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Can You Sue Over Loss of Personal Information?
GreenCrackBaby asks: "My wife was at a mall about a year ago when she ran across one of those groups who were trying to sign people up for a Visa credit card. Since she didn't yet have a credit card, she decided she'd fill out the form. She had everything filled out and was ready to sign it when she noticed the draconian fine print that essentially promised that they would sell her personal data to anyone they could, so instead of signing the form she said 'no thanks' and tossed it in the garbage. That was a mistake she has been made to regret. Almost immediately SPAM to her university email address went from 0 to 20 a day, and has been slowly increasing since. Soon we started to receive a large number of telemarketing calls to our home (where before we had received almost none). Junk mail addressed to her went through the roof. It wasn't until the Visa card arrived addressed to her that we knew what had happened." It appears that someone fished this woman's application out of the garbage and submitted this anyways, without a signature. How is something like this even close to being legal?
"What has become clear is that someone selling those Visas fished her application out from the garbage and submitted it. We've managed to track down a copy of the form she had filled out, and in the signature area is a big 'N/A'. So now her personal information is being sold to every telemarketer, spammer, and junk mail shop in North America. What can she do? We'd like to sue the company who fished the application from the garbage and make a lesson out of them, but what is there to sue over? Is the loss of personal information even considered a tort?"
ASK A LAWYER :)
:)
Now watch that get amrked redundant
As soon as your wife threw the application in the trash, she made it public knowledge. She is lucky that all you are recieving is the spam.
Just for life time suffering from spam....
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
While she was at it, she should have signed a bunch of blank cheques and power of attorney forms and just threw them away.
Why didn't she rip up the application? Or write void on it? Atleast then she could go back and say 'I didn't sign anything, prove it'
I feel sorry for you.
I live in Australia here and a few years back, someone at a Magazine Subscriptions Department got hold of my Dads credit card number and used it. My Dad eventually went to court over it and only uses his credit card upfront now. If anyone needs to mail-order something, do it by cheque.
This is why we have paper shredders.
I am in no way a lawyer, but isn't forging (or in this case continuing action with a required signature) considered fraud? Sort of like slamming?
If it isn't illegal, which I can't fathom, it certainly should be.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
is probably not legal. Like somebody else pointed out, fishing information out of trashbins is legal. Actually, try it once with the trash of your neigbours and be surprised at what you can find out about them...
Plain and simple. Regarding her due diligence in protecting her personal information, no action can be taken in regard to disemination of the informatin on the page she 'carelessly' threw in the trash. At least that's what my legal sense tells me (IANAL)
But the submittal of the form for a credit-card is another matter. It indicates someone forged her signature (even if the signature doesn't look anything like your wife's sig) and submitted the form, or someone accepted the form without a signature. Both could lead people in serious trouble with the law.
I am the Barber of Seville.
that these information collectors seem to go through people's garbage for such stuff.
I wonder if this can be even remotely profitable.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Why do you think businesses like paper shredders?
Why do groups go dumpster diving?
Never throw out paper that has information on you that you do not want to get out. Plus tearing up the form would have felt good at the time. It is not legal because the form needed a signature. The company should have the form stored you might be able to request it as evidence in a suit but you need to talk to lawyer.
I think importantly people need to look at what happened here and realise, do not trust the law to protect you, in most cases the law needs to be broken before it can be used, and the deterents in this case are small compared to the profit. So protect yourselve with the best practices that you can. Don't throw out paper information unless you have torn it up, burnt it or shredded or are safe with it being found at the tip, dump, skip, bin, etc.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
And somehow this whole sorry business becomes a piece of news.
She didn't sign the form, thus there was no consent, thus there was no contract. So it's not legal.
Unfortunately you may have trouble doing anything about it at this point. Remember back when credit card slips used little pieces of carbon paper? I remember some customers demanding the carbons to carry home with them, or asking me to rip them up before discarding. And that was just a name attached to a number. Your wife probably left her SSN, address, phone number, etc. on that form.
IANAL but your first priority is to get a credit report and see if a card has been issued in your wife's name. Second, get ahold of this company (by the neck) and demand that your wife's name comes out of the files.
It appears that someone fished this woman's application out of the garbage and submitted this anyways, without a signature
That person was most likely the person who was trying to get her to sign up in the first place. They recieve a commission for each application, sometimes up to 50$ a piece. And since the application was submitted through them without an authorized signature, it's called Fraud. That's criminal. People have filed civil suits for less though. Give it a try.
The most important lesson here is that she probably had her social security number on that form, and should have taken it home with her instead of leaving her personal information in a public place. Someone with whose agenda wasn't limited to making a few extra bucks could have used the info to steal her identity.
However, this does bring to mind some things people should do to protect themselves from information fraud:
- Shred or finely tear any documents with personal information. If it's a mailing, shred the envelope and any advertising with it as well.
- Never purchase from a telemarketer, a TV commercial, or online stores. Telemarketing firms like to share information, and hire some pretty colorful people.
- Put as little information on your check as possible (name only is best, or name and address).
- Only use your credit card for paying bills.
- Get a P.O. box.
- Don't rent cars or purchase cell phones.
This is just a shortlist of information I've been told; basically, one has to be vigilant but also realize that much of this is beyond your control.Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Or it could be that some other factor, like you buying a DNS registration, happened about the same time.
The only other alternative is to believe that some minimum wage-slave who spends all day pestering people with clipboards nefariously dug her info out of the trash, forged her signature, and submitted it against her will. I seriously doubt one of those flunkies is industrious enough to go through all that effort. After all, if they wanted to be dishonest to pad their completion stats, they could just make up fake people all day and submit forms on their behalf.
Do a credit check, and see if somebody submitted a request for a VISA card against her will. If not, don't jump to conclusions. That way lies paranoid delusions of grandeur.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
but the criminal is probably the one that filled the rest of it and mailed it.
however, you might just be screwed, most likely they don't have any means to retrieve the information and mark it as "don't use this anymore". but look at it brightly, at least she got her visa? i wouldn't really have been surprised if they had just sent her some adverts to places where she could apply for one.. however if you do by some freak accident find out who sent the form then sue/report to officials/ask for investigation from police to get her/him ass in court and ass pounding(symbolic at least).
however, the real lesson might be: "NEVER THROW AWAY PAPERS WITH YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION! NEVER THROW AWAY PAPERS THAT SOMEBODY MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY EVEN BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE JUST LOST!"(and thus end up submitting for you thinking they're doing a favor)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
She should spend a lot of money on the credit card and not pay it back. If anyone asks she should tell them she never signed the credit agreement and is not responsible for repaying it.
That will start at least some sort of internal investigation into how a card was issued without her signiture on the form.
Couple that with a complaint to the card issuer (Visa, Mastercard, etc) that her information was passed on to other people will result in some sort of action against the company that was signing people up.
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
He DID obtain a copy of the form she partially filled out, with N/A in the signature. I'd say that's a pretty good sign somebody submitted the request against her will.
There's nothing wrong with fishing it out of the garbage, that's generally ruled to be private property, but the lack of a signature might have some merit...
And don't accept credit card applications from strangers in malls. And if you do, for goodness sake, don't put down an email address that you use for personal mail.
Charge up the card to it's limit, and refuse to pay. They stole from you, now steal from them.
Is it possible that they are paid a very low wage per hour (like other salespeople in the US) and then paid a bonus for each victim they ensare?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
go after something like mental abuse from the spam + junk mail + telemarketers, malicious misrepresentation on the part of the signing-uping company, etc.
