Yet ANOTHER Report For Consumers To Worry About

Apparently multiple credit reporting agencies and a kaleidoscope of "Information Aggregation Companies" keeping track of and mostly screwing up personal and financial consumer data isn't enough. Now we have the C.L.U.E. report coming to light. Even though it has been around for a while this report is just starting to garner the attention of the media and hopefully more consumers.

Choice Point (formerly part of Equifax) maintains, among other things, your CLUE report. Basically it is your insurance history, sort of like an insurance credit report. In accordance with the FACT act Choice Point now must give you access to this report. I have not gone through the process yet. I am concentrating on cleaning up the messes made by Equifax, Transunion, Experian, and Capital One. Choice Point is next on the list.

Goto www.choicetrust.com (anytime companies like this put trust in the name I want to barf) and on the left hand side click CLUE Reports and follow the instructions. It will be a while before I do this so if you want to post your results feel free.

Choice Point is one of the pioneers of data breaches and selling consumer information to criminals. In 2000 the State of Pennsylvania pulled the plug on a Choice Point contract because they were running amok with private consumer data. In 2005 Choice Point allowed a reported 163000 consumer records to be bought illegally (in my opinion the number was reduced by a factor of 10). After the fact it was discovered that the CEO and President made 16,000,000 in hinkey stock deals just before the information was made public; which was 6-9 months after the fact.

My personal experience with Choice Point is no less than the pattern of incompetence suggests. In 2000 I was away from home for 6 weeks on business. Getting home I naturally sorted through the pile of mail held at the post office. One that caught my eye was the cancellation notice from my insurance company. Since I arranged to and had paid all my bills in advance, I thought it was due to a billing error. I found out my insurance had been canceled two days after leaving and that it had been because of negligence on the part of choice point.

Choice Point had arbitrarily decided that at one time I lived in Phoenix AZ and while there under a completely different name and SSN decided to run my car into and total a BMW. Being the dutiful company they are Choice Point then informed my insurance company of my misdeeds and subsequently got my insurance canceled.

Calls to my insurance company and Choice Point proved fruitless. My insurance company told me I would have to clear the matter through Choice Point. Essentially Choice Point wanted me to prove I never lived in Phoenix and that I had never gone by that name. Asking how I was suppose to do that I was told it was my problem. Now I switched modes. I call back and immediately assume the identity of the person they claimed I was. I was able to get his name, ssn, address (guess what city) phone number and the insurance companies involved. I called the insurance company of the car that was hit and was able to get a name, phone number and address of the woman who's car was hit.

The number of my alter identity was disconnected, but I was able to contact the woman who was hit. After bringing her up to date for the reason I was calling her, she was very apologetic and still a little confused as to why I was telling her all this. I asked her if she was concerned that I was able to get her information so easily and that because of the stupidity of others I was going to need her to help clear my name. She asked if her husband could call me back, and of course I agreed.

Less than 10 minuets later I was talking to her husband, who claimed to own the BMW dealership the totaled car came from. I brought him up to speed and started talking about getting notarized letters from his wife when he asked if his lawyer could talk to me. Less than half an hour later I was relating the story yet again, but this time being asked very specific questions about the notes I took during my conversations with Choice Point and the insurance companies. He took my information and told me he would call back. The next day he called me and gave me a name and number to call at Choice Point. Calling that number put me through to an executive assistant who connected me with a VP in charge of customer relations. A very apologetic woman assured me the matter had been resolved and that she personally spoke with my insurance company (when I asked who she spoke with and the number to that person she "didn't have her notes") and that my policy had been restored. Calling my insurance company confirmed this.

In my opinion Choice Point, Experian and the like get away with crap like this solely out of consumer ignorance. I had no idea how the information industry worked until recently,and since then have tried to spread the word and get more people to challenge the way these companies do things and bring them to account for their actions.

What's In Your Report? Credit Reports Online

Forget the "free"creditreport.com ripoff site(s) there is only one (that I know of) official free credit report site. The boil down is the big three CRA's (credit reporting agencies) created this site to comply with FACTA amendment to the FCRA.

