Denise Richardson has a great post that lists the "Top 10 Things You Will Never Hear From The Big Three Credit Bureaus". Please read this funny but sad post and the rest of her excellent site.
Incredible. Click here to read the entire post by Larry Magid. According to the article, here's why identity thieves like to target our children:
Youth are targets because, unlike many adults, they have clean credit records. Because kids aren't applying for credit or jobs or renting an apartment until at least their mid-teens, chances are no one is checking their credit reports, so thieves can get away with exploiting kids' IDs for years. Eventually, older teens will run into a problem when applying for a driver's license, a bank account, credit card, student loan, or that first apartment.
The person stealing a child's identity could be a stranger or someone they know. It could even be the child's own parent, according to Ms. Foley. "About 2/3 of the time, it is someone in a parental position or in a guardianship."Children of divorced or divided families are especially at risk. "We often see with split families that one family member suspects there's something strange – the child is at the other parent's home and calls to say goodnight, they see on the caller ID that it's their child calling but the reality is that the account is in the child's name." Some parents, says Ms. Foley, "talk themselves into believing they're not hurting their child," and, in some cases, "say they're going to help their child by giving them a good credit history, but the reality is if they didn't pay their own bills, they're not going to pay their child's bills."
The state has an excellent website which details many resources for victims of identity theft. We encourage you to visit it because, as Attorney General King says,
A character in one of Shakespeare's plays once asked, "What is in a name?" Today, the answer is that your name encompasses your very identity. Unfortunately, as technology has improved our lives and as we have grown busier, the door of opportunity has also been opened to unscrupulous thieves who steal our identities, who wreak havoc in our lives, who destroy reputations, and who wipe out life savings.
Last week the FTC settled claims with debt settlement or debt elimination companies who had misled many consumers. Read here to find out more about this and to protect yourself. We often get contacted by people who are getting sued and they are shocked because they were working with one of these debt elimination companies. These companies can't prevent a creditor or debt collector/debt buyer from suing you so be careful in dealing with these debt elimination companies.
Brett Weiss has an excellent post summarizing how the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act can be used to stop harassment from collection agencies or debt collectors. The post is entitled "How to deal with debt collectors: stop the harassment!" We recommend you read this post and the related posts that he has on the excellent blog Bankruptcy Law Network.
One time as I was passing an intersection I saw a police car stopped and a car very close behind. The officer was out of the car and then I realized some unfortunate soul had rear ended the police officer. I was reminded of this when I read this post at the South Carolina Trial Law Blog (an excellent blog by the way - I read all the posts there). Hopefully no one was hurt so read the post and enjoy the picture.
While we don't normally write about stolen pictures and porn DVDs, this post at the Consumerist is very troubling. Here's the gist of the problem:
When Lara placed a self-portrait taken at age fourteen on deviantART, she never expected it to be stolen by TVX Films and placed on the cover of the DVD porno "Body Magic." Lara asked the President of TVX Films to remove her photo and compensate her for the theft. He responded with the following email:Its hard to know what to say to this - seems like an obvious invasion of privacy. Most states prohibit the "appropriation" of someone else's image to make money. We checked with a lawyer in Texas (apparently this porn company is based in Texas) who agreed that putting a fourteen year old's copyrighted picture on a porn dvd cover might qualify.I'M SURE BY THE END OF THE MONTH YOUR FACE WILL BE HISTORY. WE HAVE STOPPED SELLING THE DVD UNTIL COVER IS REPLACED. WE HAVE FURTHER CHECKED OUT YOUR NAME AND ITS NOT LIKE IT'S A HOUSE WHOLE NAME. ACTUALLY, REMOVING YOUR IMAGE WILL HELP IMPROVE THE SELL OF THE DVD..... SO FAR IT BOMBED.
THEY ARE REMAKING THE COVER AS WE SPEAK SO YOUR TEN SECONDS OF FAME WILL SOON COME TO AN END.
AS FOR COMPSENSATION;YOUR SILLY!
The unrepentant attitude expressed in the email above speaks volumes about these clowns.
This morning in the Birmingham News there is an article entitled "Credit Scores Sixth Lowest In U.S." by Roy L. Williams. We recommend everyone read this fine article, particularly our Alabama readers. Here is a brief excerpt:
The average credit score in Alabama was the sixth-lowest in the nation last year, meaning a greater percentage of state consumers may face difficulty getting loans or face higher interest rates, according to a new survey by Credit.com.The San Francisco-based credit research firm found the average credit score in Alabama was 672. Four of the other lowest scores were also in the Southeast - South Carolina, at the bottom with 665, followed by Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana tied at 667. Wisconsin had the nation's highest average: 717.
Credit scores range from a low of 300 to a high of 850, based on the Fair Isaac Corp. credit scoring system commonly used by lenders. John Ulzheimer, head of Credit.com Education Services in Atlanta who presented a free credit seminar in Birmingham last Saturday, said a lack of financial education and high debt loads are major reasons behind Alabama's poor credit scores.
One key first step before approaching a lender is for consumers to obtain credit reports, available free once a year from the three credit bureaus, and finding out their credit scores, McCall said. Then they can get advice on ways to improve their scores and get the best loan, he said.
Thanks to Roy Williams for this good story.
This one caught us off guard that a major store would do this:
The Connecticut Attorney General has announced a lawsuit against Best Buy in regards to a secret internal website that is identical from their public website except for the prices. Consumerist has received reports of this website being used to attempt to trick our readers as recently as March 19, 2007.Customers coming into the store looking for prices they saw at home on the public website were told that the sale had ended and were shown a separate internal website that reflected different in-store prices. The customers were led to believe that they were looking at the same website they accessed at home.