I think in practice there is a huge difference between illegal and enforceable. Of this is illegal but how is this particular thing enforced?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
This would be a matter of Identity Theaft and Misrepresentation without conscent. I think the more interesting thing to consider is that since there is a credit card involved, this could constitute as wire fruad. That is a much more serious offense than the other two.
I would have to assume that if there is a disclaimer that Visa can sell the information, there would have to be a disclaimer saying they are not liable for the information's use once it is sold. However, if the actual volume is coming in like it is, an easier route would be harrassment class action suits against benefitting parties. Their information was gained illegally, and they are liable for that. So both Visa and the Spam companies could get burned bad, if this is pressed. The person who took the application could be held responsible as well, since they accepted and processed an application without proper verification of identity.
The fact that the person got a credit card is inconsequential, or that no one else took the information is just lucky. It would have been pretty easy to just copy it to a new application and change the address.
rtfs (note the more gentle 'lower case').
the signature was a big N/A.
People in the Uk trying to encourage you to switch power and water companies got caught doing this a lot a few years back. Basically, when the utilities were privatised, every company in Britain had people knocking on doors asking people if they wanted to change companies.
They'd made the switching procedure simple, so that an address and signature was enough, and the people selling door-to-door (who got nothing except signing bonuses before we had a minimum wage here) just forged a huge number of signatures. The first anyone knew about it was when their bills started coming from a different company.
I think everyone got a slap on the wrist from Trading Standards, but no-one was actually prosecuted for what were clearly totally illegal acts.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Europe's "Data Protection" directive & the corresponding national laws make this illegal under criminal law.
The company could be fined, and the directors could go to jail.
Then again, in the UK companies used to be required to provide a "please don't sell my personal data" check box ("opt-out"). I'm not sure whether this is still legal, or whether the European law has tightened this so it has to be a "please *DO* sell my personal data" check box ("opt-in"). So she would have been able to apply without getting spam.
#include "disclaimer/IANAL.h"
They used a signature on the application. It just happened to not be hers. It's not like they had a copy of her signature available to verify with. She's lucky that the card was send to their address and not someone elses.
But yeah, ask a lawyer. If her signature was forage (assuming they really needed a signature) then the application should still be on file. Otherwise it's your word against there.
You can sue anyone over anything, but that doesn't mean you'll win.
Just get even with the spammers by "helping" them to spread their message. Post a link to the site of spammers on a site like slashdot and make the cost of $0.00000000001 per spam message spike as their servers melt and their ISPs freak out due to the bandwidth requirements. Thats what I did :)
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
you need to fill out a form with all your personal
information including SSN; and I will take great
care of you.
Visa application form:
name joe dow
mail adresse : P.O.BOX 01
phone: have none
email-addresse: have none
mobile phone: have none
etc.
easy! get it right the first time!
Find out who the company was that was pushing the cards. Find out where they're currently pushing cards in a public place like the mall. Go there and start telling everyone who takes an application what they did to you(which was criminal) and not to trust them for that reason. They will get really aggrivated at you and assault you. Kick their asses in self defense. Then sue them for assault and battery. You were just exercising your right to inform you fellow citizens about companies with unethical business practices.
Anyone with acces to the computer and the account could have applied. Nobody could prove it was actually you're wife who signed up.
So this is very doubtfull
She should have closed the internetexplorer window without pushing any button on it. Probably (depends on the level of the webmaster), no information would get trough.(disconnect the power cord comes to my mind as a alternative) Pushing the button did actually sent the information.
They have done something wrong but to what level it would be hard to find out, if someone faked your signature that would be fraud, if was just someone being dumb and processing the form anyway that would probably be something for industry watchdogs rather than the courts. However there was something done wrong/dishonestly
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
One day my brother got a credit card in the mail. And lots of spam and calls too. Unlike the article above however, he never had any contact with these people. He has no idea how it happened. He called the credit card company and they claimed they had a signed copy of the agreement. He asked them to fax it to him. They refused, but did 'cancel' the credit card. Spam and phone calls still come though.
Stuff like this makes you doubt the quality of our judgment when we put high tech into hands of the masses. Like handing a gun to a baby.
"I find this whole tale a bit hard to believe."
Always a doubter, one in every crowd.
"Spammers have no trouble trolling the web for millions of addresses - why would they buy them from a credit card company?"
They don't buy them from THE credit card company they buy them from the information collector. Addresses off of credit card applications are especially useful and valuable to spammers for the following reasons.
1) The are most likely real AND their personal email addresses as opposed to generic spam dump boxes at hotmail or yahoo. Do you trust electronic credit card correspondance to hotmail or your own email provider of choice? Remeber people filling out authoritative forms are more likely to be truthfull.
2) The spammer knows that the applicant has a credit card and the recipients credit history AND likely income bracket. But it gets better because the spammer also knows the applicants gender, age, location, phone number, and marital status etc.
In short these addresses and the information behind them are infinitely more valuable than a generic address fished off a webpage and spammers will pay money for them and them sell them to every other company that will pay for them to recoup their purchase costs.
"And why would anyone include their email address on a credit card application in the first place?"
Many of these companies collect as much information as possible on their forms because said information makes them more money. See above.
"And why would they bother fishing it out of the garbage?"
Reps signing people up get paid by comission the money can vary from $25-200 dollars per application. Would you go into the trash in a public resepticle for say $50? No. Can you be sure that no one else would? Remeber some people make their living off of signups like these although turnover is high.
"And why would they issue a card without her signature?"
The rep likely forged the signature which could be as simple as scribling lines across the signature lines for the money.
"And why would someone so concerned about the loss of her personal information throw the application away right next to the potential thieves?"
Because they were so caught up in the moment of saving their personal information from said potential theives. Also the bin could have been a good 50 feet away but in line of sight.
"And why would someone who gets 1/10 of the spam I get have anything to complain about at all?"
Would you like it if I added another quotient of spam and junkmail to your addresses? Please just post all your financials and address essentials in a reply below and I am certain you will get all your quotient and the grief and MORE. Act now this is a limited time offer.
"Considering the complete lack of non-hearsay evidence, whether it's actionable doesn't matter. You couldn't win anyway."
Fraud is fraud better to try than take it in the teeth without action or complaint.
pngmeep
Get away with submitting unsigned applications for all sorts of services. They get away with it because they bring in loads of business to service providers.
I used to work for a UK life assurance co. and several sales reps used to get unsigned applications submitted and then forge the signatures. Although their commission was docked when the application failed to proceed it docked less than what was initially paid and their case count remained high.
This was done with the management looking the other way, as they got paid on the case count and income earnt by the reps but management bonuses were not docked for cases failing to proceed.
I was thinking the same thing as I was reading it.
I think that the author has made a bad connection here. Somthing ELSE that was done in a similar timeframe is causing the SPAM.
I'm not a lawyer either, but if the trash can is inside the mall wouldn't the trash be considered mall property and not public property? One, I would definitely talk to a lawyer and two, teach the other half not to toss private information "to the wind"!
is what u guys need in the States, without it you have no pivacy so get over it. (cf Scott Mcneally's comments on the subject).
throw personal data at the garbage. You wife should have kept the form and destroyed it...
how long until
Some of the aspects of this story sound legally questionable. For example, a credit card company's acceptance of an unsigned credit card application, in general. But also, since there was no signature, your wife (although extremely careless and naive for throwing her personal information in a public trash can) never consented to the "fine print" which was the ostensible hook for the company to distribute her info to spammers, telemarketers, other vermin. True, if someone fished her info out of the trash and used it for spamming, she might not have much of a remedy - although some states have put anti-spamming laws into effect, they typically only give a remedy against the spammer, and they make themselves hard to find and identify - who do you sue? But it sounds, from your account, like you can prove the unsigned application was actually submitted to VISA, and may be able to prove that VISA sold her info to the pond scum with knowledge that she had not consented. If that were so, you might have some kind of remedy against VISA or the bank that issued the VISA. If you are in a jurisdiction like California which has a privacy right incorporated in its state constitution, your position might be even stronger.