Anyway even though they say once a year I have gone in multiple times within months of each visit and haven't been rejected yet.

The site is www.annualcreditreport.com

Also if your not doing it get a Fraud Alert placed on your reports. You can call one number and it will be reported to the other two main CRA's. The alert is good for 90 days, but I usually call once a month to keep from forgetting. I usually call the Equifax number and the other two seem to get the information within a week or two. It takes about 2 min and is an automated process.

Call the number (Equifax).
Press 1.
Enter your SSN.
Enter the numeric portion of your address.
Enter a daytime phone number.
Listen to the recording.

Equifax: 1-877-576-5734
Experian: 1-888-397-3742
TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289

Be aware that this will slowdown any application for any kind of credit (deposit waiver, phone service setup, insurance application...ect) I've had to jump through several extra hoops since I started doing this, but that means the process is working.

In a few months I hope to post a write up here of how I beat Capital One in court.....I hope :-/

My New Terms And Conditions

I have decided to try something. Since I have to constantly agree with terms and conditions when dealing with corporations, I now have my own posted. I plan on adding a little blurb to my checks sent to and any correspondence with a corporation pointing them to a site with MY terms and conditions for dealing with me. Any business that doesn't want to accept these conditions can just stop contacting me. Any business or corporation that initiates any type of communication with me or accepts communication from me will be subject to these terms.

www.ekcookterms.com

I have been on vacation and then catching back up from vacation, so I've been lacking in the updates (not like I'm disappointing a big audience here) but I'll be back into it this week.

Started A Corporate Phone Number Blog

I have a large list of corporate phone numbers and addresses. I was going to post them here, but decided to put them on a separate blog so they don't get buried by other posts. Add your own in the comments and I'll verify them and put them in the post with full credit if you leave a name or link of course.

Find Human Customer Support Blog

I'll try and get a few up every couple of days....

Evil Incarnate, Revenge Of The Morons

After one month Capital One sent me the requested paperwork, or at least what they think I requested. I asked for several specific things in the original fax:

1. A copy of the original contract.
2. Copies of statements from inception to settlement.
3. Copies of instruments of payment (two different people at Capital One have stated that all checks and money orders are scanned and archived...maybe, maybe not).
4. Copies of any notes or addendum's relating to the account.

What I got appears to be printed off web pages of statements, they even printed the Capital One advertisements. So another fax has gone out specifically requesting number 1, 3, and 4 with the additional request for copies of Capital One policy regarding what percentage of the outstanding account would have been acceptable for a settlement 5 years ago.

More as this develops

About The Google AD's

I have decided to put a couple of Adsense panels on the blog. I know there will be the fly-by-night fix your credit and get a 500K loan with nothing down for only $99 a month type AD's. I will be using the google competitor ad-block function as I find them to keep them at bay. Plus I'll try a few things to get some more relevant AD's served up here in the future.

Although this leaves me with a good vs. evil kind of problem. For instance, since I have a few posts about the evil on earth that is Capital One, Google sees the words and serves up Capital One AD's. I will tell everyone right now to avoid ALL Capital One "services" like they were trying to rob you. But at the same time if Capital One Ad's were showing up and costing them money trying to snag an unreceptive and in my case downright hostile demographic, I would feel kind of good about that.

Tell me what you think?

Stupid Consumer Tricks

I know there are thousands of ways to make yourself annoying to corporations, here are some things I have done and the results I've seen.

Pre-Approved Junk Mail Goes Away.
Pre-Approved credit card offers occupied the number one slot in the junk mail category for years. Two years ago I called the opt-out number and over the course of the next six months I saw an increase in these mailings, so I went on the offensive. I worked at a company that used stainless steel BB's to seal a gas fill hole of a pressure vessel. My department maintained and adjusted the machines, which meant cleaning out the loose BB's. As these could not be re-used we would normally just toss them. Anyway I found that you could fit approximately 3 kilograms (6.5 lbs) of these BB's in a standard pre-paid return envelope, kind of like the ones you get with pre-paid credit card offers. So after about a year of returning everything they mailed me plus a little extra ballast, I saw a sudden drop off to zero of receiving this type of junk mail. Did it take that long for the opt-out number to take effect? I have no idea, but it sure felt good every time I dropped one of those over sized envelopes in the mail.

