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Latest ID Theft Tactic: Fake Job Listings
citking writes "News.com.com reports that, in an attempt to curb identity theft on its service, online career listing site Monster.com has begun warning its users of fake job postings bent on stealing personal information. 'Regrettably, from time to time, false job postings are listed online and used to illegally collect personal information from unsuspecting job seekers', according to an e-mail sent by the company yesterday to registered users. With the increasingly difficult job market, things such as background checks and non-disclosure agreements are becoming more and more difficult to avoid, so where does one draw the line for giving out personal information in response to a classified ad? CNN has a small article about this as well."
Have you been a victim of identity fraud?
Don't know where to turn?
Well worry no longer! I can track down all activities of your online "alter ego", and for free! To apply, simply supply me with the following personal details, and I will search for all online transactions using these details
of some loser trying to find a job through Monster.com? How much room is there gonna be on HIS credit cards?
as long as they don't steal my ego or superego.
"look ma! no hands!!!" - random amputee
So when the job offers from Nigeria that need my bank account number to pay me start arriving , I will know what to do.
Open source development is my way of competing with the low-cost programmers in India...
These people just all get sued and jailed ? I don't understand how can some people get away with theft of privacy and that kind of stuff in a country such as ours. I guess the temporary technological solution would be to create a special email account just for your resume, and ask people to contact you through email for more info... But I bet employers won't like that...
I draw the line at my name. If that, and Google, isn't enough for a potential employer to know if they are interested enough to interview me, I'm not interested in working for them.
Sure, they'll need to know more details eventually; but that can wait until after I've met them in person.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
In this economy, employers get THOUSANDS of resumes for every job posting. Most of course, are garbage dot-com resumes or from other unqualified individuals. It's nearly impossible for a good resume to break through the signal-to-noise ratio.
And high-quality companies will not have to resort to advertising jobs in this economy, except to fulfill some "equal opportunity" requirement, showing that all new jobs are publically posted.
My advice: Stay away from Monster and other job boards. Get friends who are working at the companies you're interested in to submit your resume for you. If you have no contacts in a particular company, hand deliver your resume, or send it US mail. At least, your resume will stand out this way.
Best Buy can have you arrested
At the bottom of the News.com article is this link:
"Wanted: Tech professionals needed at top companies now"
I don't see any warnings about ID theft there, though...
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
I find this extreemly funny considering the number of job agencies that have been partaking in the practice of false job adverts for as long as I can remember, purly to get people on there books and CV's registered with them. It would seem they fear the competition, or is this there way of coping out the fact they dont vet jobs/job advertisers at all.
Even if monster had absolute highest employer screening methods, you are still trusting that monster has a secure server, that their network infrastructure is resistant to attack, that monster's employees will not illegitimately sell off your information, or anything else.
All this hassle and the hiring rates out of these sites remains dismal because there are so many applicants. To any unemployed /.ers out there, I suggest you read "What Color is Your Parachute?" by Richard Bolles. And follow its advice of hunting for jobs on foot.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Luckily, when I was young and stupid(er) I completely futzed up my credit rating, so I don't have to worry about identity theft. There's no credit card company that would have anything to do with me!
A friend of ours has regrettably had to undergo the torture that identity theft wreaks on ones life. Unfortunately, the laws concerning and consequences of this type of crime are not commensurate with the damage they cause. This friend is one of the hardest workers I know, has worked his way through school as a janitor in public schools, got into a reputable graduate program but yet because of identity theft, has major difficulty purchasing a house, car or whatever. Yet the guy that did the theft and applied for all of this credit simply got a year in jail and a small fine.
If you steal ones identity, are found guilty of such crime, you should become an indentured servant of sorts having a portion of all your earnings being taken for compensation appropriate to the damage you cause. The frustrating thing is that many of these people that go about stealing identities appear to be functioning members of society and for whatever reason see fit to steal a family members, friends, or strangers identity and run up thousands of dollars of false debt.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Gosh, I hope so ;-).
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. . . I guess that means I didn't get the job.
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Wanted Slashdot editor, your primary responsibility will be to ensure that stories are not posted repeatedly. If successful your title will be the super duper de duper.
Fuck with people that are already down on thier luck and need a job.
How about we start beating up old people and stealing blankets from homeless shelters.
Of course, YMMV.
"My God, this must be a truly remarkable corn chip, to be so widely and confidently touted."
What about these privately run prisons that our government is shipping inmates out to? Many of these prisons are using their inmates for labor to be hired out. Mail order catalogs will pay these prisons to have inmates answer the phones and take orders. They prisons are being paid by Uncle Sam to house the inmates, and then they get paid to use them to boot! Because the inmates are incarcerated, they don't have to be paid minimum wage and things like that. My guess is that they are being paid pennies on the dollar. You never know if the guy on the other end of the phone is on the inside, or the outside of the steel bars! :)
"Thank you for calling VISA. My name is Inmate #3041226 and I'll be your friendly operator today. Can I start by getting your credit card information and then the product numbers of those items that you would like to purchase?"
Karma is like sex. I can't remember the last time I had either of them.