I would recommend consulting a lawyer who is licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. If you don't know a lawyer, try contacting law schools in your area or your State Bar Association to ask if there are any referral services they would recommend to look at a case of potential privacy violation. This is better than picking up the phone book at random.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
Buy a paper shreader and don't recycle the paper. It appears to me even easier to dive through a recycled paper lot than spagheto-top ramen ridddled shreaded paper.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
This article is only two paragraphs long (no link to another article) but it looks like you haven't taken the time to read it. The second paragraph says: "We've managed to track down a copy of the form she had filled out, and in the signature area is a big 'N/A'." So if they managed to get a copy of the form, then it must have been fished out of the garbage.
Regarding the e-mail spam, I don't think that the author of the story or his wife have much to complain about. 20 per day is a relatively low amount, and the e-mail address could have been found via other sources than the credit card application. On the other hand, I can easily understand their frustration about the telemarketers and the junk mail (the dead tree version). It is a well-known fact that many companies (such as the credit card issuer in this case) sell their lists of addresses to other companies. So although the e-mail spam could have been caused by something else, I can easily believe that the junk mail and the annoying telemarketers could be traced back to that credit card application.
-Raphaël
I would be willing to bet that the little detail omitted is that she actually did sign the contract before noticing the fine print and tossing it in the trash. It's sad that the people would sink so low as to fish it out, but that would be entirely legal if it did in fact have her signature on it.
At least I'd believe that over a credit card marketing company risking MAJOR lawsuit (forgery, fraud).
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It might seem amazing, but i did suffer from the same problem when i subscribed to Time's "3 free issues promotion". Even though i live abroad (Greece) i started received tremendous amounts of junk snail mail.
:/
For example join the US lottery or even apply for a green card and stuff like that.
Fortunately, i did not fill in my email address so thats pretty clean (apart from the usual horny teen emails that arrive in my inbox everyday).
And i really cant see how the US lottery's generic bulk junk mail qualifies as a 'Time valued partner' or a 'special offer' that they claimed on the form.
The real issue here is that i had checked the "check if you do not want us to share your address" box on the form. Obviously they did. I never wrote back to 'cancel' my free subscription but my father told me the same thing happens with Newsweek some times.
go figure
The quick way out (assuming that nobody has used the credit card - use would serve as "ratification" of the contract for the card) is to demand a copy of the signed credit aplication from the card issuer. If the application for the card had a signature that was not that of the woman reported here then all this arises from a forged signature on an application for credit.
The forgery might well require the testimony of a questioned documents examiner, but the forger is liable for damages.
The legal matter is fairly easy to understand: the woman decided not to accept or agree to the terms of the contract and no contract was made. Thereafther the actor or actors who made use of the incomplete contract started violating the law.
We don't know where this happened, but California has a state constitution that includes a right to privacy. If the jurisdiction where this happened has a similar statutory right (there are unfair trade practice statutes as well as identity theft statutes) there may me other forms of relief available.
... and make a few bucks, you mean.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Here's what I would do ...
- Order a 3 in 1 credit report and check if fraudulent accounts have been opened in her name.
- Put a credit alert on her SSN with all 3 credit reporting agencies, make it that much harder for fraudulent accounts to appear on this account.
- Sign up for one of those services that notify you whenever there is any change to your credit file. (I use Credit Secure from Amex).
And please people, if you dont shred personal information before you toss it into the garbage, there is no sense it complaining about unethical businesses. Hell, I even shred credit card offers that come in the mail that I did not fill out, call me paranoid.Well, my 2c worth.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
... is an IDIOT. always make sure that such info is properly destroyed.
here in Slovakia, we have a LAW that protects your personal information from beeing abused. .. has to have their information system registered with authorities .. .. meaning the physical as well as digital security of the database has to be granted.
..
every entity that proceses personal info has to have your written permission to do it and the permission also has to state exactly what you alow to do with your personal info.
..
processing of personal information is also collecting it.
..
every entity that proceses special categories of personal info
..
every entity that processes personal info also has to have a security project
...
the law is about 1 year old
..
the penalties for abuse are very high
--
i wonder if you have something simmilar in the USA
..
just my 2 SKK [slovak crown]
Why have you left it so long to persue this? If anything I think this will hurt your case, as it affects the tracability of the events. Good luck to you is all I can say.
...isn't even worth what you pay for it. (Yeah, it's free of financial charge. And it's worthless. So one might think it'd be worth exactly what you pay. But you're also probably investing time reading all the responses to your request for info, and as long as the value of your time is higher than zero, that makes this a negative-sum proposition.)
Lots of people have said ask a lawyer. Yeah, do that, if you know any lawyers who aren't already so sick of giving you free legal advice that they got caller ID specifically for the purpose of ensuring that you always go to voice mail. Alternatively, if this is so massively annoying that you're willing to pay for legal advice, do that.
Whether free or paid for, the _best_ news you can expect to get is that even if this is a tort of some kind (IANAL and I'm making no claims one way or the other...merely stating a hypothetical), it will cost more to sue than the aggravation you're enduring could POSSIBLY be worth.
Change phone numbers (consider going with one of the VoIP providers...that's how I got rid of a phone number that used to belong to a fax machine). Get a Mail Boxes Etc box, use that as your primary mailing address, and throw away anything sent to where you actually live. Get your email address changed (or, if you can't, abandon it in favor of a new one). And next time be a bit more careful about throwing away personal data in public wastebaskets while standing a few feet away from people whose own fine-print tells you in no uncertain terms that they have no intention of respecting your privacy.
These are annoying things to have to do, but you don't need a lawyer to tell you they'll be a lot easier and a lot cheaper than filing a lawsuit, even if it turns out that you have credible grounds for one.
Your last sentence sums it up. Even if he wasn't just drawing ridiculous conclusions, there is no way he could present this rather tenuous connection in a court and expect to win anything.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
That's idiotic to throw an application that's filled out in the trash, especially in a mall. Once it's in the trash, you've essentially given up all rights to it. Let this be a lesson to her.
It sounds quite legal. My company recently ordered corporate cards for us all. We were not asked at all and basically received the plastic card [after credit checks] witha request to activate it.
After some grumbling I went ahead and did this. Turns out that it is legal to send people credit cards to be used, the activation is their sign of assent. If you just ignore it it's like throwing the spam away.
This may just be for corporate cards or some kind of special setup though. This is in the US.
I may be simplifying, but you mention a Mall - so I'm guessing you may be American.
If that is the case you may sue.
I've learnt from reading the news that American's can sue over whatever they like.
Winning may be a different story... can you prove she didn't sign it? I guess you'd need to get somebody to compare her signature to that which was used to open the account.
Finding the original slip is probably not possible - so it comes down to their word against yours.
As if someone would fish out something from your wife's garbage. It sounds more like this guy's wife had credit refused and is a readers digest subscriber.
hehe maybe you should read it also. It said that it went from zero to twenty a day almost immediately. It has been growing ever since. If it is growing exponentially like mine has been over the last seven years then I can imagine that they get a great deal more than twenty a day now. I do agree with your point though. Their email can be retrieved from many places. And someone fool enough to fill a credit card application out at a mall is likely to be fool enough to use their email address at every website they come across on the Internet.
