Identity Fraud

I recently worked at a call center operating a fraud protection program. I initially thought the job would be interesting because it involved identity theft. The human resources worker described working with customers of a large bank that were victims of fraud.

As it so often turns out, that wasn’t the job. I was actually classified as a salesman, mainly because the lion’s share of calls we received were customers trying to cancel their enrollment. We had to convince people to remain enrolled by scaring them with stats or giving out freebies in order to maintain a certain save percentage to keep the client happy. I did enjoy helping the few people that called in and were victims of fraud, so I’m sharing what I learned about fraud and these protection programs that are being offered to a growing number of credit card holders

This is long so I’ll tell you now, the first part deals with types of fraud programs, the second part has to do with how ID theft works, and the last part deals with what you can do yourself.

Keep in mind, that the only sort of official on identity fraud is an FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act)certified person, or a police officer. My knowledge comes from training and working with victims.

There are three types of protection services.

The first is a very basic program that will likely come free of charge on a debit or credit card. These are fairly dangerous when you don’t pay attention. The reason being is that whoever gives you the card will probably tell you they monitor it for fraud. However this is only random monitoring, so your card number will float around in a queue with all the others and only really obvious or drastic changes in activity will be caught. They don’t all have strict policies about notifying you either, offering few if any benefits.

The second is a general fraud protection service which can be placed on a credit card. They offer continuous card monitoring and/or customized alerts that are suited to your spending habits. They also offer monetary and expert assistance should you be affected. These are monthly charges and can go from $6.00 up to $12.00. The reason you’re now paying is because they are always monitoring your card and offer some benefits.

For instance, Chase offers fraud alerts and can catch online purchases if you wish. Discover card also keeps a fairly close eye and will call to ask if you’re traveling if they see the card used outside its normal area.

The other kind of service is a credit monitoring service. Some will check your credit daily and others weekly and notify you of any inquiries or changes. They also offer monetary and expert assistance should anything happen.

One thing they have all begun to feature is that they provide assistance to you on all of your open accounts (other credit cards, bank accounts, even loans).

Of course to actually benefit from the programs something bad has to happen. And I am not going to say that ID fraud is just a big boogeyman type scam made up to scare you. It is a growing crime, the perpetrators are rarely caught, there’s an astounding amount of ways to go about it.

When choosing a service read the fine print (which applies to everything in life) though I’ve come to understand that most people assume they *know* what’s in the fine print.

Of all the calls I took only two people claimed they were canceling because they read the fine print and they both thought the program was stupid for the same reason. Why’d the cancel? The reimbursement coverage is a big fat juicy carrot in front of a staving donkey. A threatining statistic is that it could cost you anywhere from $4,000 to $16,000 in out of pocket expenses trying to combat fraud. The program of course offers reimbursement for all of those expenses, if you’ve read the fine print you’ll see the words “qualified expenses” which means (harshly) if anything should happen, you probably won’t qualify for the coverage and if you do you’ll be jumping through hoops to get it.

This is where the variety of fraud is a blessing for these programs. Did someone steal your checkbook, did someone use your credit card number to buy shoes, or did someone take on your complete identity, open up three new credit cards, and take out a five thousand dollar loan, leading to creditors calling you everyday, and maybe even the police are looking for you because you skipped a court date after being charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell. Only one of the preceding will likely qualify you for the coverage.

If your checkbook has been stolen and you’re seeking assistance you’ll get nearly nothing, a three bureau/ four score report from the program I worked for to check if anything else happened but that’s about it.

In the instance of complete identity theft with massive fraud, the program can be good, you can use it to pay for a lawyer and cover any lost wages. The expenses for the lawyers have to be approved though, and don’t plan on taking a vacation just because lost wages are reimbursed.

Now here are some scripted stats and these can vary depend on who you are talking to
-Did you know Identity fraud has grown at 500% over the past three years?
-9 million people were affected last year alone.
-Two years to find out you’ve been a victim.
-It can take anywhere from $4,000 to $16,000 in out of pocket expenses to fight fraud.
-Another two years could pass before your credit rating is fixed.

What do the stats mean?

They basically mean that identity fraud is the fastest growing white collar crime and almost everyone gets away with it.

Depending on how you define identity fraud as many as 9 million were affected last year. It can be anything from a stolen check or credit card purchase to someone else walking around out there posing as you.

It can take a long time to find out you’ve been a victim because of the tricks criminals pull. Some will change your address and open a new account. If you don’t check your credit report often you won’t see it. So a credit card bill under your name could be going to another address across the country, and the thief might even make minimum payments on it until they can rack up all the debt possible.

If you need to hire a lawyer and stop going to work to fight the fraud then it could cost thousands of dollars.