One company I worked for routinely posted hundreds of fake job listings in order to locate companies and individuals who might be potential buyers of its product. Even though I don't work there any more I still see their adds from time to time. For example you sell a replacement/competitor to the "widget" tool. You run an add asking for "extensive widget experience". You then review the experience history to find out where the applicant used "widget" at. Those are the companies you direct your sales staff to call on.
Anyways, you'll get alot of e-mails from them on job sites as well.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
It took me about 1 week to realize that these job boards were about as likely to get me a job as my affinity for IPA. The problem with these boards, is two fold:
1. The employer never sees you in your nice crisp suit as you deliver the resume.
2. The employer never has your resume on his desk, in physical form, printed on quality paper stock.
From the employers point of view, it's nice for them to know that an applicant is capable of completing a task, even one as mundane as locating their office, and delivering a resume, without accidently lighting him/herself on fire along the way.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
This is just another reason to avoid agencies, they truly are a parasitic bunch.
Over here in the UK I was looking for work last year, and scoured the local agencies. Many, many times I'd apply for a position only to be told eventually that it didn't exist. The agency just wanted to know how many Perl Programmers were around.
Worse than that, though, is the way that several agencies will advertise the same position with subtly different descriptions - and you don't realise until you get called for an interview. In one case an agency told me that they wouldn't put me forward for a position I was applying for because I'd also registered with another agency!
I've started keeping track of bad (and the rare good) agencies in Edinburgh - if you're local feel free to look at the list and submit your experiences.
(Yes that was a plug, and yes the section needs updating)
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2003/02/27/mons ter_warning.html
(i mean the URL _itself_ not the page it goes to - that's just a news story about this issue).
Honestly people...how dense to you have to be to know that giving out your SOCIAL SECUIRTY NUMBER and/or CREDIT CARD NUMBER to an UNTRUSTED, UNKNOWN source of the INTERNET is a /BAD/ idea?
Does the public really need to be educated on this?
I would NEVER give that information out until I was sitting across the table from the prospective employer or at least had a verifiable phone number and did it over the phone..even then I think it would have to be face to face for me to be comfortable.
It just seems like a "Well Duh don't do that" type of message...
I guess i didn't win 10,000,000 either.:(
What's really worrying is that despite how easy it is to get the details (Fake job postings? Easy!) on someones' life and then use them to steal an identity, there's no real recourse for the victims.
Once your SSN gets out and has been used for fraud, you're still stuck with it! The SSN bureau will not replace it for any reason. With four separate credit bureaus with their own secret databases, it's pretty much impossible to clear your own record.
What probably needs to happen is a small branch of the FBI that is devoted to investigating identity theft and, most importantly, who has the power to go to all four bureaus and push through some name-clearing on behalf of the victims. It'd be a much better use of taxpayer money than having the FBI infiltrate antiwar movements and discredit them.
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I got my current job because I went to Uni with someone who was already working there; the interview was basically "this is what you have to do. How much would you like?"
Unfortunately, it's not always what you know, it's who you know that gets you a job.
CIFAS is an organisation in the UK that lets the public pay a fee to have their credit file (with all three credit agencies) marked as "FOR F*** SAKE MAKE SURE IT'S ME BEFORE GIVING OUT A LOAN IN MY NAME WILLY NILLY".
http://www.cifas.org.uk/
If the agencies want CV's they put in fake adverts.
If they want to know contact names for employers, they ask you for references from your last employer.
If anyone advertises a job, everyone else advertises the same spec, only 'nicer' then submits your CV to the first agency without the contact details and asks for a cut.
If they want to know whose hiring they quiz you on any interviews you've attended recently.
In reality the only real jobs come from family and friends who happen to need work done.
I have programmer friends who work in gas stations, as cleaners, shelf stackers and other manual jobs and they're lucky they have those. Competition is tough in the manual labour market aswell.
Dubyas an ass.
And follow its advice of hunting for jobs on foot.
that's not really practical if you are willing to (or want to) relocate, as i did last year.
i didn't answer ads, but posted my resume with email and phone contact info (no ss# until i am signing an actual physical contract with someone who wants to pay me money, and no credit card numbers ever). i haven't had problems. you can note "references upon request" so former coworkers and employers aren't bothered uneccessarily.
i landed a job i'm really happy with - though i did have to go through a recruiter to get it. i don't think contracting is anyone's first choice, but that's another option - find a reputable firm (word-of-mouth reputation in your industry and geographical area is the best way to judge, imo) and work with them.
~sabine
"my money went to nigeria, and all i got was this damn t-shirt"
"I really wonder when this person last looked for a job the hard way."
You mean there's an EASY WAY??!
And perhaps if you narrow it that closely, you're right. But how about using the slightly larger area of "mathematics or computer science academia" and my name?
Now, I'm no longer in that scene, being a graduate school survivor, but when I was, I remember getting a request from a Swiss library asking whether I had any spare copies of "my book" 'Manifold Theory'. (The library's copy had been stolen, and it was out of print.) Of course I'm not the person they were looking for, and in fact (I believe) that the author was in fact already dead at the time they asked. (an odd coda is that a paperback version is now back in print)
So really, names aren't always that useful, even in a slightly specialized field.