Princeton Student Sued Over Paper on CD Copying
Reuters
Thursday, October 9, 2003; 6:07 PM
By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Three days after a Princeton graduate student posted a paper on his Web site detailing how to defeat the copy-protection software on a new music CD by pressing a single computer key, the maker of the software said on Thursday it would sue him.
In a statement, SunnComm Technologies Inc. said it would sue Alex Halderman over the paper, which said SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be blocked by holding down the "Shift" key on a computer keyboard as a CD using the software was inserted into a disc drive.
"SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology," it said.
SunnComm, which trades on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, said it has lost more than $10 million of its market value since Halderman published his report.
The software was used on a CD, Anthony Hamilton's "Comin' From Where I'm From," released last month. Halderman, who has done research in the past on other CD protection technologies, said the software could also be disabled by stopping a driver the software loads on the computer when the CD is played.
SunnComm alleged Halderman violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in disclosing the existence of those driver files.
Halderman -- who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton earlier this year and is now pursuing a doctorate in computer science with an emphasis on computer security -- said he had not yet heard directly from SunnComm in regards to litigation but was unconcerned.
"I'm still not very worried about litigation under the DMCA, I don't think there's any case," he told Reuters. "I don't think telling people to press the 'Shift' key is a violation of the DMCA."
A spokesman for BMG, the unit of Bertelsmann AG that licensed SunnComm's software and released the Hamilton CD, declined to comment on the planned suit.
The music industry, claiming a sharp decline in CD sales is the result of digital piracy through online file-sharing services, has worked to develop methods to secure music on discs and restrict its copying.
Halderman's graduate advisor at Princeton is Ed Felten, a computer science professor who once sued the Recording Industry Association of America in a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA.
The RIAA had threatened action under the DMCA against Felten and colleagues after they said they would publish a paper disclosing flaws in an industry security initiative. That suit was eventually dismissed.
idiot. why would she have just tossed that kind of info in the trash. Why didn't she take it home and shred and/or burn it. Your lucky all your getting is spam and telemarketers.
Get a FREE Sony PS3
Use the VISA card to pay a lawyer to sue the crap out of them, then sue them some more when they try and collect the money.
Actually, scratch that, it rewards lawyers. Just use the VISA card to buy yourself some nice things, then tell them to go screw themselves.
Greedy, unscrupulous behaviour cuts both ways. Why should VISA get to have all the fun?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Well, not exactly the same thing, but here's what happened:
Same scenario, I applied for a credit card at one of those folding table operations where they have some crappy t-shirt or something that they'll give you for filling out applications. Anyhow, I needed a card, so I filled out an application for one of the three cards that this table was offering. They pushed me and asked that I apply for all 3 but I declined, saying that I only wanted one card, and didn't need three.
I went on my way and a couple of weeks later, I get all 3 of the cards in the mail. This pissed me off more than a little, as I am sure that there must be more than one law against falsifying financial documents.
I placed calls to the customer service numbers at the two cards that I had not applied for and told them my story. In both cases I was fed a line about the applications being un-trackable.
Now, this may or may not have been true, but the real information that I took away from the experience is that the companies didn't care about this kind of behavior. Disappointing, but you have to look at the angle - how will caring about this make them any money?
The people that run these tables are paid per application. If they are not made accountable for this kind of thing, why wouldn't they do it?
So good luck, but personally I'd just get a good spam filter and be glad that it was just false submission of your data and not identity theft or something like that.
+++ ATH0 +++
You stated that she did not sign the form. If that is so, they used her information illegaly. If I am not mistaken, they keep records of all the applications. Like most banks they scan checks and everything else and keep it for future reference. If they are doing what they are supposed to then they need to call up that record and prove that she did sign the paper. If they cannont prove that she did sign the paper then they are liable for any and all resulting damages. You have damages now because: 1) Fear of identity theft by VISA 2) Expens of going to a new ISP due to the spam. This is serious due to needing to keep the former account for 3 or more months after getting the new account to verify any and all legit. email has been redirected to your new account. 3) Cost of having to get a new mailbox. 4) Recycling costs of all the junk mail in your mailbox. etc etc etc They need to keep the records, I'm sure they do, and if they say it was by phone call then they have that recorded. ~ryan
First off, I'm sorry to hear about what happened, that really sux. I hope it all works out for you guys in the end, and that you don't pay a too heavy price for any lessons learnt.
Secondly, I guess it all depends really on where this all happened. However, I'm sure that if you live in the USA, you'll be able to sue anyone for anything. Everyone else seems to, no matter how vaild or frivolous their case is. However, since you appear not to be a multi national, capitalist corporation with an Army of lawyers that only cares about your bottom line at any cost... you'll probably lose. Still stand up for what you believe is right, and do your best to make a difference.
At least that's the impression I get of the 'brightest shining beacon of freedom in the world' or what ever it was that George Bush said.
Now mod me down... Truth hurts.
---
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
Is it legal, Yes, no or maybe.. Is there anything you can do about it no... You have no proof that any specific person did anything. You say you threw it into the trash, They say you threw it in the in box. Consider it a lesson learned and thank consider yourself lucky that the CC went to you and not to someone else useing your wifes information. Cancel the card and get on with your life.
And way over the mod's heads, apparently. You should keep this for future P2P topics, or would you mind if I did?
US Lottery? I didn't think there was such a thing. I'm only aware of state (or sometimes regional) lotteries.
What then of your personal data? Would you still say with your best NYC accent that the victim got what they deserved for giving personal data to a business that willfully and knowingly used insecure technology which cannot be improved for years to come? Especially when more secure options are known and well-documented?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Let me begin by saying that what took place is sickening, but, some of the blame falls on you! In retrospect, you must now realize that it would have been better to tear it up into as many small shreds as possible, throw it in the trash, and if possible, spit numerous times on the shreds. In the alternative, it would have been better to find the mall's bathroom area, tear it up, and flush it down the toilet. And no, I'm not some paranoid loser, but really, merely tossing it in the garbage was a mistake. The law generally regards items thrown in the trash as being abandoned property. So it wasn't per se "illegal" for someone else to fish the application out of the garbage. However, using the application as though it had been legitimately submitted arguably constitutes fraud. When you see a lawyer, or when you decide to file suite yourself, be sure to include that as a count. No matter what, file a lawsuit. Too many intelligent people get caught up wondering whether it's something that can be sued for or not. Guess what? Anyone can file a lawsuit. I can sign off, and decide that I'd like to sue my next door neighbor, or the CEO of a company, or whoever I wish to sue. It doesn't mean that my suit will have any merit, or that it won't end up being dismissed, but it will force the other party (in your case the company that did this to you) to show up and mount a defense. You may even be able to reach a settlement of some kind with the company before you even have a hearing date. Clearly, in your case, there is some merit to what you're suing over. Don't be afraid, and don't let anger and frustration cloud your judgment. Be levelheaded and think in the long term. Three to six months from now, if you're methodical, you can ensure that others are made aware of this company, and that they've been put through the legal grinder for their actions. Best of luck to you!
-- Swirl Hurling http://www.shareit123.com
I am not a lawyer, but have worked at home depot tool rental for over 4 years. In that time you get to know ins and outs of the law when you talk about contracts. We have 2 pages on our contracts, the first talking about what you are renting and such, the second ALL the fine print. If you sign and try to screw us over, well we have many ways to go. BUT if the contract is not signed properly, OR the customer somehow removes the signed contract from tool rental, they really do not have to pay because we do not have a signature proving there consent for the tool. I have eve been called t trial 2 times, and well both times the first thing that happens is the judge wants to verify the signature on the contract and id of the customer (or at this point banned customer).
