Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Identity Theft, Credit Reports, and You (2017)

kalzumeus.com

148 pointsmtmail30 comments

This advice works in other scenarios where companies string you along hoping you will give up and disappear.

Once my car was badly damaged by someone who ran a stop sign. It was clearly the other driver's fault. Her insurance was Allstate. They strung me along for more than a month "investigating" this obvious situation.

My car was an older one that was worth about the cost of the repairs, and they probably thought I would just give it up. But it was my only transportation and I needed it for work.

I did some research on California's insurance regulations and discovered their requirement that claims be settled within 40 days. After 40 days passed, I wrote a email similar to the letter examples in this article, giving then five days before I reported them to California's insurance department.

It was astonishing to see the immediate change in their behavior. The adjustor who had been playing telephone tag for weeks called me within an hour and arranged for a body shop near my home to start work immediately.

They laugh at angry bluster, but will move mountains to appease a focused person who can bring a regulatory agency down on them.

>They laugh at angry bluster, but will move mountains to appease a focused person who can bring a regulatory agency down on them.

Yuuup. I got this from Kaiser, whose ADHD screening policy would blow through mandatory timely access to care deadlines. Calmly stating mandatory timelines, taking notes, and asking Kaiser to fulfill them got me much more responsive and timely care when getting treatment for ADHD.

If you're not getting what you want, you 100% want your case handled by someone responsible for not having regulatory incidents.

I would have catalogued my attempts to resolve the issue, and then filed all of it in an official complaint with the regulators after 40 days. By giving them extra time to comply with the regulations, it simply validates their strategy of wasting people's time and hoping they give up doesn't result in negative consequence for them, but instead that is the optimal strategy for them.

It probably would have taken longer and I really needed my car fixed.

That's unfortunate, hopefully when the are caught, the punitive damages are sufficient to force a change in their cost benefit calculations towards doing what's right. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

Similar experience with a telco in my state. As soon as I called the state regulator about being strung along over a bait and switch, the telco bent over backwards to clear up the issue.

There was also the time I took an airline to small claims court after repeated customer service calls and a demand notice failed to get their attention; the airline's chief counsel called me up at work after they received the notice from the court. They still failed to resolve the problem and also didn't show up for the hearing, so it was a summary judgement in my favor with damages multiplied x3.

Tip if you do escalate to a court or state regulator: Keep copies of everything including postage receipts with tracking info and records of phone calls (screenshots of call logs, notes about each call, etc.)

I’ve heard that even if you win in small claims it’s hard to collect from these giant corps. Were you ever able to collect the damages?

The airline sent me a check about a month after the hearing for the full 3x amount.

Does that airline still allow you to fly with them?

Yes, it did. I never had any service denial or other problem as a result of taking the airline to small claims court.

ETA details

Then it didn’t?

I would bet that if one is unsavvy about it one gets paid out about as quickly as they pay vendors (which can be glacial) but that a demand letter to the general counsel with a judgement attached results in a check getting cut no later than the business day after the day the letter is opened.

I was strung along by a telco; told several times that the issue was fixed only to discover on the next bill it wasn't.

On my third (and what ended up being my last call to them), I told them I had the FTC's online complaint form open on my computer and was in the process of filling it out.

I was immediately transfered to someone who said they will fix my problem and call me back in 10 minutes when it was done. They called back in 15 minutes, and I never had a problem after that.

My wife cut her foot on some broken glass on a cruise ship and it required a visit to the onboard doctor's office for stitches. We talked with Guest Services about not being charged for this, since the glass had likely been broken for quite some time, and was a hazard since many people wear open-toed shoes on the ship. We walked off the boat without paying for the medical care, assuming Guest Services took care of it.

About three months later, we received a letter from the cruise line stating we hadn't paid our bill and owed the a few hundred dollars, I believe it was around $200 or $300. My wife is an attorney and sent them a registered letter discussing follow-up care for the cut after we left the ship, duties breached, etc. to the corporate office and CC'd to general council. A week later we received a letter saying we didn't owe them any money, along with a $500 voucher for a future trip. Their reply also included specific denials on the legal complaints, which means someone in the GC office had to deal with it. That part I found particularly satisfying.

I had a similar problem, with a much gnarlier insurer than Allstate, and the answer turned out to be to contact my own insurer (Progressive) and ask to have the claim subrogated --- Progressive paid for my damages, and then went after the liable insurer themselves.