Here’s a final list of things to consider about these programs and what you can do yourself to avoid fraud.

1. Don’t think you’re invincible because of the precautions you already take, sometimes it is out of your hands.

A customer told me- “I don’t have to worry about fraud because I only have this one card and it’s always in my back pocket.”

Reality- the VP of your health insurance company has a lot of work to get done but also has a business dinner in an hour. The VP figures he’ll take his laptop with him. He leaves it in the front seat of his car in a dark lot behind the restaurant. Someone steals it and a week later you get a call saying a computer had been stolen and your address, phone number, social security number, and various other personal info is at risk. (Happens every single day, just think about the amount of places that have your personal information from doctor’s offices to places you’ve worked)

Not to mention that particular customer hasn’t thought about falling prey to phishing scams, pick-pockets, a dumpster-diver, or someone swiping his mail.

Currently, stealing a business computer can be far more profitable and easier to get away with than robbing a bank.

2. Protect yourself. Look at your credit report. By federal law, you can see one for free every year. You can also weasel one from a credit bureau but be careful about being pulled into a program with a monthly charge. The bureaus recommend you check it every quarter, of course that’s because it gets them the most money. Twice a year should be ok unless you associate with a lot of shady people and businesses. Also, contrary to popular belief, pulling your credit report does not lower your credit rating. It is called a soft hit because you’re not inquiring about a new line of credit. (A long time ago it may have been true, but not anymore)

The credit bureaus are infamously hard to work with, so most programs offer case managers and experts to handle the bureaus for you, but one thing you can consider is placing locks on your credit report which will keep anyone from making an inquiry on your history.

Benefits of the programs include free credit reports or at least discounted ones.

Also, each bureau has different data on you. A comprehensive report will tell you everything as well as give you an average score. On the other hand, I recently received a one bureau report from Experian and noticed my score was fairly high due to the fact that inquiries I had made went through Transunion and the two didn’t share that bit.

Be on guard. Is someone watching you enter a pin closely? ATM’s have been fooled by pieces of plastic with magnetic strips on them. Have you received an email or phone call about fraud on one of your accounts, do they even provide the last four digits of your account and give a number to call back if it is a message? Delete the email and hang up. Pull out an old statement or your card and call the customer service number to see if they actually did call.

3. You have to help yourself. Filing a police report is probably the number one piece of advice if you ever discover you’ve been a victim, it factors heavily into creditor’s decisions on whether to hold you liable for fraudulent charges.

If you don’t file a police report don’t be surprised when a creditor thinks that since they already found you (remember only 2% of thieves are caught) they might as well hold you liable instead of looking for the real culprits.

Also, be prepared for paperwork and plenty of phone calls, especially if you’re going after reimbursements for qualified expenses offered in the programs.


4. Know what your program does. Read the information yourself. I worked for a company that was working for a company that was working for a company, and every other day we received a list of things that we were misinforming customers about or shouldn’t be telling them at all. On top of that, customers were getting information from pushy telemarketers notorious for enrolling people without consent and customer service reps who were the last in line to get new information about what the program offers.

Some people called us so we could handle their disputes with other businesses, which we could if they were actually fraudulently drawing from an account, but it’s usually just a case of one party claiming the other stills owes money.

Other people liked hearing that we cover all of their open accounts and then call six months later upset that we didn’t catch a fraudulent purchase on their Amex or Discover card.

Well, to all who don’t know, credit card companies don’t share their customer’s cc numbers with each other. Discover card monitors Discover cards, Chase monitors their cards, and so on.

Everyone places a different value on these programs. Some people think they are a stupid waste of money and they may be right. Other people are fascinated by them and think some of the features are remarkable and will happily pay the monthly charges for the piece of mind it gives. The bottom line is a pushy telemarketer shouldn’t enroll you, and statistics shouldn’t scare you into them. You should weigh your habits, lifestyle, and financial situation and make the decision. Maybe a program could protect you, but maybe, by being cautious and holding yourself responsible you could avoid putting yourself at risk.

Here's a little piece of nearly forgotten history, the civil rights case of Elizabeth Jennings, which just like Rosa Parks involved a bus company.



The difference between the two is that Jennings' ordeal took place in New York during 1854, seven years before the Civil War was fought, and a little more than a century before Rosa Parks took her fateful ride.

The "bus" involved was actually an extended horse carriage run by the Third Avenue Railway Company. Some of the busses allowed colored passangers and others were strictly segregated.

