bank’s customer disservice reps and their supervisors — or organized fraud committed by insiders at Chase and UPS.

If you buy the second scenario, someone on the inside at Chase creates a fraudulent application. He arranges to have the fake credit card sent to the mark’s real address via UPS. He has access to the passwords for this account. The card is shipped off to the mark.

A few hours later, his co-conspirator at UPS arranges to stop delivery to that address and then, shortly afterward, to have the card delivered to her, only this time on the UPS crook’s truck. The card, of course, never arrives at the mark’s home. With the stolen password, the perps start charging thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise on the hot credit card.

Well. This conspiracy theory could, no doubt, be nothing more than a figment of its author’s imagination…EXCEPT that it explains, to a “t,” why the identity thief would enter my S-corporation’s address on his application for a fraudulent card. Presumably, once the card was diverted through UPS, the crook inside Chase would simply change the address in the bank’s records, thereby diverting the future statements, too. Or set the account not to deliver paper statements at all.

My monthly dues payments to the Scottsdale Business Association are paid by check and deposited to the group’s account at Chase Bank. The checks are printed with my business’s name and address only. That would explain why the perp didn’t have my name. And, since this is evidently an inside job, it explains why the fraudulent account was set up at Chase and not anywhere else.

JoshEAC described this episode in December, 2011. If he’s right, it means that two years later Chase has done nothing to bring a stop to this caper. Whoever’s responsible for it presumably continues to collect a paycheck and at the same time, no doubt, collects payment from “customers” who put him up to issuing fake credit cards.

By now, though, what’s happened is that the thieves have developed the sophistication to realize that small businesses are even more vulnerable to application fraud than are individuals, because the major credit bureaus give short shrift to business credit-card users. Identity-theft protections are set up to serve individuals. As a business owner, I’ve run into a wall — about my only recourse is to report the episode to the police and pray for the best.

Doing battle with Apple consumed most of the afternoon on Wednesday, and yesterday I was in business meetings or teaching all day. I’m out of food and gasoline, today being the first of the month, and so will have to spend this morning driving around the city by way of restocking the larder. So, the soonest I’ll be able to call the police again will be this afternoon, and presumably I’ll miss the guy again, since they’re not in any hurry to deal with this thing.

But if and when I actually meet with a police officer, you can be sure I’ll hand him a printout of JoshEAC’s post.

 

 

Annals of Fraud: Can You Steal a Corporation’s Identity?

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Day from Hell #1,247,679: The Editor struggles to get through 80 pages of the MOST arcane prose imaginable, written in Chinglish (no rudeness intended: Client  hires Editor with the express purpose of please translating her one-helluva-lot-better-than-my-Chinese English into Academicese, which is not English either but which is amiably incomprehensible to native speakers of any language known to earthly humans).

This elicits a number of Actions from the Gods, led mostly by the jolly Zeus (“jolly” is in the eye of the beholder: earthly humans think he has a warped sense of humor):

1. Apple’s fragile and frikkin’ e-mail system crashes. Again. For the third time since the whole lash-up was transferred to the endlessly annoying iCloud.

2. Apple’s frikkin’ update to iTunes DISAPPEARS all my music and (goddammit) also disappears my selection of radio stations, some of which might be expected to emit the type of noise desired to break up the blizzard-like Brain White-Out occasioned by trying to edit the above Chinglish, so that maybe I can stay awake long enough to finish the job, which is now beginning to run unduly late.

3. Recourse to the various forums that substitute for help in the Apple universe reveals that a) these are known issues (i.e., they’re happening to other customers) and b) no one else is getting a meaningful answer either.

4. This means I have to interrupt an already difficult day by making an appointment at the local Apple store, whereinat I will have to fly into ANOTHER STRATOSPHERIC RAGE to get these issues (especially the e-mail) fixed.

Thinking of buying a Mac? Helpful hint: If, when unhappy with the latest stupid stuff, you make noises that are loud enough for other customers to overhear your yelling and stamping your dainty little foot, you WILL get the issue fixed. It’s amazing.

