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Think You’ve Got Your Credit Freezes Covered? Think Again
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoI'd pay money for a service that monitors who all the services are in the credit reporting space and freezes my credit at them for me.
- Shivetya 8y agoI would rather anyone opening a line of credit be required to obtain proof of acceptance by the person named on the account and until doing so they are 100% liable for all debts incurred. How this is defined will require regulation. The burden is increased at any time a request is made outside of the state and city of residence
- toomuchtodo 8y agoCall your local representative and demand this then. That is how legislation is enacted.
- panarky 8y ago> That is how legislation is enacted If only that were true.
- jessaustin 8y agoYeah if you want to name a dog park after your brother-in-law who died in Iraq, that's how legislation is enacted. A giant change in how commerce is conducted, directly counter to the interests of major political donors? You can't be serious... In case it wasn't clear, I certainly support Shivetya's excellent suggestion to improve society for humans who live in it. I'm just not as optimistic about personal lobbying as you are.
- pishpash 8y agoCollective action and watchdogs are certainly more effective but even with personal lobbying, people tend to misunderstand the point of it: it isn't to affect change for that one person, whether immediately or ever, but to accumulate the political capital requisite to compete adequately with other political powers in an adversarial interests system. Not doing something is basically forfeiting the game.
- njarboe 8y agoThis is already the law. You are not responsible to pay debts incurred by another person. The problem is when the bank or company that gave credit to someone else that used your identity information is allowed to lie to a credit bureau about the fact that it was you who defaulted on the debt. Otherwise you could just tell the bank, "Pound sand stranger, I never borrowed any money from you. Stop bugging me or I'll get a restraining order.", and never have worry about how someone has pretended to be you to a bank. Large fines for banks and companies that libel people by telling information brokers lies is the way to stop this problem. The idea that when this happens it is "identity theft" and the person whose identity was stolen is responsible for the problem is ridiculous. This problem should be called libel and the perpetrators (the entity reporting false info that hurts you) punished.
- jessaustin 8y agoThese proposed "large fines" would still require regular people to deal with putative creditors and occasionally to defend themselves in court. Structural changes are required to make the system as it actually functions more equitable to humans. What are structural changes? For instance, prior to enforcing a debt the law could require the production of an authenticated video recording of the debtor clearly stating, "I am John Doe and I agree that I owe EvilCo $1,000 on May 9, 2018." This requirement would make it more difficult to lend money, so it would be opposed by some very deep pockets. I suspect that any actual solution to the inequity in this area would make it more difficult to lend money, so progress is likely to be slow.
- njarboe 8y agoI agree. First, it could be made a criminal offense for a company or bank to lie to credit agencies and then public prosecutors could pursue these companies for big PR wins. Second, making giving and getting credit harder to do is probably a good thing for society. Do people really need to take out a half million dollar home loan from their phone a la Rocket Mortgage? Many cultures had/have very strict rules about charging interest on loans. Debt jubilees were common in past civilizations and seem necessary to prevent the masses from creating their own via revolution. Making personal loans illegal and bringing back the loan shark is not the way to go, but making going into debt to buy consumptive goods much harder would be big positive for most people in the US. Like you said, there is a huge amount of money and power behind easy lending, so change seems unlikely. On the other hand, change seems to be in the air these days, so maybe one can afford a bit of hope.
- reaperducer 8y agoBottom line: Whenever possible, wherever possible, pay cash. I used to laugh at my father-in-law whom I once considered to be a conspiracy theory whackjob with his off-the-grid lifestyle. As more and more of his "crazy" insights turn into New York Times headlines, I'm starting to think he was ahead of the curve.
- teddyh 8y agoPrivacy Aspects of the Cashless and Checkless Society. Testimony before the Senate Subcommitee on Administrative Practice and Procedure. Paul Armer 1968 https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2013/P3822.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2013/P3822...