Busch, Best Buy's spokeswoman, said the company intends to vigorously defend itself in court."The future of our company depends on our ability to build trusted relationships with our customers," Busch said.
Click here for a wonderful story on a slumlord who has been ordered to stay in his own building.... Here is a description:
Lakewood Municipal Judge Patrick Carroll ordered Richard Naumann to live in his Lake Avenue apartment building -- which has no heat, hot water, operable stoves or ovens...
Marc Chase does not hesitate to speak his mind. We don't know how he feels about a lot of issues but we know he is passionate about credit reporting errors and scores. (And he seems like a nice guy - had a pleasant conversation over the phone with him a week or so ago). Check out his article on how to lower credit scores - definitely food for thought on what NOT to do...
We have not heard of this but we ran across this post that describes the information the Medical Information Bureau (MIB) stores on a good percentage of Americans. Here is the introduction from the Because I Am Here blog by Aaron Titus
Long before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones hit the screen as intergalactic secret agents, the MIB was doing undercover work of a distinctly terrestrial nature. Amassing storehouses of medical information since 1902, the Medical Information Bureau maintains a sort of “Medical Credit Report” on roughly 20% of the United States population.When you apply for life, health, or disability insurance, insurance companies collect information about factors that might affect your health or longevity, such as age, sex, drug or alcohol use, and other risk behaviors. There is a good chance that at one point or another, you have signed a waiver permitting an insurance provider to transmit this information to the MIB, which creates a record of the insurance findings.
There is an interesting article that makes this simple, yet powerful, suggestion to help all of us avoid being victims of identity theft:
And if people who don’t actually need specific pieces of information ask for it, Thompson says to use the word his niece recently started using on him — why.“Why?” he asked the audience. “Do not become paranoid; just be vigilant.” Most people who ask for that information can settle for some other, less critical, information. If not, you first need to consider whether their service is one you truly need.
Then you need to ask a few more questions:
l Why do you need the information?
l Where will it be stored?
l Who will have access to it?
l How will you destroy it when you no longer need it?
We have family in Texas and there are a number of readers of this blog from Texas. Here is a story for those living in the great state of Texas:
If you`ve used the financial corporation Check `N Go recently you could have been exposed to identity theft.
Investigators with the Texas Attorney General`s office discovered that Check `N Go stores in Texas discarded business records in easily accessible trash cans behind the stores.
According to investigators, the records included customers` names, addresses, and social security numbers.
Investigators say if you`ve interacted with Check `N Go you should carefully monitor bank, and credit card statements for evidence of suspicious activity.
If you wish to file a complaint contact the Office of the Attorney General at (800) 252-8011 or online at www.oag.state.tx.us.
There is a good article at Creditbloggers about the federal government's plan to reduce the risk of identity theft from its own actions. Read the introduction below and check out the rest of the article for the encouraging news.
Amid the whirring of pigs' wings and crackling of ice from the underworld comes another unexpected noise: the sound of someone in government actually taking charge. Believe it or not, federal agencies across the board have been given 120 days to go through their files, track down every unneeded SSN, and put a plan into place to "eliminate the unnecessary collection and use of Social Security numbers within 18 months."These long overdue marching orders arrived in a memo from Clay Johnson III, deputy director for management of the Office of Management and Budget, which he sent to the heads of every federal department and agency. The agencies were also told to review all information that could be used to identify an individual citizen or employee, make sure those records are accurate, and "reduce them to the minimum necessary" for the agencies to do their job.
Fox news has twelve steps for Alabama consumers to consider to protect our identities while doing business online. Read the full article here. Good advice - particularly for those of us who enjoy doing business online....
We have noticed in our practice an increase of family members who are committing identity theft against each other. We often see this in the context of a divorce - a spouse or ex spouse will steal the other's identity so that they can get access to credit. But we have not seen a daughter steal her mother's identity but apparently it happens as reported here:
Charges include obtaining a money transfer for £6,000 from the Alliance and Leicester by falsely representing she was her mother, Gail McGibbon, obtaining a credit card by falsely representing she was her sister, Sarah Dibb, obtaining a credit card from Egg by deceptively claiming she was Gail McGibbon, theft of £614, £1,203 and £150 from Egg and theft of £284, £250 and £100 from Monument.
Check out this amazing story from the Boston Globe (courtesy of this post at the Consumerist):
A debt collector trying to repossess a 2000 Ford Focus tried to yank a young mother out of her car so violently that he ripped off her necklace and punched her in the face, a prosecutor said today in court.While the woman's 5-year-old daughter watched in horror Friday, another debt collector jumped on the hood like a “madman,” said Brendan Barnes, a prosecutor for the Plymouth County district attorney's office.
Afraid she was being carjacked, Sara Bradley, 25, drove to the Abington Police Department with the man clinging to her hood while his partner followed in another car. The two debt collectors from South Shore Auto Recovery -- Robert Simeone, 21, and his brother, Michael, 17 -- were arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The diabetes drug Avandia has been reported to have serious health risks to patients who take this drug. As many of you know, one of our favorite blogs is the Consumerist and they have an excellent post today about what, and when, the FDA knew about the risk to patients using this drug. Here is an excerpt:
The maker of the drug, GlaxoSmithKline, separately told the FDA of the risk last August, but neither the drug maker nor the Agency warned the public.The study was outed yesterday on the New England Journal of Medicine's website. The editors of the journal and the study's lead author both warned that the research methodology left the "findings open to interpretation."
Even though the FDA was aware of the risks since last summer,
...the publication of the study on the journal's Web site prompted the Food and Drug Administration to issue a public safety alert and advise users of the drug -- an estimated million people in this country and two million worldwide -- to consult their doctors about the potential cardiovascular risks.
Congress wants to know why the FDA can't walk and chew gum . . . .