Jennings, of course, chose to board a segregated bus and the conductor quickly tried to shoo her by saying the bus was full, a blatant lie that Jennings pointed out. The conductor then told her that her presence was upsetting the other passengers. Jennings persisted so the conductor tried to remove her physically. Apparently she was a match for the man because he failed and only succeeded in drawing a crowd. She was only removed after a policeman was drawn to the scene and he had a turn at dragging her out of the bus.

The daughter of a prominent black businessman, they quickly sought out a lawyer to represent Lizzie in a lawsuit against the Third Avenue Railway Company. The lawyer's identity is one of the most remarkable points in the story. It was Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President.

Keep in mind that this was in 1854, and while slavery was no longer legal in the northern states, there was plenty of racism. In the racially and socially charged Draft Riots of 1861, her son was killed.

Jennings won the case and the Third Avenue Railway Company was forced to pay court costs and damages amounting to $247.50. The company desegregated their carriages and within five years the city was completely free of segregated carriages.

The reason this case was mostly forgotten is because after Jennings won the case, and the carriages were desegregated, everyone must have considered the issue resolved. The defiance of Rosa Parks in Alabama, on the other hand was used as a spark to expand the civil rights movement.

Still, an 1854 civil rights case like this, while slavery was still legal in the south, along with the involvement of a futue president, should be better known in American history.

One of the worst books ever has to be William Cook-Bey's The Way It Came.



It was printed by Holloway House Publishing Company (who have also published Iceberg Slim's work) in 1983, and a search of their website brings up no record of the book or the author. I found it in a friend's basement. The only place that did yield results was Amazon, which has four used copies priced well above the $2.25 cover price.

The book follows Willie and his friends Junie and Hip Talk as they rob, have casual sex, and use drugs with an assortment of smooth-talking characters. For being apart of the underworld, Willie seems to have it pretty good. Women love him, evident when one lady picks him first in a gangbang. The bad side of drugs don't seem to have any effect on him, and the group easily gets away with the robberies they commit.

The plot is terrible, it works like this steal-->score drugs-->have sex, and the writing is half-assed. On top of that, the printer and editor must have been asleep at the wheel. The book has more spelling, grammer, and copy errors than a third graders's hand written book report.

Example-"He wanted to know where she was because he wanted to see her before he left the city. Smiles showed on everybody's face for the all understood exactly wanted Sissy but she was an altogether different kind of whore and none of them could afford her nor deal with whore and none of them could afford her or deal with her mentality." (The Way It Came pg. 27)

That is exactly how it appears in the book.

Of course, a life of drugs, crime, and sex with an assortment of whores eventually comes back to bite you in the ass, and Willie is eventually played. He takes it horribly and goes insane.

"His mind snapped again as he realized he had been played. After all his playing of other people it had all come back home to him, and he couldn't take it. Tears filled his eyes as he dropped the note and began to scream. "Funky bitch! Funky bitch!"

He then began to tear his clothes of while walking around the streets of downtown Baltimore. People began to run and shout at his insane actions, but he paid them no mind. When the police finally stopped him in his naked state they subdued him and called for an ambulance. Law officers tried to talk to him but he only mumbled incoherent sounds. saliva came from his mouth, water from his eyes, and there was urine on the groudn [sic] where the police had him lying." (The Way it Came pg. 218-19)

And there it is, Willie is taken away in an ambulance, never to seduce another whore in the back of a crack house again.

We've all seen trailers on TV or in the movie theater that have made us question the movie making process. You sit there and think someone actually came up with this idea and wrote a script, an agent took it and pitched the script to a studio that picked it up and found a director, cast, and crew to make it. Then an editor came along and slapped it all together. No movies even need to be mentioned, I'm sure there's at least five that have already run through your head.

So here's a little game designed to head them off at the pass. Come up with a possible movie. Something that's stupid but you actually believe that a studio somewhere could have the balls to make. Name it, plot it, cast it, and post it.

Here's some to get started-

Current trends?

Think Snakes on a Plane, Deliverance, and Alien vs. Predator rolled into a big chugging locomotive. I give you the Hill Folk vs. The Laughin' Skulls Biker Gang. This movie is an explosion riddled, adrenaline laced, meth-addled knucklebuster.

Synopsis- The Laughin' Skulls Biker Gang is taking a group of initiates into the border area of Montana and South Dakota. Their initiation rites include hunting big game animals and drinking lots of booze. The ruckus disturbs the nearby inbred cannibal freaks that live in the hills. Will you support the Barbarian Biker Horde or the Cannibal Hillbillies?

This movie will assault all your senses and sensibilities. Every nerve in your body will be popping like a firecracker, and you'll feel like you just been released from a barrel of rabid badgers when you walk out of the theater. It's that good.

Remakes? I have two.