I started my current job that I found on Monster.ca. I was let go from a dot bomb two year ago and landed this job that I hope to have many years to come. Some of my friends have been looking for two years and I have passed their resumes to my employer and clients. I do agree that if all you are doing is responding to ads you will be looking for a long time, but don't discount it. There are many options to use when looking for work. The best advice is use them all.
I fail to see what could be averted by demanding to be contacted via email, but I *do* have a specific email account for potential employers... in fact, I create a new alias in the form of "domain.com@mydomain.com" for every site that demands an email address, potential employers included! I've not heard a single negative comment from any of the folks who have contacted me. (I even got a great job offer FedExed to me today!)
The real solution is to think over what sort of info the employers NEED. Are you applying at Wal-Mart? Does the "contact" with the hotmail email address really need your SSN for a background check before the interview?
Some jobs you're just going to have to go out on a limb for. However, if you're going for employment at a tech company like I am, then you might want to examine their contact info. Is their email address the same as the site for the company? Have you called them via phone first? Can you find that phone number listed elsewhere (google)? If everything seems okay by this point, there's not much else you can do if you want a good-paying job with a company that wants to examine your background (be it for clearances or anything else).
In summary, use common sense.
I checked my job-search-only e-mail account, and found this message from Monster:
Okay, nice of them to look out for me. So I log into Monster, and what's the very first thing I see?This was on a web page served by FastWeb ("a Monster company"). I had to click "No" to get to my Monster home page.
Ug.
P.S.: My journal contains the stupidest, funniest job ads I've come across in the past year.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
The trend around here is that temporary worker providers is getting into more and more advanced markets, and the positions filled can't always be said to be temporary.
When one of these companies are hired for recruiting services for their customers you can get disclaimers that the applications can be used for statistical or 'corporate purposes within the said firm.
Isn't it a more immediate threat that more and more information is processed by these kind of middlemen with no real ethics of their own other than to find new ways to earn money. I think that any data could be used for data-mining, and if you have to attach disclaimers of your own to prevent it I can't see that it will be some rare exceptions...
Don't forget BOSSES! I had the joy of working for a small dotcom with poor management a number of years back, and bailed after six months when our paychecks started showing up late and when I walked into accounting and saw the accountants desk covered in "Past Due!" and "Final Collections Notice!" letters.
A year later, I'd heard they'd gone under and had almost forgotten about them when I tried to refinance my wifes car and was turned down because of poor credit. Poor credit?!?! I'm a homeowner, I have five credit cards, and two car loans, and I had never been so much as a day late in making a payment. I had 10 years of history, and all my balances were low. So what do you think I found when I pulled my 3 agency report? A $1,400+ dollar Pacific Bell phone bill in collections, that went to CarHunting.Com Inc (they can't sue me for slander, the FBI is still trying to track the owner down for defrauding creditors and employees). A call to a couple former employees revealed that the companies phone service had been shut off shortly after I left, and that the owner had used MY name and MY SSN to secure a new account and get them turned back on. Most NORMAL people at that point would think that a simple phone call to the phone company could straighten this out, right? Wrong. It took two years of fighting, and three investigations, before the phone company would finally acknowledge that the bill wasn't mine and remove it from my credit report. Even the notarized affidavits from former employees, and work records showing that I'd been working soemwhere else at the time, weren't enough to convince them that it wasn't my bill. In fact, it wasn't until I hired a lawyer and the lawyer started talking to the FTC and they began talking about lawsuits for FCRA violations that the phone company finally caved and removed the bill.
So the risk soesn't exist only when applying for a job, but during and after your job as well. And it's ALWAYS a pain in the butt to fix this kind of stuff. A simple rule of thumb though, is to ONLY give personally identifiable information (birthdates, SSN's, etc) to companies that you can verify are real and trustworthy. And DON'T work for scum. If a company will screw its customers, it'll probably screw its employees too.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
I friend of mine had his credit card number stolen somehow (he doesn't know where they got it from, he'd only ever bought one thing with it). They used it to spend $600 at Monster.com. We've been trying to figure out where the money went. I mean, honestly, who would spend $600 on their crappy merchandise? Well... apparently fraudsters spending money for more fraud!
It sickens me.
--I lost my sig, can I borrow yours?
I've applied for many fake jobs. I can tell they are fake because I never get a response back.
#!/
You're using logical inconsistancy here. Though the credit card companies are the customers of the credit bureaus, you *ARE* getting ripped off if someone fradulently assumes your identity to rack up false credit charges.
If your credit record is tarnished, it can be more difficult to:
* Buy a house
* Rent an apartment
* Buy/lease/rent a car
* Obtain airline tickets
* Get a job! (Yes, employers now check credit records)
All of the above is more aggravated by the fact that the credit card companies, far from being inconvenienced much by the theft, acutally BENEFIT in the form of offering you only extremely high interest loans for some very important things. Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area on bad credit. Got $800,000 cash, right now, in your bank account? Sorry.