That works only when you have comprehensive coverage, but then it works really well, also because you'll avail yourself of the rental reimbursement that you have on your policy. But the OP wrote he drove an old beater car and most likely carried only liability coverage. They'll defend against claims from other parties then but won't assist you with your own claims.

Yes. I only had liability coverage.

I once did some work at an insurance company and they had some systems problems slowing down payouts etc. There was a room full of people specifically tasked with fobbing off clients. The magic words were, "I want to make an official complaint." They now had 48 hours to fix the problem or they had to register the complaint with the regulator... and they didn't want that to happen. If that happened you were passed to a professional complaint handler who would move heaven and earth to get things settled before then.

I have since managed to change the tone of several conversations to regulated industries with that phrase!

Now make a GDPR request at the same time... that seems to get you answers too

I greatly enjoyed this comment and the subthread it inspired.

For the peanut gallery: never give anyone in an extension in writing; your ask should be for immediate performance.

Why? Well, there are a lot of varieties of "performance" which aren't happy outcomes for you. Should you give someone an extension to their deadline and have them perform in a way which is displeasing to you, the default is they do not have a regulatory infraction if you complain [0]. Should someone blow their deadline and then perform and then have you complain to the regulator, they basically always have a regulatory infraction regardless of whether their performance is satisfactory, so their incentive is do whatever possible to prevent the complaint.

[0] Situation dependent, obviously, but lots of regulatory regimes will have an escape hatch like "unless agreed to by the customer" or "unless agreed to by the counterparty in writing."

Here is my identify theft story, also from 2017 (thanks, OPM): https://chrxs.net/articles/2017/03/23/responding-to-identity...

I never got around to writing about it, but this also happened to my wife earlier this year. The fraudster opened a T-Mobile account with her data and we had an absolute hell of a time getting T-Mobile to do anything about it. After a few months and a letter threatening to send her "debt" to collections, my wife finally filed a complaint with the FTC and the matter was resolved a few weeks later. Good thing to keep in mind for issues with communications companies, at least when the damn government is functioning... https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov

Calmly and shortly stating what happened and how you want it remedied is an all around great and underrated strategy for dealing with any organization and even individual relationships. Many people don't get what they want simply because they never ask.

In less acrimonious and regulated situations than dealing with debt collectors you can kindly ask if the other party would like a copy of your complaint by certified mail (that is, issue the least antagonistic of threats) and straighten things out by phone or email.

Calmly asking for your money back never works, in my experience, the other party are crooks preying on the naive and helpless, and they know they are crooks. Asking for a serviceable address and then sending the demand letter has always worked, it establishes that you are not naive and helpless. What the other side absolutely wants to avoid is a public paper trail, they'll go to great lenghths to say away from the legal system, to continue to rip off the next poor sod.

I managed to get invoices paid simply by calling and emailing a duplicate. Sometimes these are complexities of large organizations, sometimes laziness that needs a jolt to action, and even among crooks there are levels of crookdom.

Interesting read, I was a victim of identity fraud a while back after moving from my rented apartment. I am very careful with my digital identity, however I was caught out by physical address fraud.

I didn't setup mail redirection and assumed updating my banking and important correspondence would be enough. However in the UK you get lots of spam mail to my old address, for things like credit cards etc. which someone managed to do.

In summary, I would setup mail redirection.

I reposted this today because somebody was looking for an old HN thread "Ask HN: Looking for an old HN post about how to effectively lodge a complaint" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18799453

This belongs in a list of "strategies for adulthood" or something, along with the Art of Turboing and surely others.

What others, off the top of our heads?

http://www.macwhiz.com/blog/art-of-turboing/

Never heard it called turboing. It definitely works. When I bought my last car, it got lost in shipping and GM couldn't find it. I could tell them where it was because OnStar, but for whatever reason that never translated to success on them finding it themselves and getting it shipped along to me. So I sent an email to Mary Barra. I was under no illusion she would actually read it, but my wife used to have friends on the Wells Fargo Executive Response Team so I figured the odds were good GM had something similar. Yep! Couple hours later I got a call from a "Senior Account Representative" who knew everything about me, my car, where it was right now, and when I would see it on my doorstep, before she even called me. Magic! And she called back twice a day until the delivery actually took place. I don't recommend abusing the process, but it is very effective when things go off the normal rails.

I feel compelled to mention: The actual crime in identity theft is fraud, and you are not the victim. E.g. a bank gave a loan to the wrong person. They lost money. But they call it 'identity theft' to move the damage to you.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15206926

This one needs a (2017) in the title.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com