DNCL List Has No Real Teeth, But I Do.
I know what the National Do Not Call List is supposed to do, but what I saw it do was something completely different. I registered soon after the national list went active. Then registered again, and again, and again, finally giving up and pulling the plug on copper lines going cellular only. During the course of my copper line subscribership I got my share of calls (this was long before I ever heard of Tom Mabe) and actually wrote down a few gems for later use. Feel free to use these next time you get that special dinnertime call. And before the E-Mails start, I know things have changed with the DNCL, but since I still don't have copper, I have no first hand experience if it or the state lists work or not.

I get a call from a cable company several years ago:

Me: Hello?
Them: Mr. Cook?
Me: Yes, who is this?
Them: Hi, I’m calling from Mega Cable Inc and we are offering several introductory packages in your area, would you be interested in purchasing one of our excellent entertainment packages.
(Quick background note; I did not have cable or satellite at the time.)
Me: Cable? Is that a new thing?
Them: Uh…No sir, Cable TV has been around over 30 years.
Me: Oh, ok so it’s just a Norfolk (where I lived at the time) thing then?
Them: Well…uhhhh…sir Cable TV is pretty much world wide.
Me: Ok, so your telling me that this cable thing has been around for over 30 years and is available almost anywhere on the planet?
Them: (excitedly) YES, that’s it exactly!
Me: So don’t you think I might have heard of it by now and the reason I don’t have it is because I might not want it?
Them: Uhh…Thank You for your time…click.

This one was from the local paper where I lived at the time:

Me: Hello?
Them: Mr. Cook?
Me: Yes?
Them: Hi, I’m calling from the Daily News Express Journal and we are wondering if you would be interested in a subscription?
Me: I would like a large pepperoni with extra cheese.
Them: Sir?
Me: I said I would like a large pepperoni with extra cheese please.
Them; Sir, we’re not selling pizza.
Me: Oh, I’m sorry I must have the wrong number, goodbye.

Got one from a home mortgage company:

Me: Hello?
Them: My name is Randall, calling from Second Mortgage House Pawn. Is this Mr. Cook?
Me: No.
Them: Can I speak to him please.
Me: Look, I know who you are and what you’re trying to do, but like I told the detectives he doesn’t even own a gun much less know how to use one, so unless you can produce some hard evidence, LEAVE HIM ALONE!
Them: WHAT?
Me: FINE; get your warrant if you think you can, just stop harassing me.

I've also relied on the old standbys:

If the caller ID showed an out of state or 1-800 number I'd finish up a conversation as I would bring the phone to my mouth, for instance:

"Yeah, they had to let me go. If the state can't produce a body or weapon they don't have a case...Hello?"

"Is it a bad sign when you get used to the burning sensation?....Hello?"

Or I would actually engage them in conversation, then say something like "Damnit! I guess I have to cut this short." Leave the conversation open and hopefully they ask why. If they do just say "The people who live here just got home." And hang up.

This kind of fun is only limited by your imagination....Take it and run with it.

Information Time

In the description I state this is a place for consumer information, and until this one the useful info has been kind of sparse. So I'll start off with some links to consumer friendly information:

Links will open new windows.

1st off is the main one that should be in any consumers bookmarks, The Consumerist.

Next we have an excellent source of consumer credit related news, Credit Boards.

One of the few consumer protection laws that seems to have some teeth, The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. (This is a summary the full PDF is in the upper right hand corner)

A blog written by a lawyer specializing in debt collections, Debt Collection Lawyer.

A good explanation of the FDCPA and other information regarding debt collections. Fair Debt Collection.

Avoid the so-called free credit report services and use the only actual free one at Annual Credit Report. Don't forget to call 1-877-576-5734 and place a fraud block on your reports. You have to renew this every 90 days,but I think it's worth it.

