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credit bureaus

Credit Bureaus, Outrages, Invasion of Privacy, and a Defunct Post Office

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Just got off the phone with Equifax. That took some doing! After waiting two days for their (Filipino? Surely not native speakers of US English) staff to take their places at the credit bureau’s call center, I then had to sit through a good 15 minutes of aggravating, ear-grating Muzak punctuated every 40 seconds with “We value you as a customer” announcements.

No. No, dear Equifax. If you valued your customers, you would pony up enough sub-minimum wage dollars to hire enough Third-World workers to answer the effing phones.

When you finally reach a human, the poor creature sounds like a ‘bot herself: flat and beaten down and soulless.

Equifax sent me a hard-copy snail-mail informing me that someone had changed my address to my ex-husband’s address.

Since I haven’t lived at his house in some 30 years, that was a surprise.

Their call center doesn’t open till 6:00 a.m. our time, meaning I had to start hassling with them right on the dot, since I needed to leave about 9:00 a.m. for a doc’s appointment. Nor did I know whether the number they sent in their annoying letter would even reach a human — usually, these outfits do NOT want you to speak to anyone in their precincts.

Plan B — assuming a phone call got me nowhere, as expected — was to fly directly from the a.m. doctor’s appointment to the credit union, clear across the city, where I would have to beg to talk with the manager (again!!) and ask if she knows a way to reach a person at Equifax. Then charge back here and engage battle.

Mercifully, Equifax let me get through to a near-human (the poor soul!). This means, I assume, that whatever caused them to decide I still live with the ex probably was not someone hacking in with the present PIN: it worked, and the freeze had not been lifted, so presumably no one had changed it.

Thank God I didn’t have to traipse to the credit union in person and beg for help.

No. Instead, now I had to copy two forms of ID including a recent utility bill, write a letter explaining the present fiasco, jump through some more hoops on paper, and snail-mail said package to Equifax. Which of course meant driving to the post office to mail the damn thing. I probably should’ve sent it registered mail.

Naturally, as I’m rushing to get painted, combed, and dressed to dart out of here in time to make the doctor’s appointment, the computer announces its scanner software cannot find the printer/scanner.

Please: give me some more hassle. I love it so!

Shut down and reboot both the printer and the computer. Surprisingly, this works, relieving me of Plan C: go by FedEx on the way to the post office to get the damn private, none-of-their-goddamn-business documents photocopied.

Print and package all this crap just in time to shoot out the door and hit the freeways.

First, since miraculously I was running about 10 minutes early, I figured I’d drop the envelope of nuisance junk into the USPS mail box over on the other side of Conduit of Blight. This post office is close enough to be within walking distance, if you don’t mind taking your life in your hands. I used to walk over there when I had a German shepherd in tow…but of course would never think of it these days.

Well, thanks to the focking Blightrail, at that hour I cannot get across Conduit of Blight! The signal is red, and it stays red. After about four minutes of sitting there — it’s now time for me to get going if I’m to arrive in the Mayo’s precincts in time for the vaunted appointment — I give up, hang a right, and head to points east and north.

So I figure there’ll be a mail box on the large campus of the Mayo’s specialty office buildings. Or a mail drop inside one of the three huge buildings.

Not so much.

Okay. So I need to go to the Fry’s at Tatum & Shea, a huge intersection enveloped in commerce. There’ll be a mail box in one of the parking lots.

Not so much.

On the way down there from the Mayo — a jaunt of several miles on busy main drags — I see one (count it, 1) mail box. It’s placed at the edge of a bus pullout, where you daren’t even think of parking your car, getting out, walking over to it, and dropping in a letter.

Okay, I know of two other post offices, neither of which requires me to cross Conduit of Blight Blvd. One is down in the tony Biltmore District. Reaching that one will mean I have to drive almost down to Camelback Road, way, way, way out of my way. There’s nothing else to call me in that direction: groceries are shopped for, I’m on the wagon — so no Total Wine — and I couldn’t afford to shop at Biltmore Fashion Square today even if I wanted to. The other one is in SunnySlop, home of our reigning meth gang and its various hangers-on, but over in a better part of the former suburb (now one large, tired, arguably historic central-city tear-down candidate).

[Do not miss that link. Or the one to the hilariously famed El Cid Castle. Ah, Arizona…what a place!]

Okay, so… Well, the PO in Sunnyslop is a little out of my way, but really only three miles from my house. In 110-degree heat, six miles round trip is not walking distance, but neither does it involve a ten-minute wait to get across the damned train tracks or a drive past a hobo jungle. Okay.

So the letter is mailed. But when you consider how far I drove to the doctor’s office and then the grocery store — about 23 miles one-way — and there was not one US Post Office in all those miles????? Holy shit.

Remember when there was a postbox on almost every corner? Back in the Day, you never had to traipse from pillar to post to find a place to send your mail.

What a Brave New World…

Prospero and Miranda (William Maw Egley)

Identity Theft: Three ways to fight it

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A few years ago, SDXB and I learned separately that each of our credit reports said we had lived at an address neither of us had ever heard of, in Tempe, Arizona. Although neither of us was harmed financially, it indicated a type of identity theft known as “application fraud” or “true name fraud.”