So by law up here, you could actually use out the credit card, then call them up and say "HEY I did not sign up for a card, you have NO signature, blow me". And it may cause you issues, and be a pain in the ass, but they would have no way of. Making you pay for it.
so if the laws regarding contracts are some what the same in the states, you do have some sort of case, but I well tell you now, you well never get the name removed form all the spamers and such. It's just never going to happen.
"... when with intent to defraud [a person] knowingly makes, alters, or possesses any writing in a fictitious name or in such manner that the writing as made or altered purports to have been made by another person, at another time, with different provisions, or by authority of one who did not give such authority and utters or delivers such writing."
Come on - you take detailed personal records, fold the paper, and put it in a publicly accessible and open bin in a crowded public area when you *know* that people who want that information are watching you. Random bypassers could get this piece of paper by *accident* for christs sakes.
And you want to sue *them* ?
I am terribly sorry to be cynical about this, but what did you expect? Honesty and ethics? From someone who is paid solely by the amount of personal data they succeed in gathering? It may not even be those people - it could be a couple of kids skipping classes, pulling an easy prank. Sign the slip "Santaclaus" in bad longhand and mail the form.
It may be legal and it may not be, I don't know and I don't care - but you could just as well have taken that paper slip, xeroxed it in half a gazillion copies and have it air-dropped over your country's major cities.
It was a folded piece of paper in a very publicly accessible place, now get over it please.
Can You Sue Over Loss of Personal Information?
Yes - You can also sue for using the shift key.
In America, you can sue anyone for anything.
Software Wars
There is a green card lottery held every year. If I recall, 60,000 green cards are issues that way yearly.
In europe you are ALWAYS the owner of your personal information. The Holder and the Responcible (some legal stuff i guess) have to remove you if you ask for it, If they don't they risk a hefty fine.
;-)
In the netherlands you have to register every database containing personal (conecteble to an individual) information.
Beats the 'trustbased' (sic) system (and makes for some extra government jobs
... tear the damn thing up into little pieces next time. Throw half of it away in one garbage can, the other half in a different one. That's what we do with all of those damn pre-approved credit card apps we get daily.
There you go, Problem solved, your welcome.
Take care,
Brian
--
http://www.assortedinternet.com
It might not be a complete waste of time if they live in a state with an anti-SPAM law. Just name the CC company as a co-defendant on your next spam lawsuit... After all, they are involved in the enterprise of sending illegal e-mail messages. If they don't employ the people who harvested your info, you can probably settle the spam lawsuit with them in exchange for info on the company that sold them her "application."
Then you can start using THAT company as your co-defendant in your spam lawsuits... And then you can use their co-defendant status to subpeona their business records to find out who they sold her info to, and sue all those companies too.
20 messages per day
x $500 per message
-------
Damages that add up quickly.
Or she could just close the e-mail box and start using another one... Although if it is her private business address (used for her onlinebanking, bill pay, stuff like that) it would be a pain in the ass.... But if she really hates spam, it might be worth her time.
Who did what now?
One day I got one of those myriad of credit card applications.
I did the following: wrote, in large black marker across the application, "DO NOT SEND ME MORE OFFERS". Nothing else. Crossed out the entire application.
A few weeks later, I get the credit card in the mail.
I asked them for a copy of my application; but all I got was a printout of the database record, which had the same information (name, address) that was there on the original application.
Even without my signature, they accepted the application and sent me the credit card.
There's _got_ to be some law against this.
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"
Charles Dickens,
Bleak House Chapter I
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Erm, not to be a doubting Thomas, but what makes you think that any of this story is true? I was inclined to follow along until I read that they "managed to get ahold of a copy of her application and the signature line just had N/A," or words to that effect. That, on top of everything else, makes me wonder about the whole thing...
in my case, a credit card was isued to me (while I wasin college) without me even signing up for one!
The only way I found out about the card (which had been sent to my old college address, where I no longer was) was went I went to get a car loan and they asked about a maxed out credit card.
It took a lawyer and a lot of time and effort (mostly on the lawyers part) to clear that mess up, but it impacted me greatly during the process.
There was talk of a lawsuit, but the lawyer advised against it (he wasn't toally positive we would win...there was some kind of loophole involving the post office who delivered the card to a stranger and that they could be held liable as well....ever try to sue the post office?)
As others have mentioned, you're going ot need a lawyer to clean up this mess, unfortunately.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
For being so dumb that she applied for a credit card in a mall.
What are you going to sue for? Taking advantage of an idiot?
Your wife did something rather silly, and some scum-sucking salesman looking for a $50 commission took advantage of her lapse in judgement.
Instead of making an ass out of yourselves and the wasting the courts time with a lawsuit, maybe you should close the account (assuming that you called them before activating it) and ask to be removed from marketing lists.
You haven't suffered any damages other than receiving spam -- which may have nothing to do with this incident.
Consider yourself lucky that your wife's cavalier attitude towards her personal data didn't result in a real identity theft case.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The person who pointed out that the folks handing out applications were probably getting a commission are probably right on the money. The other day a bank teller VERY enthusiastically tried to talk me into seeing a demo of their online banking service. I declined. She reacted as if I'd refused her a favor. Yesterday I got a phone call: "now that you have seen a demonstration of our online banking service..." I have no doubt she marked me down and got XYZ dollars.
Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
The short of the matter is that they have probably pulled a copy of your wifes credit bureau report in order to issue the card. Since she did not sign the application, which they would have had to have forged, she did not give consent to have her credit report pulled.
Reference the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) 15 U.S.C. 1681. In particular reference 604 Permissible purposes of consumer reports [15 U.S.C. 1681b]. They have used the report in a manner not permissable.
The crux of the matter is that you may sue them for violating the FCRA. Reference 616 Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. 1681n]. Since they forged her signature, they have wilfully broken this law.
You can also nail their ass with this:
This is why it's okay for your garbage to be searched without a warrant - the minute you throw something away, you've just made it public property. That she didn't sign the form can be a point of contention - but her information was essentially offered to the world and anyone willing to root through the garbage. She doesn't have a foot to stand on legally. Change your email address, change your phone number, get on that federal anti-telemarketer list and excersize a bit of paranoia next time you've the urge to freely give away your personal information. And...did she happen to write her SSN on that application? And throw it away? Classic case of identity theft just waiting to happen. C'mon guys - WE'RE the ones facilitating the loss of our privacy more than any gubmint activity. Use some brains here...
Your first mistake is to assume that it is a major bank that issued the credit card. If you open a check cashing store or a pawn shop, you can become a creditcard issuer. Heck, your church could probably do it. Second, there is no such thing as privacy. You can attempt to control access to and the open knowledge of your personal information. To do that, you have to only do business with companies that will agree to play by rules that are aceptable to you. In this cas, she forgot to check the rules before she start to "play their game". Since the mall trols used the system against her, she should use the system against them. As it painfully obvious in the news that people can sue others over things they have no rights to and often times win. Lesson learned: Go to your bank or Credit Union if you want a credit card.
I think there must have been a mix-up at the incinerator, because instead of burning up my application, they sent it in for me! Soon, I got the credit card in the mail. So I put that in the garbage too. And unbelievable! I got it back in the mail. The Europeans sure know how to recycle.
This isn't paranoia. It's not about some vast government conspiracy, it's not about aliens, it's not about anything unlikely. It's about a very, very common crime. Thousands of individuals make their livings this way, and if you get hit it takes years to put your life back together. Sometimes it's impossible to convince some companies that you're not the one pulling a trick on them, inventing an identitiy theft to cover your own misdeeds.
Calling this paranoia is like calling someone who tucks a little extra money into their heel in New York paranoid. It isn't that you're going to get mugged every time you step out in the street, or even that you'll ever get mugged living there for years. It's that if you are in the middle of Manhattan at night with no cash and no ID after a mugging, you're fucked. It's going to be a long, unpleasant night of trying to get home. It does happen.