- teddyh 8y agoStallman was right: I never pay for anything on the Web. Anything on the net that requires payment, I don't do. (I made an exception for the fees for the stallman.org domain, since that is connected with me anyway.) I also avoid paying with credit cards . For freedom's sake, insist on paying cash. When a business pressures you to pay in an identified way, that means your help as a citizen is needed: say, "If you won't take my cash, no sale!" https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html#internetuse https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html#internetuse
- pmiller2 8y agoGood luck buying a house or a car with cash. I know he's specifically referring to things on the internet, but, I'm sure, Stallman being Stallman, he would say you should follow this rule offline as well.
- tomohawk 8y agoWhy would you borrow money to get a car? It's a depreciating asset. If you have to borrow money to get a car, you're buying too much car. A house, you probably will need leverage for, but at least there's a reasonable chance it will appreciate in value.
- Dirlewanger 8y agoIt's all so tiring. It's seriously going to be decades until we get politicians in power that understand the Internet and start holding companies accountable that don't give a shit about security (namely, all of them).
- rcthompson 8y agoWill it ever happen? When the current generation of children reaches office-holding age, a majority of them may understand internet culture, but I don't think a significant fraction will ever understand the internet in a technical sense.
- jrcii 8y agoIntuitive UIs and walled-garden closed-source ecosystems have, counterintuitively, made the public generally /less/ technically literate although popularity of computers in the form of smartphones has increased. Look at the Google Trends results for any PC component.
- patja 8y agoThis reminds me of the scifi first contact novel "Blindsight", which while not the best writing is chock full of intriguing concepts, one of which is the role of the "synthesist": a career where your job is to act just as a communications bridge between those who are so highly technically specialized (including cybernetic body modifications) that they are effectively incapable of communicating to managers and government officials. Hence the role of the synthesist, just to be a neutral observer who can help decision makers make sense of reality.
- Dirlewanger 8y agoThat's basically the description of a "Business Analyst". Also seen in Office Space: "I deliver the specs to the developers".
- organicmultiloc 8y agoThe current generation of youngsters seem to be really good at tapping things quickly to get what they want on a phone, but if anything they are less technically literate than previous generations. My niece dropped a programming adjacent class in college because they required them to use real computers "like with keyboards for old people" and she didn't want to learn how to do that. They're also really good at optimizing for likes on insta, I would argue that is not technical literacy either.
- just_observing 8y agoBrian Krebs - can you please change to a responsive theme? Thanks.
- PotionSeller 8y agoI absolutely hate our entire credit system, the lazy way it handles our sensitive info, and the eagerness to extend credit to anyone without scrutiny of their identity. Big incoherent rant incoming: In 2016 someone stole my identity and in about a 1 month period took out tens of credit cards and new bank accounts and phone account which they immediately over drafted. They somehow managed to change the address in my credit file, and so I wasn't getting any failure to pay notices. At the same time it was quite soon I found out because at least one creditor managed to find my real address asking about a 18,000 loan approval for furniture from The Brick. The police were easy enough to deal with and took a report and I had to use this to prove to creditors it was fraud. I had Equifax do their own investigation, and they agreed it was fraud, but they only removed the creditors who happened to appear on file during their investigation. A year past, and I check my credit and it was 799, all clear. Then last fall I get a call from a creditor saying I owe them money, they required I go to their bank to fill out the paperwork. One more cleared. Then in February I'm hearing from yet another bank about an overdraft account. Once again I proved to them it was fraud by providing the police report number. "Ok, well it will take us 30-45 days to remove this from your credit file". Its coming up to 45 days and its still there. I called them to clarify about when it will be removed, and get the same bs. I do not believe their word so I have also sent another dispute to equifax. MY MORTGAGE RENEWAL IS DUE JUNE 1 AND THIS SHIT HAS STOPPED ME FROM MOVING MORTGAGE PROVIDERS TO GET A BETTER RATE. Now during this latest fiasco, I do another credit check and discover ANOTHER phone company on there says I have a bad debt with them and a note that a collections agency is after me. I succeed in having this removed from my credit file after dealing with Equifax, but for reasons beyond me they did not remove the one from the bank I am disputing in the previous paragraph, so I have to hope it will clear when they way it will (30-45 days from early April), or hope my second dispute works. Note that these latest bad debts are still originating from 2016, its just taken the banks that long to pin the blame on me and attack my credit file. So this has been a lot of stress on me, I have failed to secure a new mortgage lender which will cost me in interest over the next 3 years on mortgage payments. In addition, I just discovered my TransUnion file is still a giant mess with shit from last fall on it. Apparently Trans Union and Equifax don't synchronize. Long story short, there isn't shit you can do to speed up anyone helping you. The police are competent and will have your back but they can't stop creditors from attacking your file. Equifax is slow and not thorough in their investigations and make themselves hard to reach. The banks can pin a bad debt on anyone they chose, never mind that the onus should be on them to prove I took out the loans they claim. Like, show me a signature, show me the ID used to get the loan... Oh its fake? Then fuck off. Nope, they will make you jump hoops to prove it isn't you, and then the cherry on top is they will be very very slow to do anything to remove it off your credit file once you have in fact proven its not you. Good luck to all of you, you are all vulnerable to this shit.