I will not list any BBB's here as they are in the practice of only posting bad info on non-members and then trying to bully the non-member into becoming a member to make the bad info go away. Note this is my personal observation from being a BBB member in another state and from complaining about BBB members and having numerous complaints mysteriously get placed in the "The consumer failed to acknowledge acceptance to the BBB." despite actually acknowledging the results.

Feel free to add your own in the comments, please give a brief description with the link.

Now some tools, I use these to help protect myself online and shield myself from unwanted advertising. Now this is what I use and I'm telling you why I use it, if you want to contribute, don't just say "Well I use Super Whammo Deluxe Gold 2.2.3.2.1 Pro and it's better than yours.". My response will be "Great for you, now tell me WHY it's better.", if you can't then it's not.

First and foremost is Firefox. And no just because I use it I'm not Anti-Microsoft, I have both Windows and Linux boxes operating in my home,I just like the user friendly and customizable aspects of Firefox. I also install Firefox on computers that I fix for friends and family, I tell them to try it and if they don't like it just uninstall it and go back to IE with no problems. Thunderbird is a good Outlook Express replacement, but I don't use it enough to really say much about it. One of the things that makes Firefox safer id that it requires explicit permission to allow and install programs, or allow pop-up's unlike other browsers which tend to give implicit permission.

Firefox uses plug-ins to accomplish the things you need. While some may argue that this is an unnecessary, inconvenient step my view is that I only have to install only the things I want and have the ability to add remove and turn them on and off at will. I use the following in my install:

Note, these will only install if you select install using Firefox.
Video Downloader, You can use it to get viral videos that stream in Flash format.

AD-Block Plus, Blocks ad's at will with either an updated filter or a simple right click, also blocks Flash based ad's at will.

Ad-Block Filteset G, Automatically updates the Ad-Block Plus database.

No Script, allows only sites you give permission to run any Java script commands, permission can be permanent or by session and can be turned on and off on the fly.

Faster Fox Enhanced, speeds up Firefox by prefetching pages during idle time.

del.icio.us Bookmarks, Allows you to store your bookmarks remotely for access from anywhere.

All In One Gestures, Allows navigation around web sites with just the mouse buttons.

Forecast Fox Enhanced, Allows a non-spyware weather tool to ride in the toolbar.

These are other tools I use to keep the system clean and shiny:

AVG Anti-Virus is a good small and most importantly fully functional free Anti-Virus solution to most of the big name programs. I don't use Norton, Mcafee, or the other big name programs because I feel they have gone well into the realm of bloatware and use up way to many resources for what they do. I know there are other small footprint solutions out there, but this one is the one I like and feel comfortable with.

SpyBot Search And Destroy, as far as I'm concerned this is the premier Anti-Spyware solution on the market. It is small, fast and the developers don't cave to corporate threats or pressure from the corporations, like many other Anti-Spyware programs have.

Adaware, this one used to be the top dog, but they caved to pressure form some corporations. If I had been paying for this one I would have instantly canceled all subscriptions and moved on. But they still offer a free option with limited function, but not so limited as to be unusable. It works really well in conjunction with Spybot and they each sometimes find things the other misses.

Finally, installing any Anti-Virus or Anti-Spyware program is useless if you don't update them. I don't know how many PC's I've fixed and found Norton or Mcafee 1,2 or even 3 years out of date.

Cracker Barrel Brings It In For The Win

Tonight we had a family dinner at the local Cracker Barrel. I've never been a frequent visitor to these places but when I have eaten there I've never been disappointed. We were seated after about a 5 minute wait, and the waiter came right over got the drink orders, brought them back in about 2-3 minutes and took our orders.

Typical family conversation followed for a while and after about 25-30 minutes I started wondering where our orders were, it wasn't like anybody ordered anything special or it was a huge table (we had a party of three). I had noticed the couple at the next table who were seated as we were making our orders was already well into their meals. Just as I was getting ready to go on an active search our waiter came over and apologized profusely for the delay and promised (yes he actually said "I promise") to have our food to us soon.

I guess we should have worked out the definition of "soon" as we waited for 15 more minutes before we decided to cut our losses and go to a restaurant that actually served food. I was just trying to get the waiters attention to thank him for the free iced tea when the manager came over. Of course the standard "so sorry, your food is on the way" was the first thing out of his mouth, I was still all for leaving by this point, but since it was Mom's turn for the buying of the dinner (we rotate weekly) she decided we would stay.