There is much more to it than that, but I don't want this to be TOO much of a blatant advertisement..
In a situation like this, you could simply call your attorney and they could give you real legal advice and coud even help you out without it costing you anything other than your monthly membership...
p.s. IANAL
It's also illegal for someone to steal your car that you left running with the door open and your stereo playing "steal this car" over and over again. The real question is why she wouldn't tear it up before throwing it out, or go home and shred it.
She's damn lucky that someone didn't scratch out her address and put one of their choosing on the application before handing it in. She basically handed anyone who wanted it an instant credit fraud application.
-- Fratz, human
That's before we even go anywhere near the Data Protection issues...
One would THINK you'd be correct in this case, but I'm not so sure. I've been fighting something similar for well over a year now, with very little success.
A (now defunct) credit card company, NextCard, issued my wife a VISA card via the Internet, based on some spam email she got that basically said "You have a pre-approved card waiting for you, if you just click this link to visit our web site and tell us where to mail it."
She did so (never actually signing anything), and got the card. She proceeded to charge it up, and then ended up getting sick and lost her job. The card went unpaid, and shortly after that, NextCard went belly-up. Some credit ageny must have been appointed to do collections for them anyway though (by the FDIC, I guess?).
Well, the agency conveniently changed the records to show that *I* applied for this credit card myself, and started going after me, personally, for the debt. I argued that this card was never legally signed for in the first place, and challenged them to show me a copy of ANY form they had on file showing what either my signature or my wife's signature looked like. (Someone said they'd mail me a copy of the application form so I could see where it was signed - but of course, nothing ever arrived.)
Well, to make this long story a little shorter - this still stands as a bad mark on my credit history, and every so often, someone calls trying to collect this debt. (It seems this debt is being passed around from one collection agency to another. The last people calling to collect it couldn't even tell me which card it was for. They kept mentioning some other bank I never heard of that I supposedly owed it to. I assume it's some bank that bought out NextCard...)
I refuse to pay this off, on principle, at this point. (Even if I did, I highly doubt they'd ever get things straight, paperwork-wise, to make sure it was taken off my credit report.)
I always put down a fake e-mail address if its a required field. There's no need for Credit Card Companies to be e-mailing me. I use e-mail for personal communication, very rarely for business transactions like credit card stuff. Usually, if its mailed, there's a record / trace / provable dating. E-mail is a whole lot less official.
I feel really bad for the ed@yahoo.com account holder. he must get 100 spam messages a minute.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
well, i dont have the papers with me atm, but im sure it was a 'scratch the number and see if you win in our lottery system'. Pretty useless as well when it says 'offer only open to US citizens'.
An example. Some dipstick friends of mine thought it would be funny to sign me up for an opt-in mailing list for a local concert venue.
Since it was opt-in, I was shot an email telling me how to respond if I wanted to join. (This was a Yahoo group by the way.) If you aren't interested, don't respond, if you are interested, do respond, blah, blah. At no point did I initiate contact with Yahoo.
Also, I have several email accounts (including a hotmail account at the time) which I used for ALL (EVERY) email correspondents outside of work. No one, no where, no how had my work email address. It received 0 (zero) peices of spam per day, week,, month, year. (And had been so for a couple of years.)
2 weeks later, SPAM started to arrive. It was from "semi legitimate" retailers, but it was SPAM none the less, and only one company outside my work had my email address now.... Yahoo.
So, to make a long story short(er), I fired off a series of hateful assed emails to Yahoo, which first lead to run around and denial, and later lead to no further contact... but the SPAM stopped too.
So keep in mind, those privacy policies seem to only apply if you AGREE to their service. Otherwise all bets are off.
There seems to be a lot of inkling that this is fraud. That may not be entirely correct. It is not fraud, in this case, unless the SPAM and telemarketing were part of the contract, which they were not. Had she signed the contract, I am sure she would have been equally repulsed by the SPAM and telemarketing she is subjected to. Not having signed is not a defense. They release of contact information is a consequence of entering the application, a side effect of her release of privacy, guaranteed by her writing and not her signature, and not a binding contractual issue upon which she may have fraudulent cause for remedy.
It is not fraudulent to telemarket or spam a known address. Having not signed up for the VISA does not preclude that they did not discover her phone number of email address, and cannot use it. Had a friend said the information out loud in public, it would have been as readily available, and equally exploitable. Were she to file a tortious action, she would need a district that recognized privacy rights as actionable causes, and recognize that filling out the form, without taking due care to dispose of it separately from a potential user of said information, is a case for privacy protection.
If she could prove some value was lost or damage ascertained, as if the SPAM or telemarketing were analogous a credit card charge or other harm, then she might have an action on grounds of negligent harm if she signed the agreement, notwithstanding the contract agreement. However, in the absence of an agreement, it may be more difficult insofar as she most prove the intentional infliction of harm as a result of the actions of the people who fetched her information. The onus is upon her to show that it was indeed their actions that led to the harm, and that there was some degree of harm, though the latter need not be exact if the harm were intentional. This may not be easy to prove.
Indeed, as an example, in Canada, there was a fellow going around with a 'toe camera' with the full intent, and historic pattern, of photographing up the skirts of women. Sadly, there is no criminal or tortious action which may be brought against the fellow (unless the victim is readily identifiable and hence defamed in public photos, which is a different case).
Not to be discouraging, but the immorality of the act in your case may not preclude the ease of proving any illegality. Though the law certainly intends to ease your ailment, it is not so well armed in this particular case.
Of course, your best action is to find a lawyer who has some history in this type of suit. Best of luck!
I accidentally paid two of my bills one month without signing the checks. They were processed anyway.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
In my country (France), there's a law protecting your personnal data even if you've made them public.
3 /countries/france.htm
This law from 1978 says that you have a right to access, modify and delete any information concerning yourself, in any file or database of any company, organization, or individual.
If that access is denied, then you can sue the database owner.
I have even seen people suing the company I work for (a bank), because they found out there were unpleasant comments about them in our databases. And they won.
http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr200
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
Because it *might* not have been the application that gave her away...
When I was a Junior in college, I was suddenly bombarded with credit card applications (mail), soon followed by telemarketing. It appears that my college sold information to a credit card company, which then sold my data to someone else, etc etc etc.
Without any real "proof" of who actually sold the data to whom, it will be difficult to prosecute anyone. Can you subpoena the companies in question to determine the source? Or is that information considered "private"? (how ironic would that be?)
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Sorry, but you are wrong. True few slashdotters are lawyers, and those that are have to be very careful about responding (if they do). However the advice is still valuable. Some will be wrong tracks, but all should be understoon and considered. You can pay a lawyer to do the work, or you can do some yourself and ask leading questions that can bring a better result for you. Laywers do not know and understand all of the law - nobody can do that. They can argue in court, and understand some specific areas of the law. If there is something that might apply from an area of the law they don't deal with very often, they will not use it, to your hurt. It is much more likely that 1 of 1000 slashdotters will know about that area, and be able to help.
It isn't worth a lawyers time to presue all the dead ends. It can be worth yours, if only for the education you get doing it. Of course you need to be careful not to waste your time.
Under every sane legislation it must be a crime. Anywhere they can get away with such behaviour should be considered as third world banana republik.
CU
What I am starting to find very tiresome is that we have multiple companies useing the same logo to deceive people. Visa is known for this. You see the logo and beleive that you are dealing with Visa only to find out that this is a seperate company owned by a bank or something.
When they sell you something they hide behind the logo. When something goes wrong they hide behind the incorporation. All should be held accountable.