- kxyvr 8y agoSince I was having a hard time finding the link in the article. Here's the page to add a NCTUE security freeze: https://www.nctue.com/consumers https://www.nctue.com/consumers Here are the pages for adding security freezes to the other big four agencies: https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo... https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/landingPage.jsp https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/landingPage.... https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html https://www.innovis.com/securityFreeze/index https://www.innovis.com/securityFreeze/index Most people don't know about Innovis, which was mentioned in the article. That said, I've never run into a company where I've needed to lift an Innovis freeze. Anyway, I agree that it's tiring to constantly track which data brokers allow (are required to) adding a security freeze. In my opinion, better legislation is needed to curb this activity and data brokers in general.
- organicmultiloc 8y agoI tried to fill out the NCTUE freeze page several times, it keeps claiming there is a reCAPTCHA error despite me clicking it out correctly and getting the green check. Seems to be intentionally broken to avoid people freezing.
- Jwarder 8y agoI've seen the reCAPTCHA issue a few times this month on other sites. My guess this is a result of Google shutting down the reCAPTCHA v1 API.
- hex1848 8y agoI am tired of people calling me a "victim" of identity theft. I'm not the victim. The companies and government agencies that allowed themselves to be defrauded by someone posing as me are the victims. If you didn't do your due diligence in properly verifying the identity of the person you handed out cash, goods or services too it's on you. That being said, the entire system is broken. I've had 5 cellphones taken out in my name, I've had multiple credit cards opened using my social security number. I've been interviewed by a special agent with the State Department because someone tried to get a passport using my data. I'm sick of dealing with other peoples fraud problems. Fix it already!
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I am tired of people calling me a "victim" of identity theft. I'm not the victim. Usually, the person whose identity is stolen is the victin. > The companies and government agencies that allowed themselves to be defrauded by someone posing as me are the victims. They are also victims, but until you—often at considerable personal effort—have gotten all the debts and other bad marks by the fraudster dissociated from your identity, you are disadvantaged by it, and if you are disadvantaged or have had to pay a cost to escape that disadvantage, you are a victim, too.
- typomatic 8y ago> They are also victims, but until you—often at considerable personal effort—have gotten all the debts and other bad marks by the fraudster dissociated from your identity, you are disadvantaged by it, and if you are disadvantaged or have had to pay a cost to escape that disadvantage, you are a victim, too. You seem to be misunderstanding the point badly--the situation you have described is nonsense. Firstly, what do we mean by "having your identity stolen"? I submit that this is not an attack on me as a person, it is an attack on a fictional representation of me held by a conglomerate of corporations. This is the point of OP: I am not involved in these transactions! I haven't committed a crime, purchased anything, or interacted with either the party who has defrauded this conglomerate nor this conglomerate. In fact, due to the way this information is collected and stored, I may not have ever had any direct relationship to either party. So what's happened here is that a conglomerate of companies have been defrauded and now insist that I am to make amends for it. It's nonsensical, and no amount of repeating the facts of the current situation will make it anything but ridiculous.
- slumberlust 8y agoAnyone else getting an unsecured link warning from the freeze link on the NCTUE website? https://www.exchangeservicecenter.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp https://www.exchangeservicecenter.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_Persona...