Wednesday, November 27, 2013
ABC advises consumers not to apply for department store cards during holiday shopping season, too easy for identity thieves
ABC World News Tonight, on Wednesday November 27, 2013, gave
a brief report on particular dangers of identity theft on Black Friday.
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The thrust of the advice was not to sign up for
store-specific credit cards, which are often pushed in order to obtain even
lower prices, during the holidays. Use regular
credit cards if you have them. I wrote
about a misadventure with Macy’s here Jan. 23, 2013.
There's a story on my main blog today about an unusual debt collection practice involving a TOS agreement that imposes a "fee" if someone writes a negative review about the vendor.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Bank branch move jeopardizes safe deposit box security
Recently I noted that my Bank of America branch in Arlington
VA was moving. I went inside yesterday
to check on the safe-deposit box, and was told that the box was supposed to be
closed Nov. 8.
The Bank will have boxes in the new facility, as the move
happens over the weekend, but in the meantime did not really have a solution
for consumers to secure their papers and valuables should they be away. They did not have enough available boxes in
nearby branches.
They said they had sent out a letter, so maybe I should have
opened the mail. I get too much junk
that is meaningless. They did have a
wrong phone number. Maybe they did have
boxes for the people who closed up in time. “Would’a Could’a Should’a”.
I got a box immediately at a nearby Wells Fargo branch and
moved everything. The point is that a safe-deposit box is part of someone’s
home and personal security strategy. It
needs to be there all the time, and not suddenly closed.
What did happen is that the landlord for the building did
not want to renew the lease and forced the bank to move two blocks away. But customers are chased out and possibly
put in jeopardy.Wednesday, November 06, 2013
Obama administration to clamp down on companies that buy consumer debt and pursue consumers for debt they don't owe
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is planning to
implement new rules regulation debt collectors.
The biggest problems seem to occur with companies that buy
the debt of other companies on pennies on the dollar and pursue consumers. Apparently these companies have not been
regulated as well as companies that recover debt as third party
collectors. I worked for one of these
latter companies in St. Paul MN in 2003 (RMA, or Risk Management Associates)
and found it was well run. Other
competitors in the Twin Cities then included Tri-Advantage, and Allied
Interstate. RMA was very good about following
the law (FDCPA, or Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) and allowing consumers
to file formal disputes.
I could mention a book from Paladin by Max Edison, "Beat the Bill Collector: How to Obtain Freedom from your Debt" (1997). I know the person and met him after moving to Minneapolis in 1997 (through the Libertarian Party of Minnesota) and he does described what it is like to work for one of these companies in suburban Minneapolis along I-494. He also authored "Financial Freedom: How to Work Less and Live More" (1999).
In 2000, I had checked my own credit report and found a 1980
bill, expanded to about $600, from an old Chemical Bank purchase that had been
lost. I called the company in NYC
(National Credit Systems) holding it, and it immediately threatened to sue
me. I did pay, but I was not given the chance to dispute it or find
out if it was valid, and had fallen through the cracks in a relocation. It had not surfaced in 1987 when Chilton, in
Dallas, did credit checks on all its employees.
The news story in the Washington Post by Danielle Douglas, p.
A16, link here.
There is also a problem with debtors being sued directly by
law firms.
The news story suggests that people are chased for debts
that they do not owe, because of identity theft or because of incorrect systems
processing, sometimes for very old bills after bank mergers.
Apparently this is a much bigger problem for
debt that has been sold.
Medical and dental collections is also a big separate issue,
which may only slowly come under control if Obamacare finally really “works”.
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