It took about a year to get the fake address off my credit records. Once it was expunged, I pretty much forgot about it…until a couple of weeks ago. That was when Costco announced it didn’t have my current address and my membership renewal was overdue. When I went to customer service to pay up, the CSR happened to show me her computer monitor, and what should I discover but that my home address was listed as SDXB’s former address and my business address is now at that same fake address in Tempe!

The appearance of an unfamiliar address on your credit report is one of many possible signs of identity theft. Other warning signs are missing bills, unexplained charges to your accounts, the existence of accounts you didn’t open, denial of credit for no apparent reason, and dunning calls from bill collectors for items you didn’t purchase.

Undoing a mess some crook has made is very difficult. It can take years to persuade creditors and credit reporting agencies that you’ve been a victim of identity theft, and the crime can haunt you for a long time. Thieves have so many ways to steal your private information, many of which you have no control over, that you really can’t prevent it. But you can take a few steps to reduce your risk. I think of them in terms of three strategies:

1. Monitor

You’re entitled to free annual credit reports from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. Rather than having to go through the hassle of contacting each of these agencies separately, it’s now possible to order credit reports through a single source, annualcreditreport.com. Instead of ordering all three reports at once, take advantage of the federal law by revisiting annualcreditreport.com once every four months, so that you can spread out reports from the three agencies over the course of a year. This will allow you to monitor your credit reports steadily. Watch for any unexplained activity or accounts you don’t recognize.

Also, before you pay a credit card bill, remember to review the statement carefully. Check financial accounts and billing statements each month, looking for charges you didn’t make.

2. Prevent

Limit the number of credit cards you carry around. Keep no more than one or two cards in your wallet.

Pay in cash at restaurants and other establishments where you can’t watch what an employee does with your card after you present it for payment. This eliminates the use of a skimmer, a handheld device thieves use to swipe cards for later download into their own computers.

Don’t use debit cards. If you must, memorize your PIN; don’t carry a note with your PIN in your wallet or purse. Avoid using your birthdate, numbers of your address, sequential numbers, or four digits of your Social Security number as PINs. Never use a debit card for online shopping.

Photocopy your credit and debit cards, front and back, and keep the photocopies in a safe place. This makes it easy to contact issuers if cards are stolen.

Don’t allow anyone to write your credit card number on a check.

Always take credit card receipts with you. Carry them in your wallet or purse, and shred them before discarding.

Carry outgoing snail mail to a USPS post box or postal station. Don’t leave it in your mailbox to be picked up by the postal carrier. To protect financial information sent to you through the mails, install a locking mailbox.

Avoid giving out your Social Security number. Don’t carry a Social Security card or Medicare card on your person. You (or your parents) can photocopy a Medicare card, trim it down to wallet size, and cut out the last four digits of the SSN that appears on it. Take the original the first time you see a doctor; otherwise, store it in a safe place at home.

Opt out of marketing lists for the three credit bureaus, limiting the number of free credit offers sent to you in the mail. When you do get such offers, always shred them or scissor them into tiny pieces before throwing them in the trash. Also register your telephone number with the National Do Not Call List, to further reduce offers from hustlers.

And of course, never respond to phishing e-mails. Remember, a legitimate bank or creditor will not ask you for your account number or Social Security number.

3. Fight back

At the first sign of identity fraud, notifiy all three credit bureaus and place a fraud alert on your account. This is good for 90 days. This step entitles you to a free credit report; get one from each agency and review all three reports carefully.

Report the theft or fraudulent activity to the police in writing, using an identity theft report.

Once you have filed an identity theft report with law enforcement agencies, use that and your evidence of identity theft to extend the credit bureaus’ fraud alert for seven years.

Report the crime to the Federal Trade Commission, using the police report number you got when you filed a police report.

Learn what your rights as an identity theft victim are.

If an identity thief has opened new accounts in your name, contact these creditors immediately. Federal law allows you to block businesses from reporting fraudulent activity to credit reporting agencies; the sample dispute letter available here will come in handy for that purpose.

If the thief has used existing accounts that belong to you, report the fraudulent activity to the creditors. Arrange to close the accounts and have new accounts with new account numbers issused to you.

So…what am I going to do about the Costco situation?

Well, we have a fair idea where this came from: only one person could connect SDXB and me in quite that way (the phony entry showed my legal first name, which I don’t use socially; few people who knew the two of us as a couple know my real name). At the time the spurious address popped up in our credit reports, this person was engaged in an extramarital affair. We figured she and the boyfriend had forged driver’s licenses in our names so they could rent themselves a love nest.

More recently, the same someone, who has been in deep financial trouble for quite some time, likely ran out of cash about the time her Costco membership lapsed. So she dug out the fake ID, presented herself as me, and said she’d lost her card. If she went in and asked for a new card in my name, she might have been asked for an address. SDXB’s old street address was at the same number as my new street address; the only difference is that one house is on Erewhon Road and the other is on Erewhon Place. So if she gave his old address as “hers”/mine, it would be credible.

I guess what I will do is cancel my Costco membership. Then we’ll have M’hijito buy a new membership in his name, with me on his account as a secondary card holder. This will be a hassle, because they’ll have to issue a new Costco American Express card with a new account number.

But since she hasn’t done anything (so far) that’s cost me any money or damaged my credit rating, maybe I’ll just let it ride and keep a close eye on the credit reports. Who cares if she gets into Costco for free?