Clever troll, but people whose reputations in a digital world get tarnished are victims, and DO deserve recourse.
And what about if I need to borrow money to buy a fucking car? Or a house? Or any other more reasonable example that groceries?
The credit agency system also affects people which don't use credit cards. And then there are those occasions where you simply cannot do without a credit card (renting a car, certain online purchases, purchasing petrol after hours, ...)
Who's bright idea was it to market to the unemployed? Isn't that sort of a bad target audience?
I know more than you drink.
I gave up looking online for a job about 9 months ago. It's pretty much just a way to sell ads and to collect info.
Being FORCED to give out 'optional' information such as SSN has created this problem of ID theft.
And don't tell me its not a requirement, as most any retailer will just refuse to do business with you if you want an account.. or to work for them.
What the government cant do directly, they let the business world to do it for them in effect.
"we cant restrict that, so lets let insurance rates go up on that part of the public..that will curb that 'problem' "
Just wait until the next national ID system goes into effect, opening up so many more opportunities to these criminals.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
having been laid off two weeks ago, i was fortunate enough that my employer provided us with a company that helps you with your soft skills - e.g. resume writing, interviewing help, job search tips, some national job database sites, etc.
we were told that approx. 60-80% of jobs are in the 'hidden' market and that roughly 50% of people who find there next job find it via networking. for IT postions we were told roughly 10-15% find their next job listed on sites like monster, careerbuilder, etc.
so while it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility, we were instructed how to network, even if you don't know a single person at the firm you are targeting. dealing with HR is one of the best ways to assure yourself you won't find a job.
good luck to all those looking for work!
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
I got spam, I got telemarketers, I got people trying to get me into pyramid schemes.
Craigslist, Monster, svjobs, hotjobs, all of them I suspect of either a)selling my personal informations or b) maintained weak security in both their systems or their policies which resulted in the afformentioned "annoyances"
And i'm really sorry to the afformentioned websites either, I don't mean to accuse you but hot damn my inbox / home POTS line gets filled with crap everytime i've used your service.
Most people get a job through contacts. I can't recall the exact numbers, but something like 3/4ths.
Unfortunatly that doesn't help if you don't know the right people. All the programers I know personally are out of work, so they won't help me get a job until they get one themselves. (or the rare case where they know they won't get it so they recomend me cause I might - that isn't like knowing someone at the company though)
...to find out what the _real_ latest one is, send your credit card #, social security #, mother's maiden name, and slashdot login/password to (etc)
Liberty uber alles.
The problem is that employers, for whatever reason, want all sorts of information that they don't need. What's needed are some digital certificates to replace all these numbers.
Need to know if I can legally work in the country? Here's my certificate from HRDC. Need to give me a paycheck? Here's a unique deposit number from my bank. Need to do a credit check? Here's a certificate from my bank. etc.
As one of the senior engineers where I work, I not only design code, but I look over resumeés that we get in to evaluate technical competence.
I can tell you this - after a headhunter firm gets done with your resumeé, it will look like hammered shit with a side order of pus.
When I've created a resumeé, I laser printed it on high rag content, off white bond with matching envelopes. It was laid out logically, with a proper cover letter. I followed every rule of style, every trick of layout to make my resumeé stand out.
What I've seen from the headhunters were low-rez fuzzy pixelated faxes that looked like the original was laid out by a blind spastic monkey with no comprehension of the English language.
We would pull in a somewhat promising candidate and I'd say "Well, on your resumeé it says you have experience in C++ - " "WHAT? I'm a COBOL programmer - let me see that".
I'd far rather talk to somebody who showed the initiative to send us his resumeé directly than somebody who just sent his CV to a headhunter.
(And yes, I have recommended to my boss that we not use those headhunter firms again.)
www.eFax.com are spammers
If you are willing to participate in the system, you have no right to complain.
." If you would even contemplate that, you have other problems. It's proof that America really is a vast land of opportunity, that fools like you don't starve to death, and manage to actually semi-prosper.
It's like asking Tony Soprano for a little loan to tide you over. You know what you are getting into so don't bitch. You are just inflating the difficulty of living on your own money to make it easier for you to live with yourself. None of which I have a problem with, I just don't want Congress using my money to bail out your whole little system, I want you to pay for your own needs with the fees/interest on the cards.
-- Buying a house. It can be done in cash, it can be done on an owner-financed loan. But even without that, the first step in house shopping is to go to a couple of banks and get pre-approved for a mortgage up to a certain amount, so that when you talk to sellers you have the proof you are serious. Enough money is involved that loan officiers will investigate and make phone calls. You have to shop around to a few banks anyway, and if a credit agency is lying about you you will have to write and sign a few statements and visit a few extra places. That's all.
-- Rent an apartment. In my experience and on stories from friends it might be harder to rent an appartment with no credit record than buy a house. This is probably because they can always take the house back, keep whatever payments you did manage to make, and come out ahead. But it still can be done. Scumbags all over the US manage to live indoors, so you can to, if you are not a scumbag but some agency says you are.