5. Last night after dark (as usual) the mail carrier delivers a notice from Chase Business Card Services informing me that some dude I’ve never heard of has tried to open a credit card account for The Copyeditor’s Desk. This means I have to spend a good half the day in the following enterprises:

a) Get Human at Chase. Discuss.
b) Get Human at one of the three major credit bureaus. At length one is found, in Bangladesh. He has no clue what I’m talking about.
c) Try to Get Human at FTC. Heeeee!
d) Try to Get Human at Dun & Bradstreet. SNARK!
e) Get Human at credit union. Mission accomplished, to rather little avail.
f) Get Human at American Express. Mission accomplished, and useful advice received.
f) Try to Get Human at Experian, the credit bureau from which Chase pulled CE Desk’s credit report. Mission partially accomplished after calling FIVE DIFFERENT GODDAMN PHONE NUMBERS: fraud alert emanated to all three major credit bureaus, but because this is a fraud on a business and not on a person, the effort is probably for naught. Human advises
….1) calling the police, and
….2) reporting fraud to Dun & Bradstreet.
g) Try again to report fraud to Dun & Bradstreet. Exercise in futility.
h) Call police. Talk to nice lady at police station. Agree to wait around all day for officers to show up and take report.
i) Call police-lady back later in day; explain need to schlep computer to Apple Store as unplanned emergency business meeting (which it sorta is); receive explanation from police-lady as to the unholy reason her officers have been detained elsewhere, Gawd help us. Inquire as to safety and well-being of officers; receive semi-assurance that they seem to be OK, we think.
j) Drive to Apple store. Find route closed where cops are still dealing with aftermath of (i) (see above).
k) Raise Hell and put a block under it. Get e-mail fixed on one computer but (as it develops) not on the other. Get explanation of absolutely STUPID AND INFURIATING new iteration of iTunes. Want to fly down the throat of Apple upper management goons and throttle the bastards from the inside. Move on.
l) Return to Funny Farm. Figure out, on own, how to fix Apple Effing Mail on desktop iMac, largely because Apple Genius has fixed whatever-the-Eff he fixed on flicking iCloud.
m) Devise a series of new excuses to clients and friends; make new business and other appointments.
n) Continue to try to figure out how or if to cope with attempted S-corporation identity theft. How do you steal a corporation’s identity, anyhow?

6. Seek advice from Accountant, most of whose practice consists of small businesses. Receive intelligence that the three major credit bureaus (Experien, Equifax, and Transunion) are no longer the only major players spying on our every move.

When it comes to reporting and evaluating business credit histories, Experian, Transunion, and Equifax also have small business divisions that are devoted to tracking the business credit histories for every business and corporation.

Experian is one of the three primary consumer credit reporting agencies who has also begun to provide credit evaluations for businesses and corporations. BusinessExperian offers a wide range of services, including Business Verification, Business Credit Scores, Business Credit Reports, Business Credit Monitoring, and Business Public Records. Experian’s Small Business Services also offers Consumer Mailing Lists and Business Leads.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Experian for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
EXPERIAN
P.O Box 9532
Allen, TX 75013
Website:http://www.experian.com/small-business/index.html
Phone: (800) 520-1221

TRANSUNION is another of the primary consumer credit reporting agencies who also provides business and corporate credit histories. In addition to Business Credit Reporting, Transunion also provides assistance to small business owners through Marketing Services, Fraud and Identity Management, Risk Management, and Collections Management.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Transunion for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
TRANSUNION
P.O Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
Website: http://www.transunion.com/corporate/business/business.page
Email: contactdesk@transunion.com
Phone: (800) 813-5604

EQUIFAX SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE is the business division of one of the primary consumer credit rating bureaus. Equifax Small Business Enterprise provides business credit histories and evaluations for over 22,000,000 small businesses and corporations. In addition to Business Credit, Equifax offers assistance to small business owners related to Data Management, Data Reporting, Fraud, Marketing, and Risk.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Equifax for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
EQUIFAX SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE
P.O Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Email: businessreports@equifax.com
Website: http://www.equifax.com/commercial/en_us
Phone: (888) 202-4025

In addition to these three agencies that have their origins in personal consumer credit reporting, there are also several other business credit reporting agencies that are devoted solely to business credit reporting and evaluation. These business credit reporting agencies include Dun & Bradstreet, Credit.net, AccurintRBusiness, and ClientChecker.