Class nostalgia that will bring back, as well as hot frat pack actors to bring the young audiences in. The Three Stooges Return! We have Adam Sandler as Moe, Jack Black as Curly, and Ben Stiller as Larry. We might toss in some babes as well, the Stooges always had girls. We'll grab a handful of Jessica's, say Alba, Biel, and Simpson.

Here's a remake with a twist. Take the classic Apocalypse Now and bring it into the modern era by setting it in Afghanistan. Call it Apocalypse Now-Desert Roads

Here's the cast-
Colonel Kurtz-Vin Diesel
Captain Willard-Johnny Depp
Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore-Samuel Jackson
Chief Philips-Jaimie Foxx
Chef- Ashton Kutcher
Lance Johnson-Paul Walker
Clean-Nick Cannon

The Ever-Monster

Standard vampires and zombies don't work anymore. Monster movies have to be upgraded. I locked our platoon of writers into a hotel conference room for one week and this is what those stinky bastards handed back to us.

Behold! The Ever-Monster.

The Ever-Monster was "born" thousands of years ago when the Aztec God's sent avatars of themselves (for the modern era we've changed the names and nature of all Aztec Gods) and did battle to see who would become the one true god of the Aztecs. The plan backfired however and the avatars were all destroyed and pieces of them were scattered all over the jungle. Fearing Attack because of the lack of protection, the Aztec priests recovered the god pices and put them together and sealed them in a temple.

Thousands of years later, archeologists come and recover the Ever-Monster, unknowingly transporting it back to Los Angeles where it is awakened. I don't want to spoil anything but this movie will have kids pissing their beds and screaming for mommy.

The monster sucks blood to gain more power, but it also injects a poison that turns its victims into zombie minions. As it gains more power the Ever-Monster sprouts spiked tentacles and dragons wings, eventually growing into a thirty foot plasma breathing engine of destruction.

Will it be destroyed? Yes, but not entirely, we need it for the straight to DVD sequels.

Coolest President?

On March 3, 1849 James Polk's term of office as President of the United States expired. The newly elected Zachary Taylor refused to take office on a March 4 because it was a Sunday. He was finally sworn in on Monday, the 5th, at noon. So was there an interregnum? Everyone in Polk's administration was out, and no one in Taylor's was in, so the US lacked a government, right?

However, we do have safeguards in place to make sure someone is always in charge. So if Polk left office on Saturday, and Taylor refused the office on Sunday then who was president for that day?

It's a bit confusing. No one ever took the oath of office, although if you looked into the congressional records for that day, you would find the name, David Rice Atchinson.

Atchinson's own account of the event is this--

"The judge waked me at three o'clock in the morning and said jocularly that I was President of the United States of America and he wanted me to appoint him as secretary of state. I made no pretense to the office, but if I was entitled in it I had one boast to make, that not a woman or child shed a tear on account of my removing any one from office during my incumbency of the place."

So who was Atchinson? A fairly well known and successful politician. At the time he was President Pro Tem of the senate. Everything included he had a twelve year career in the senate, and before that he was a representative in Missouri's legislature and played a role in the Platte Purchase.

Why was Atchinson our coolest president, if he was president at all? Well, for one he slept through most of his "term." What more could you ask for from a man who was president for a day? He didn't try to make a name for himself by issuing any executive orders, he didn't go to the White House and run around with his pants off, he didn't do anything. He stayed home and slept after spending a few long days in the senate. He knew it was nothing and treated it as so, control of the United States of America (admittedly not a power at the time) at his fingertips and the man slept. There are few things cooler than a disregard for power that falls in your lap like that.

Of course, that's blowing things a bit out of proportion. Not many people at the time knew what was going on. If Atchinson tried to act as president he probably would have been met with scorn and heavy opposition. Zachary Taylor after all was the president-elect and was just waiting another day on his own principles. On top of that, there is still controversy on whether he really was acting president.

Perhaps it would be best to forget about it as history has and go back to acknowledging Teddy Roosevelt as the coolest president.

In 1858 an unknown Abraham Lincoln set out to prove his skill in the political ring. He set his sights on Stephen A. Douglas, a political heavyweight. They participated in marathon debates that could go on for hours.

In modern times everything is taken care of by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nice little non-profit group created and controlled by democrats and republicans. Third parties are cut out, and everything possible is done to ensure that the two candidates don't make themselves look like complete idiots.

Lincoln was such a badass debater he once took on two Stephen Douglas's.



Wouldn't it be great if we went back to this style of debate? Actually forcing the candidates to think on their feet rather than answering pre-approved questions with answers and rebutals prepared in advance by staffs composed of pollsters, strategists, and speech writers.

Nah, we'd probably just change the channel.