Sue Visa for the loss or sue Visa for the false advertising, they can't claim they were not involved they issued a card....
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
If the origional slip cannot be found, it is your word against theirs, which is in your favor. They have to prove there is an agreement. I get enough pre-filled out forms in the mail to know that all the personal data needed to get me a credit card is out there. And her claim is stronger "Yes I filled out the form, I in good faith intended to sign it and get the card until I noticed some fine print I did not agree with, so I didn't sign it." They now have to prove she signed it, or there is no agreement.
Fraud, Identity theft, and illegal actions by the "sign-up crew."
Personally, I'd sue; but I have a lot of free time...
Use it!
:)
She never signed anything agreeing to the terms, but they extended her the credit anyway. Max that puppy out! And when the bill comes, call them up and tell them you'd like them to remove you from their mailing list.
You never signed anything. Free money!
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
> RUN UP THE BILL!!! You have no contractual obligation to pay them anything.
This is patently false, and following this advice could easily land you in jail for fraud. Because you didn't sign the form, you don't owe them anything for sending you the card, but if you use it, you are promising to conform to the cardholder agreement. If you claim after the fact that it's not valid because you never signed the form, you won't be held legally liable for the debt by the credit card company. The catch is that you presented the card to whoever you bought stuff from as a valid account, which it wasn't (and they can prove you did it on purpose because you know the cardholder contract isn't valid), thereby committing fraud for personal financial gain. Go directly to jail, and end up paying the merchant for the stuff directly anyway.
I say again, ignore this advice. It's criminal.
Virg
> As soon as your wife threw the application in the trash, she made it public knowledge.
Irrelevant point. By your logic, I could Google someone's particulars and file a credit card application on their behalf, without their knowledge or permission. The information does not become public knowledge in the legal sense when she throws it away, only that it's no longer protected by her Fourth Amendment rights. This does not give any private entity any right to distribute that information, and it most certainly does not give them the right to enter her into legal contracts using it.
Virg
I can't believe you're trying to abridge this company's right to free speech!!!
tone
Here are several possible uses:
(1) Open your door when you forgot your key and locked yourself out.
(2) cut it just right and amaze your friends how quickly you can go through your latest VISA card!
(3) Frame it in all the junk mail you recieved.
(4) Use it to pull out at the bar, tell stories, bore your friends and even strangers!
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
New Hampshire's Supreme Court just ruled a couple weeks ago that information in the garbage is off limits. However, according to a 1988 US Supreme Court ruling anything in the garbage is not private because it is unreasonable for people to expect their trash to remain private, given that "plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public." So, unless you live in NH, you're probably screwed.
Along the same lines of frustrating stupid 'big-bank' behavior:
I've sent bills through the mail two weeks ahead with a check dated the day the payment is due with the idea that I've sent it, so I don't have to remember to mail it later, and they'll hold on to it and process it on the due date because the bank won't honor it before then.
Well, guess what. The bank just goes ahead an pays it immediately, anyway! Hell, I don't even think they need a valid signature! I've toyed with the idea of just sending a blank one (completely blank - no sig, no amount, no payee: nothing) to see what would happen, but I'm too chicken to play roulette with my own money.
(Of course, the problem is that a bank or processing department that handles hundreds of thousands of checks and payments per day can't possibly be expected to pay for human staff to read each and every individual one, so their boilerplate policy and procedures automate everything to ensure that everything gets processed as what it should be, no exceptions. I hate that. The reason I have a bank in the first place is so that I can manage exceptions. It's not just impersonal, it's insulting. Luddism, HERE I COME!)
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
its not Visa - its the issuer of the Visa Card (There IS a difference). Banks/Institutions pay to use the visa name, and they are the ones they should go after in this case
Sounds like the same advice you'd give someone having an affair...
I dug up this article about how to get results when you've run through the normal support channels and have been blown off. Basic summary: Shoot for the top and expect to be pushed aside, hopefully to someone who is still very high up and capable of kicking ass and taking names.
Last but not least:
file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau
file a complaint with your state's Attorney General
take them to small claims court
You could file complaints with the postmaster general, but they only take action after receiving large volumes of complaints.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Okay, okay, it happened in a mall, not over P2P. But hey, she got benefit out of it! She got publicity! I hasten to rehash all the old file sharing arguments in order, just go visit one of the other articles!
***sigh***
Thus says my wife.
Anyone have any suggestions on how I can make her see the light on BOTH sides of this issue? Ummm.... Hold on a sec, I'm not sure what my side is any more.
On the applications you get in the mail, there is a phone number you can call that will give you the option of opting out of receiving any marketing materials, credit card applications, etc. This is linked to all three credit reporting agencies, which is where a lot of these places get your information to send you stuff.
When you call the phone number, you have the option of opting out for 2 years or permanently. The permanent option means they have to send you something to sign that you then return. This process takes about 6 weeks to take effect, but it works. I opted both myself and my husband out and we don't get any more of those stupid credit card offers any more.
As to the credit card, most of the ones I've seen, even renewals, you have to call and activate. So cut it up and throw it away. And don't throw away your personal information in public - invest in a shredder! :-)
I would say it was your wife's fault, so do not waste time on lawsuit.
All such documents must be teared/shredded crossed to make them unusable. I suppose you don't leave you root password on a sticker rigth to your enterprise server, and blame everything on hackers right ?
My two cents, always mark with a Z unused spaces in any applications and other documents too and request a copy of application for yourself. Also check that sum of any deal is written not only in digits , but also in text. Otherwise you can soon find that your 10$ has become 10010$ e.t.c.
I'm a bit late on my own story, and it's too bad since it seems to general concensus is "she shouldn't have thrown that personal information in the garbage." Obviously she realises this now, but I was hoping for advice on how to go after the company who did this.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
> She should spend a lot of money on the credit card and not pay it back. If anyone asks she should tell them she never signed the credit agreement and is not responsible for repaying it.
This is fraud, and it's very illegal. Everyone is saying that she's not legally responsible for charges run up on the card, and there's a legal case that she doesn't have to repay the card issuer, since she didn't agree to receive the card. How does that excuse (for example) the debt to the store for the purchase of the TV, though? If she presented the card for payment, and knew when she did it that the card isn't valid, she defrauded the store, and will be held legally liable, no matter what happens with the credit card company. That will land her in prison, and she'll still owe the store for the TV.
This is criminal advice. Please ignore any comments saying you can run up the balance of the card with impunity.
Virg
Before CDC, credit card companies used to send cards to anyone, being it requested or not, and all you needed was to unlock the card. With the new law, this kind of behaviour is not tolerated anymore.
Our Ministerio da Justica (kinda DoJ) have a division of consumer protection (in portuguese).
If you can read this, thank an english teacher.
Call Equifax at 1-800-685-1111 and file a complaint with them. Tell them your wife did not sign the form, and that you want the account closed.
Then take it all to a good lawyer and go to town.
-jls
Techno-pagan
Visa runs the credit card network, the individual cards and accounts are issued by banks (or other companies like big retailers), so there's nothing deceiptful going on. I would have thought the lawyers advice could be much shorter and simpler:
1) Sue everybody that you can identify along the chain: the person who took the application, the bank that issued the card, Visa, any spammers you can identify, etc.
2) The most readily identifiable, and juiciest targets are of course the issuing bank and Visa. With the work of a good attorney, they should be willing to settle for an amount that will make everyone happy.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I lost my number, can I have yours?
In fact, I have a friend whose wife went out and got a card without his knowledge, she proceded to charge it up, and then divorced him. The bank went after the husband, and he eneded up having to declare bankruptcy. It sucks, but it's true. The borrower is the lenders slave.