DUN & BRADSTREET (D&B) is, without a doubt, the most well-known and established business credit reporting agency. D&B has compiled business credit profiles on hundreds of millions of global companies and corporations. In addition to Business Credit information, D&B can also assist small businesses collect debt from customers, find new customers, and research new opportunities.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Dun & Bradstreet for questions related to business credit:
DUN & BRADSTREET
Website: http://smallbusiness.dnb.com
Email: sbssupport@dnb.com
Phone: (800) 333-0505

CREDIT.NET – Credit.net is a division of InfoUSA that generates credit reports on over 14,000,000 businesses and corporations. 6,000,000 of the reports in their database have been completed on small businesses with four employees or less. With a Credit.net business credit report, you can make better decisions on extending small lines of credit, locate data on small, privately-owned businesses, verify the existence of a business, and identify headquarters and lines of business credit.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Credit.net for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
CREDIT.NET
5711 S. 86th Circle
Omaha, NE 68127
Website: http://credit.net
Phone: (800) 993-5323

ACCURINTRBUSINESS – This is a new business that is a combination of forces between LexisNexis, one of the leading providers of business services and information and the Better Business Bureau (BBB). With a business credit report from AccurintRBusiness, you can get all the information you need on over 150,000,000 small U.S. businesses in order to make better decisions on vendors, partners, customers and competitors. In addition to Company Profiles (including addresses, phone numbers, DBAs, etc.) you will also receive credit and payment data, public record data (such as bankruptcies, judgments, tax liens, and UCC, associated businesses and principals, and a Better Business Bureau membership report.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact AccurintRBusiness for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
ACCURINTRBUSINESS
Website: www.accurintbusiness.com
Email: accurintbusiness@lexisnexis.com
Phone: (866) 528-0776

ClientChecker – This is a credit reporting bureau that started in 2003 and specifically targets small businesses, freelance professionals, and contractors seeking information to help them determine which other businesses they should do business with. ClientChecker Business Credit Reports provide a comprehensive summary of users’ trade payment experiences with their clients. Business Credit Reports are created when the users of ClientChecker and BillingTracker invoicing software report that their clients have paid on time, late, or not at all. The data from each user is combined to produce a business credit report of average days paid late, number of incidences of non-payment, and a PayQuo™ score.

To coin a phrase: Holy sh!t.

And so, to choir practice…

12 Things I Would’ve Thought I’d Never Live to See

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A dozen amazing things that were unimaginable when I was a little kid:

• A human-made camera in orbit around Saturn, taking a photo of the earth.

• A Black President in the White House.

• A woman as Secretary of State.

• A woman in charge of the Fed.

• A woman as CEO of a company she didn’t start herself.

• Every car equipped with seat belts and air bags.

• Cars that run upwards of 100,000 miles.

• Mobile phones that function as tiny computers and cameras

• Solar panels that actually work.

• The Colorado River threatening to run dry, depicted in an eye-popping graphic.

• Open-source classical music you can access or download free of charge — as digitized music or as scores.

• Fifteen percent of Americans on food stamps.

Earth-Moon_system_as_seen_from_Saturn_(PIA17171)

Image: Earth-moon system as seen from Saturn. NASA. Public domain.

Does a $1200 Purse Make You Upper-Class?

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Here’s news from New York of a designer handbag store that, we’re told, has “an Upstairs, Downstairs feel, or more precisely U. and non-U., to borrow the linguist Alan S. C. Ross’s shorthand for ‘upper class’ and the aspiring masses made famous by the Nancy Mitford essay The English Aristocracy.”

Here our intrepid reporter, possessed of a winsomely dry wit, comes across “a neat little sports car of a clutch from the Marano family (presumably dotty Italian noblemen cousins), a model favored by Kate Middleton, a salesclerk told me.” The price? $1,195. “‘The clasp is a removable clock,’ he [said].”

LOL! I thought I’d fall off my chair laughing!

It gets better.

To set itself off from the hoi polloi of the handbag set, this Anya Hindmarch store offers bespoke custom engraving of your pricey object, in a copy of your own handwriting. Any phrase you can dream up.

So there, Frugal Scholar! Find that at the thrift store!

Our reviewer reports: “In the mad new handbag economy, prices qualify as moderate, though there are pieces made of alligator in the five figures.”

Five figures. Not sure I can count that high on my fingers when it comes to cash dollars, but I believe that would come to something over 10 grand. For a purse.

Now, I dunno about you, but if I had 10 grand that I didn’t know what to do with, just laying around the house, I’d use it to buy a sane Republican into the House of Representatives.

Far more unique. And when you take it to parties, it can talk to people for you. No tacky handwriting there!

😆 🙄 😆