-- Buy/lease/rent a car. I bought my car for $2,200 cash. A car that is "sufficient", i.e., safe and reliable, can be had for 2 to 4 month's pay (think about a 10 year old Corolla). If you can't save up that you are fucked for life anyway, not my problem, I just don't want to subsidize your need for a plastic card to substitute for lack of discipline in your upbringing.
-- Obtain Airline tickets. Get the flight number and price off of the web, then call and reserve them and say you will pay at the counter. Your ass will be searched, but that's a different flamewar.
--Get a job. Sure, some employers are now checking credit records amoung everything else -- I heard the NPR story also. It might make it harder to get a job, but it doesn't make it impossible, and the kinds of places that are doing that are shitholes anyway, using another piece of database info to filter resumes just because it is available. But in the end, if a credit rating agency lies about YOU and costs you a job, don't bitch. You kept them in business with your plastic habit. *I* can bitch if it happens to me, because I was trully defamed out of the blue. YOU did business with known liars and defamers and now want to come whining to big mommy government.
"All of the above is more aggravated by the fact that the credit card companies, far from being inconvenienced much by the theft, acutally BENEFIT in the form of offering you only extremely high interest loans for some very important things." Like I said in the Soprano analogy, you know exactly what kind of filth you are dealing with. You lie with dogs, get fleas. I'm not cleaning up the mess.
"Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area . .
" . . . but people whose reputations in a digital world get tarnished are victims, and DO deserve recourse." Ok, if the credit agency lies about you you can sue them. Now, what about people who fund the system ? What about people the people who get their "identity stolen" and still go back for more ? If someone's house is robbed because they left the door open, we feel sorry. The tenth time we just laugh. Until they want us to pay for the missing stuff, then it's time for mercy lynching.
While you choose to live an expensive consumer life of convenience and I don't, I do think we would be in almsot perfect agreement if we agreed on just a couple of points:
1) Any bail out of corporate enablers of "identity theft" fraud comes from a base of fees levied on credit card users, not the general tax fund. As the tax on airplane tickets funds the Air Traffic Control system, so people who don't fly don't pay, and the gasoline tax funds road construction. As taxes on beef auctions pay for meat safety inspections. None of my money gets sent that way.
2) All credit card fees must be explicit on reciepts as additional fees, kind of like another sales tax. Australia recently passed a law to this effect, which is being fought tooth and nail by VISA and other assorted henchmen/lobbiests. So if I go the gas pump and pay with a debit card, I get more gas for $10 than I do if I pay with a credit card.
If those were enforced, the vast mass of plastic addicted people could fuck their way into mutual bankruptcy with their enabling credit card companies WITHOUT BOTHERING ME.
>>"Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area . . ." If you would even contemplate that, you have other problems. It's proof that America really is a vast land of opportunity, that fools like you don't starve to death, and manage to actually semi-prosper.>Buy/lease/rent a car. I bought my car for $2,200 cash. A car that is "sufficient", i.e., safe and reliable, can be had for 2 to 4 month's pay>But in the end, if a credit rating agency lies about YOU and costs you a job, don't bitch. You kept them in business with your plastic habit.
You imply that having an identity stolen and false credit opened up under your name goes hand in hand with patronizing these businesses. It's entirely possible for a criminal to steal your identity and obtain credit from, for example, Mastercard -- without you ever patronizing them.
That's what identity theft is. You didn't patronize Mastercard at all -- the criminal did under your name. However, anyone who looks at your credit record is presented with "official" evidence that you're a deadbeat who patronizes Mastercard. That makes it your problem whether you use them or not.
I would take your Soprano analogy and make it fit more with what we're talking about. Person A goes to the Sopranos and obtains a loan with person B's name. 10 months later after non-payment, Person B's knees get broken. Is this B's fault for lying with the dogs?
No.
I realize that the identies that are stolen are not from people who used credit cards. After all, this article is about identies being stolen from people who are looking for a job on monster. A non-credit card user can send in the resume.
But the supposed HARM comes only if you want to get more credit cards. The direct cost of the actual fraud will be absorbed by a merchant and/or credit card company, and spread amoung all users of the card or among all customers of that merchant. The indirect cost which you are so absorbed by, is the intense trouble someone wanting to get a new line of credit is subjected to, because the criminal happened to use their name.
To make your Soprano's analogy more correct, Person B's knees get broken only later when THEY GO TO TONY for a loan. All I'm saying, is that they knew they were going to a knee-breaker, I'm not paying the medical bills.
The direct and indirect costs of fraud in the credit card system have to be born by the users of that system. We can't all subsidize it. Otherwise, there is no incentive to make it work in a secure manner.
You need to internalize the fact that the risk of "identity theft" and loosing your comfy little spot in the consumer credit world is part of the cost of that system. You can deal with it by reducing your risk by hiding personal information; you can not deal with it; you can deal with it by saving enough that loss of the credit record won't fuck you that hard, at least not before you have time to fight back; but what you cannot do is pretend it is my problem.
