Businesses Facilitating 'Identity Theft'

[godwulf]

Originally Posted by Cyber Wolf

Let's use Sprint as the example: Sprint would need an offical validation of someone being who they say they are before opening an account. That would require either Sprint, a third party or the customer to go somewhere to submit a strand of hair to be tested and compared with what's recorded with his SSN. That's a lot of extra time and extra steps just to get a cell phone. It's just easier, faster and less of a headache for everyone involved to just rely on offical documents, detatched as they are.

Funny how when Sprint needed to contact me to collect "my" bill, they were apparently able to do so without a great deal of trouble. I doubt very much that the person masquerading as me provided Sprint with my home telephone number - yet that's where they called me. Granted, not everyone applying for a cellphone account is going to have a home phone number to call for verification before the account is established, but at least in my case, why didn't Sprint call and check it out? As someone else wrote in this thread, they don't care. They're thinking about all the legitimate, paying business they gain by making it all so easy and convenient for the new customer, and if they get ripped off...well, they can always intimidate a certain percentage of people into paying a bill they didn't run up, and simply raise their rates and charges to make up for the rest.

Honestly, I'm not sure that there's more than the most tenuous connection between this "identity giveaway" problem and the whole national security issue brought up by another poster. The latter is a complex can of worms that I'm not prepared to address. All that I'm saying is that the companies who pull this kind of crap need to be reigned in - either voluntarily, or at the direction of some governmental authority - so if they choose to give away people's identity and grant somebody credit on the basis of information that a kindergardner could track down, they would be prohibited from harassing people or reporting bad credit when they get ripped off.

[dar512]

Hmm. That's interesting. I had a very similar experience with Ameritech. Someone had used my social security number to get a cell phone. Ameritech wanted me to pay.

In my case, I told them I was not going to pay and could prove that I was living elsewhere at the time the account was created. I also told them I was going to bring in a lawyer. At which point they started speaking in a much more conciliatory fashion. I went to the police department in the area the phony address was given to file a complaint.

However, it still required a lot more phone calls to get every department of the phone company to agree that I was not liable.

I also called all the big three credit reporting agencies to require that I be personally present to open new accounts. I haven't had any problems since then.

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by godwulf

Funny how when Sprint needed to contact me to collect "my" bill, they were apparently able to do so without a great deal of trouble. I doubt very much that the person masquerading as me provided Sprint with my home telephone number - yet that's where they called me.

give me your first and last name, (i already know what metropolitan area you live in) and i can give you your home phone number, you address, how much you paid for your house, if married, your spouse's name and some other fun little trivia in less than 10 minutes. and i'm not even a computer type - this is all in public record. if i have your social i can pull a courtesy copy of your CBR and know everyone you have had an account with in the last 10 years and then start opening dept store cards using your own accts as verification of ID.

isn't the technology age a bitch?

my advice though is to pull your tri-bureau from MYFICO.com and check your credit history. sprint generally only reports to one of the 3 agencies, but they rotate. if they went through the trouble of hitting your credit history with this, you can dispute it right online and generally it will go away. if it doesn't sprint has offices with a lot of muckety-mucks at just north of Central and Thomas.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

isn't the technology age a bitch?

my advice though is to pull your tri-bureau from MYFICO.com and check your credit history.

So what do you think would solve this problem? Or is it really a problem?

[xoxoxoBruce]

So what do you think would solve this problem? Or is it really a problem?

It's a huge problem, so are traffic accidents. We treat both the same way, take minimal precautions and keep rooted in the belief it won't happen to me.

[Cyber Wolf]

Catch 22: On one hand, all of that information is available to anyone who has the right info, which is more or less easy to get a hold of. On the other, if you take extraordinary steps to keep your life secret or hidden, people think you're up to something.

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by tw

So what do you think would solve this problem? Or is it really a problem?

sure its a problem, but what are you going to do. laws merely keep honest people on the straight and narrow and give a blueprint for disobedience to the criminal minded.