Now let me inject a little background here, I guess after so many incidents and run ins between myself, family and fiends with poor customer service, I immediately tagged this episode as yet another example of atypical service. Admittedly I was pretty mad at this point, but I didn't let it spill over onto the rest of the evening. I guess I'm just so jaded by poor customer service I passed judgment on the manager as soon as he started talking, I had already decided to get his name before I left so the world could read what an absolute MORON Mr. XXXXX is.

Anyway, 10 minutes later the food finally arrived and during the course of the meal the manager kept coming over and apologizing for the delay, which only seemed to get me madder as he always started talking just as I would take a bite. After we had pretty much finished he came over again and sat down and of course, apologized again. Note, as of this point our only outward sign of dis-satisfaction with the service was our attempt to leave, in fact all we were doing was gathering up our belongings in preparation to get up when the manager came out the first time.

After apologizing yet again he asked what he could do to make it up to us. As this was Mom's turn/treat we left it up to her. She turned it back on him and asked what he was willing to do? He offered her free dinner that evening, or free passes (he never specified the actual number,only inferring more than one). She opted for the passes, he apologized again and disappeared. I have to admit at this point I again judged him and thought "Ok, if we want to collect we will be chasing him down before we leave". About 5 minutes later he came back with passes for four individual meals with no restrictions or expiration dates.

I would like to point out that my thinking is that if you are in charge of something, acting as a Manager, CEO, Team Leader, or whatever YOU are the one responsible for what happens. I also believe that a big contributor to customer service problems come from too many people in charge not having the stones to step up and accept responsibility for what happens on their shift. The manager at Cracker Barrel stepped up and admitted HE dropped the ball. He made no attempt to blame it on his people or other imaginary problems.

I was pleasantly surprised and a little self-embarrassed at the same time. I even apologized to him for the judging I did and thanked him for being what is becoming a rarity these days, a good manager. My mother decided to get his name so she could give his boss a call and let him know what happened and what was done to resolve the situation. I even asked him if he wanted his name used here (first name only of course), but he politely declined. So if your ever at the Alcoa, Tennessee Cracker Barrel and think the service is above average take a few minutes and thank the night shift manager for a good job of running the place.

Evil Incarnate Returns To My Life

Years ago when I was much MUCH more naive and trusting of the corporate monster not to mention the whole credit reporting industry I foolishly got a CapitalOne credit card. Insert condensed time line here, include messy divorce, job loss, and general self destructive attitude and you end up with one very financially challenged not to mention broke individual. So among my many self induced credit problems is the CapitalOne account, after making many token payments a CSR from CapitalOne Collections Department calls and offers a settlement. I take the settlement, pay the amount that week and proceed on with that particularly miserable time of my life.

Fast forward five years, I've finally got all the post divorce/self destructive problems paid for and done with,and am getting ready to dive into learning about and making what improvements I can to my credit reports. Two months ago I get a call from another collections agency wanting money on the CapitalOne account. Although I'm no expert,I am much more knowledgeable about certain laws such as the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. I immediately disputed the debt at which time they kicked it back to CapitalOne. I was told to wait three days and call a certain number which I did. When I called I was put in contact with a Laurin (wouldn't give the last name) who of course tried to keep selling me a payment plan and/or a settlement. Since neither is going to happen I challenged CapitalOne's records of the account and after admitting that mistakes are made (like I ever thought otherwise, I'd be more surprised to find correctness being achieved at CapitalOne) she directed me to send a fax to general correspondence requesting copies of documents pertaining to the account. That was five weeks ago and I've heard nothing back. This week I finally got the paperwork and sent in a request to the "big three" AKA Transunion, Experian, and Equifax for a copy of my records and a letter to Richard Fairbank,CEO CapitalOne (and no I don't think he will care, I'm just loading up for further action in small claims court).

Yes I know I should have kept better tabs on my credit report and yes I will be much more actively involved in it from now on.

More on this later.