Like the people who build houses in hurricane zones and demand the government subsidize their insurance because it is too high, you somehow have taken this particular cost of your actions and converted it from a cost of a particular product to some entitlement.
All I ask for is:
1) when I buy in cash I do not share the cost of the credit card system, it's fraud, and it's exploitative clearing houses.
2) when I pay my taxes I do not pay the repair bills of people who like to drive fast on icy roads, the rebuilding costs of people who like to build houses on the beach in hurricane zones, or the fraud costs of people who like to get credit for filling out a form and then whine when someone else got their credit by filling out a form.
Keep your own house clean.
----
To make your Soprano's analogy more correct, Person B's knees get broken only later when THEY GO TO TONY for a loan.
----
I take it you've never taken out a loan from a less than reputable loan shark. I assure you, fail to pay the mob money they think you owe them, and the thugs will come find you, not wait for you to request a second loan.
As it is for credit. If your reputation is tarnished, even though you do not USE credit agencies, those people who assume the records to be correct (Landlord, potential bosses, police) will punish you on the merit of the bad data.
It is your problem, everyones problem, whether you choose to participate or not. The more digital the world becomes, the more it becomes a problem.
About ten years ago, the credit reporting companies merged my credit (non-existent at the time) with my mother's (bad), because we had the same birthday and same first name (long story) and, obviously, the same last name and she died about the time I got my first job. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it forced me to learn to live without credit.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
If those were enforced, the vast mass of plastic addicted people could fuck their way into mutual bankruptcy with their enabling credit card companies WITHOUT BOTHERING ME.
Of course, you can't forget that our currency is no longer "real", ie backed by gold or chickens or whatever. The value of the dollars you possess is dervied by the potential profit realized through interest paid on government debt.
Essentially, if usury were to be outlawed tomorrow by constitutional amendment, our entire financial system would collapse.
I feel just like you do, but debt is such a foundation of our society, it can't be swept away. I choose not to participate in the debt system, but I shudder when I think about the future...
I don't read or respond to AC posts
That's why it's ok with me if my federal tax money is spent trying to catch Tony S.
/ CardsJan02.pdf
But as for the credit problem, the most harm comes to the people who keep paying money to credit agencies thinking the records are correct. Your police thing is a red herring. Landlord, potential bosses, etc, can all be cheaply advised of their mistake; some will persist and suffer the loss of your business.
You say it's everybody's problem. It will be, if there are enough people like you. After all, if 1/2 the population douses themselves with gasoline, burn treatment becomes "everybody's problem." That doesn't mean you can't stop now.
I have many friends and family members just as stupid as you are. Some use plastic because of necessity -- being a student with an unsteady source of income, for example. But many have more than enough money to live richly and save up for everything they would ever need to do, and I hear them nervously discussing the fact that if they get laid off they have only 2 months rent in the bank and nothing for food and other expenses.
If they get laid off it will be my problem too. I will pay their welfare even if I refuse to offer them my couch. I'll have to deal with it.
But I won't not blame them. They earn more than me and somehow have less than me.
I put addicts to the consumer credit world in the same boat. Hell, I would pull credit card reports on potential employees to discriminate against them -- except that I have never, ever, heard of someone who looked at a credit report and didn't find at least one thing absolutely false on it. Now you fuckers are building up a potential disaster. You know you are doing it, otherwise you wouldn't be so nervous about stories about id fraud, you wouldn't be posting in places like this.
You can choose not to fund the people who make "identity theft" possible. You can use a debit card, and take other measures to make sure your money doesn't go towards creating this weird incompetent corporate-consumer secrete database of everyone. But you throw your money in it anyway, and even have the nerve to sit here and argue AHEAD OF TIME that we should bail out your sorry, third class bailing wire and duct tape system.
It is technically possible to do much better in making electronic transactions and credit available without fraud. Just start with the debit card, for example. Why is there such a small portion of charges disputed on debit charges as opposed to credit ones ? Why can't the credit card companies do whatever the banks are doing ?
Likely they can, at some relatively minor cost to the ease and availability of credit cards. But they won't as long as people like you prefer to just cover the cost of the fraud . . . and people like you will always be more likely to stick by it as long as you get spread a little of it over to people like me.
I don't come by my viscious opposition the credit card system lightly. If you want to continue to hold your position that society owes you protection from your own choice of a bullshit way to handle money and reputation, at least read "Paying With Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing" by David Evans and Richard Schmalensee. It's an overview of the scam from someone who doesn't make ethical judgements on it, and indeed seems to approve of the "industry". (It focuses a lot on how credit cards beat their way through the chicken-or-egg problem of getting people to get credit cards when no merchants accepted them and getting merchants to accept them when no people had them.)
If you don't want to go out and buy the book (please not with a credit card) there are numerous other studies available on the web. Here's one that focuses on how non-card holders pay for it:
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/schwarm2/papers
Ultimately, credit reports will not be accurate until consumers refuse to support a heap crap like we have now. The Federal Government isn't going to help anything with regulations; they are part of the problem, busy merging more and more crap databases full of lies into bigger and bigger systems. Only you can put a stop to it, and what you have to do is not use it.
You have to face it: the credit card / credit report system is already fucked. The credit report people have no incentive to not accumulate false information, and the credit card people have no incentive to fight fraud as long you help them make me pay for it. You know that as of this minute. So sometime in the next ten years when you are trying to round up enough cash to retain a lawyer to threaten the credit agencies into actually changing a database record, remember that you made the choice to have this happen to you.
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I have many friends and family members just as stupid as you are.
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and people like you will always be more likely to stick by it as long as you get spread a little of it over to people like me.
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Now you fuckers are building up a potential disaster.
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If you want to continue to hold your position that society owes you protection from your own choice of a bullshit way to handle money and reputation,
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Your assumptions about me are incorrect -- I'm not a credit fiend or a willing patron of the system. Nor do I believe that tax money should be spent sheltering a broken system. You have assumed that, for some reason. I simply acknowlege that the system is there, and is not going away soon. Rather than rail against the system for being broken, I'd like it fixed.
In case you missed the point I was making earlier, I'm *not* calling for bailing anyone out. I'm calling for reform in the system. I'm calling for accountability on the part of the credit bureaus and, since that accountability doesn't come lightly, I'm calling for the institutions we already fund to be authorized to push forward that accountability on behalf of the victims of crime.
However, you continue making false assumptions and persist in childish name-calling. You're losing me as an audience, here. I didn't even get past "you fuckers are..." before I stopped paying attention to your response. Not the best way to make a point, dude.
1. Post early
2. Scan personal DB of Simpson's quotes
3. ???
4. Profit!!
It seems to me that all of the "better" companies with large HR divisions require a SSN for use in their HR system...many contract companies require this information before you are even submitted for a possition. When you think about it, it would probably be hard to deal with thousands of names without something like that...
It's honestly becoming more and more difficult to do anything without at least a SSN. The problem is, companies are all too often willing to give credit on a SSN and a signature...the only way to keep Identity theft from happening is to have built-in checks in the system...but this is easier said than done...
I *live* for the day when I score a job by going to a sushi bar with someone and hunkering down on sea urchin!
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Thus, when you pay in cash at a business that accepts credit cards, the cash price is still slightly higher because you are paying for an insecure form of financial transactions THAT YOU DON'T EVEN USE. now these parasites have found a new way to sensationalize a part of their costs and try to get the whole world to pay for them.
And here is where you prove yourself to be an retarded fuck. Why don't you just shop at places that don't deal with credit cards? Just because you can't find any, you complain about getting ripped off? Well, aren't you just a little self-contradicting parasite.
Surely, if you have even one iota of right to complain about getting ripped off because you choose to shop at locations you believe rip you off, everyone else has infinitely more right to complain about unregulated tyranny of credit agencies. At least everyone else is being a reasonable parasite instead of an asshole self-righteous parasite.
I used to be a libertarian, but then I realized that we live in an economy of scum bags, and you either deal with the scum bags or you starve to death. Any government action to limit the power of large corporate scum bags is A-OK in my book. You don't like it? Then go back to the state of nature and leave me alone.
Identity theft is often an inside job. So when a car salesman is closing a sale and asks for enough info to run a credit check, a consumer might logically refuse to give it, as a precaution against identify theft -- which would ruin the good credit which the salesperson is attempting to check (vicious circle).
As a thought experiment, imagine a "creditor check" the customer does in conjuction with the merchant's credit check. In the same example of buying a car, the customer might tell the car salesman "I'm sorry, I would like to buy this car from you, but you have a bad CREDITOR record. I realize it might be innacurate, but that's for you to straighten out. If you locate the customers who have made negative reports, prove to them you are innocent (or pay them what they feel they are owed) I would be glad to return and buy this car."
As a second experiment, imagine if one's crimal record was as vulnerable as one's credit record; others could commit rape or robbery, and if caught, just give the cops your name? After they jump bail, the cops round you up and make you stand trial in the perpetrator's place...oh, wait -- they use BIOMETRICS (fingerprints).
www.cgstock.com
i make a point not to make freinds with people for reasons of personal gain. i mean at all. If i find someone who is even talking to me at any point because they think that they can make money off of me, as the sole reason for talking to me, then i begin to lose interest.
The entire idea reeks to me --- and i thought *i* had trouble looking in the mirror every morning --- how is it that you can handle talking to people who very well you know that are only talking to you because they think that you can get them rich/laid/a better job? When i talk to anyone, i talk to them as a peer[or possibly a supperior or underling]--but never as someone to take advantage of. mabye that's my biggest flaw- i don't know. Sure if i had a freind, who was qualified, and needing a job, and a job to fill[pfft like that'l ever happen], i would match the two. but i would sure as hell never talk to that person again, freind or not, if they were just talking to me to get the job/girl/money/etc. this is how other people may use other people and abuse other people's trust, but not with me. i don't put up with that cr4p.
So networking gets you a job [as in, it is pragmatic] - so what? - this 'networking' is demeaning to civilized social discourse - which is much more important in any stretchoftheimagination than your own well being --- where is the trust? where is the love in your fellow man? where is that feeling that you aren't there just because you are about to be exploited by someone bigger than you? all of this is so horribly wrong. without the basic levels of serenity and peace of mind that even that level of trust can bring, you will always be afraid - and paranoid, and you should always be afraid, and paranoid-because this sort of behavior , if spread throughout enough, will cause an impact on and against you.
what a shame, that people who consider networking as a serious thing exist in the first place
i did a really poor job of showing how evil networking truly is, but i hope you readers who are there who still care got the message anyhow. i'm going to crawl back into my shell now.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I keep seeing the term "CV". What does this term mean? It seems like it is somewhere along the lines of resume, but there is some difference.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I think we should all visit and use this site to give those (depressed) dudes some help. How would you feel working there?
Never make fun of struggling people. We need to stick together and click on their ads to generate some revenue...
There are jobs at stake here!
-- Leeeter than leet
What exactly is so "real" about gold? Just because people want to possess this shiny metal its inherent worth is no greater than that of green pieces of paper that people also want to possess. (Except, of course, gold's supply is limited, granted).
:)
(Don't start lecturing me on Economics and Wizard of Oz, I know all that
Considered harmful.
I've been a victim of similar problemS and it's a real pain in the ass to have them fixed. It's SOOOO easy for a company to say "you owe us" and send "threaths" to collection agencies. Then they wash their hands. I am so mad at many companies and yet, there is no way to get mad at them. Ok, boycott their services, but what about phone company or gas or anything essencial?
I always wanted to start a business that is the opposite of credit card history and collection. To go agaisnt the companies and RATE *THEM*. That way, customers can decide which company to go for (based on hassle/disputes level).
I guess they never heard about "the customer is always right"
-- Leeeter than leet
I shop at places that don't deal in credit cards whenever possible; also, places that actually manage to get away with charging a higher fee on the credit cards always get my patronage. PCSForEveryone in Cambridge, MA used to give a 2.5% discount for anyone using cash, and cach meant a check as well as greenbacks. (They may still do that). The Albertson's grocery store chain in Texas is fighting the credit card scam, you can tell because if you go to pay with a card, it always asks you for a PIN, trying to force you into debit card mode; only after special action by the register girl does the POS box switch to credit card mode.
I am not being an asshole self-righteous parasite. Regardless of the asshole self-righteous part, I am the HOST, not the parasite, as is anyone who pays in cash.
It is a fact as you point out that you have to deal with scum bags sometimes to get by in life. But that is no reason to deal with them when you don't have to, and that is no reason to just roll over, throw your morals away, and embrace some relativist utilitarian "whatever works for me is right" crap.
CV stands for "curriculum vitae", and Dictionary.com says it's pretty much the same as a résumé, but CV can be typed with fewer keystrokes (Caps C V Caps vs. R Alt 0 2 3 3 S U M Alt 0 2 3 3).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Crap I had this great post differentiating utilitarianism from relativism but it was swallowed by the internet and I don't feel like retyping it. It would now appear that it is I who is the lazy asshole parasite. The gist of what I said was the Utilitarianism is not particularly relativist. Though utilitarian arguments are required to rely on some assumptions about people's subjective preferences in addition to objective economics and sociology, any normitive philosophy system must have some subjective component--atoms and molecules have no ethics, after all.
In any event, although I too have no credit card, I see no difference between getting "ripped off" by a merchant who pays money to a credit company and getting "ripped off" by a merchant who pays money for air conditioning I don't like. I also see no difference between your having to deal with merchants who accept credit cards and other people having to deal with credit reports.
where does one draw the line for giving out personal information in response to a classified ad?
Name, address, phone number, spam-proofed (or at least filtered) email address. That's it. Nothing past that in something that's going out via the 'net.
Potential employer (or identity thief) wants more than that, I'll be (more) willing to give it out in person. Not over the phone, fax, carrier pigeon...
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
What exactly is so "real" about gold? Just because people want to possess this shiny metal its inherent worth is no greater than that of green pieces of paper that people also want to possess. (Except, of course, gold's supply is limited, granted).
You answered your own question. The relative scarcity of gold, combined with its resistance to corrosion and resulting long life, and its aesthetic qualities make it an ideal currency.
I don't particularly care what the currency is, but it either must be scarce and virtually impossible to forge, or it must be actually useful (like chickens).
The reason a piece of paper is a poor currency is because it can be instantly created, making it worthless over time. This is in fact what happens.
This is obviously a huge debate, but as you can see, the term "real" is quite applicabale. Paper is not a real currency because anyone can make it.
I don't believe people should have the hard earned fruits of their labor devalued. Whether by companies screwing the shareholders byt issuing more stock "awards" to their executives, or the government secretly taxing the people by inflating the currency, or a thief counterfeiting money.
Its all wrong. Gold is our best solution to this problem, at least until that can be easily created.
Of course, in time, money will be useless. I am not sure if that enlightened age will come, but it will.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Go ahead. Steal my identity. You'll have to pay me to give the damn thing back to me. Hah!