What your wife did is called "stealing", whether she actually signed anything or not. Face it, you got free stuff that you didn't pay for. Yeah, the credit companies may be shady with their putting your name on it and whatnot, but that doesn't make what your wife did right. You owe them the money, and I hope your credit stays fucked, dumbass.
... companies can only use information for the purpose they stated when they collected it. So if their forms say it's not going to be sold off, or is just for statistical purposes, they can be sued for misuse of private information.
:( (not to mention the fact that our laws only apply to companies based here in Australia)
Of course, proving they sold your email address to those spamming assholes is pretty hard. Proof once again that even the best of laws is easily beaten by those who want to
However, I've put myself on a few email lists, and never have gotten spam to my university account
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
1) The credit card company is not liable for anything. They just processed the application.
2) You'll never be able to prove who picked the application out of the trash.
Let it go. Be more careful in the future.
End of story.
A (now defunct) credit card company, NextCard, issued my wife a VISA card via the Internet, based on some spam email she got that basically said "You have a pre-approved card waiting for you, if you just click this link to visit our web site and tell us where to mail it."
Look inside your wife's head to see if the filament has broken.
If you can prove that these telemarketers and spammers are contacting you because they bought your information from the CC company or bank OR that they bought it from someone else that bought it from the CC company, then you may have a case.
You won't win because someone used public information or got your application out of the trash BUT because your wife never signed the contract, the company that submitted the application could be liable. The CC company will then also be liable if there was no signature.
Your wife never signed the agreement so if they sold her informaiton based on the application, they are liable. You know that at least someone is liable for the credit card being issued since your wife didn't sign the contract. But good luck trying to prove they sold your data.
- keith
-- Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?
IANAL...
So she through the credit card application away. Was it in a public trash can? Was the credit card application actually processed as a credit application?
If she threw it away in a public trash can, then the piece of paper becomes public domain. If the credit application was not processed, then I don't think that they "technically" did anything wrong. It may be despicable, but legally, I don't know that there is anything you can do.
The good news is, that you can be particually protected by a certain group of peers. Ones that can bring companies to thier knees. Remember the spammer that bought the something like $3 million house? How quickly was his address found? How quickly was he being harrassed by the friendly slashdotters.
Tell us the company name. Web site if you have it. All the information you can about them. And I am sure that if slashdot pulled together again we could harass the living hell out of them, and teach them a lesson on business etiqutte.
Never argue with an idiot. They will just bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Unfortunately, once you throw it in the bin anybody has a right to it. Underhanded, yes. Illegal? Sorry, no. Your wife should have ripped up the form, not tossed it whole in the trash.
Don't contribute to the lawsuit nonsense... suck it up and live with your mistake.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Let me remind everybody about one little thing. Once you throw things out, like put them out in a trash can on the street, those things become a public good. It means that anybody who wishes to go through your garbage and get something out of it can do it without breaking any laws. I have started shredding most of my paper long time ago, and now I am careful about what I do on a regular basis. As for the guy in the article, there are a couple of things that you can do.
First of all, get a credit report and make sure that everything is okay. Secondly, you should call 1-888-5OPTOUT (as far as I remember). That is a number you call if you do not want any credit reporting agency to release the information about yourself. Currently, if you call them they will stop four major credit report companies from selling your information either for 2 years or permanently. You should see a decrease in junk email from credit card companies, banks, etc. Then put a sticker on your mailbox that says "No Junk Mail Please." A similar thing happened to me and after performing all these steps I am relatively clean of junk in my mailbox. Inbox is a totally different story.
I read through some other posts, andwas pointed to this:
:)
It wasn't until the Visa card arrived addressed to her that we knew what had happened.
Sorry, but I didn't notice that the first time I read the article. I would have to say that in this case, yes, they were legally not entitled to submit her credit application. Had they merely taken the contact information and sold it, I believe that they would have been legally ok, but now... well, I think you need a lawyer because you will probablly be getting a pretty nice settlment from them.
Oh, but still tell us what company it was that marketed the credit card.
Never argue with an idiot. They will just bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
> Charge up the card to it's limit, and refuse to pay. They stole from you, now steal from them.
What a stupid comment.
Yeah, I think we'll see you on the Darwin Awards page someday...
I'm confident the application was, in fact, submitted with a signature. It is now up to you to prove that it wasn't you that signed it. This business model assumes it is not worth it to you to actually prosecute. And if you do sue and win, the unemployed scum that signed your name, if you can find him, won't be worth anything anyway. It will require big money to sue the company on the grounds that they knew their people forge signatures ... and have very little chance of winning.
... which is why they setup the system this way.
How much time and money are you willing to invest in litigation, and what would you actually "win" if you prevail? The ONLY winners would be the lawyers
I see four problems that would need to be addressed seperatly depending on what you would want to do.
1. Some group/organisation had a deal with the credit card company to collect these applications in exchange for something. IE, they did not do this for free. So, they made money on the submission of your information for processing. Their agreement with the Credit Card company most likly prohibited this action also without consent of the individual. That being said there is a possible action here by both the CC company aginst those who collected the information and by the persons who's information was submitted without authorization. This issue really has nothing at all to do with the app being easily accessable in the trash because you could not just collect information from public sourcees and submit it for such an activity.
2. Theft of Privacy/Information. There are two sides to this fence and I am not sure where trash in a mall or other similar facility would fall. At my house, my trash is my private property and no one is allowed to mess with it up until I take it out to the curb at which point it becomes public property and is accessable by the trash department and anyone else who wants it. In the case of a mall, I would think that the same would apply in that once the application was deposited in the trash can it became the property of the mall and thus that company was stealing from the mall. This could be altered if the trash can was owned by the orginization collection the applications however. This whole topic is a little grey.
3. Running of Credit Check - This is where you would be able to get the credit card company. They ran your credit history without your permission. They had no signature on which to do so. This is damaging to your credit history and people do and have been successful in such lawsuite to get the inquiries removed and to collect damages in the process.
4. Sale of Private Information - Banking laws are very strict on what you can and can not do with customer information . If the bank was the one who sold the information of a customer without that customers concent (hard to do when they sould not be a customer in the first place) they are violating all kinds of laws. I work in a Pawn Shop and we have to obey the same privacy laws the banks do. We are even regulated by the same orginisation so I have seen the regs.
That all being said I believe you have a cause of action aginst the group that collected the information for profitting from the unauthorized sale of your information. I can also see where you would have a cause of action aginst the Credit Card company for pulling your credit report / damage to your credit history without your permission and also for the sale of your personal information for profit.
Let me end all that by saying that I am not a lawyer and all information I stated is based only on my opion and interoration of the laws.
Hope this helps.
Doug
How can you sue for loss of personal information? It looks like your wife just threw it away and someone found it for her.
If she didn't sign it then the credit card company should not have processed it. There are rules, they probably violated them (unless your wife really did sign it and made up this story when you yelled at her). I don't think there is much you can do other than call the credit card company and tell them it was a fraud app and to put you on their do not call list.
'Same speed C but faster'
It sounds like you need some basic debt validation. Check out this link (the rest of the site contains some very useful information too):b t_valid ation.shtml
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/rebuild/de
Basically, debt validation is just what the name says - validating a debt. The debt holder has to provide proof of acceptance of a contract (usually a piece of paper with your signature on it) or they can't legally pursue the debt. This procedure worked perfectly on a fraudulent student loan that was on my record (not that I'm not weaseling out of anything - I'm still paying on the one on which I agreed to pay - I wish I could let myself get out of it that easily).
funny munging
Step 1: Cut up the card and throw it away.
Step 2: Call the credit card company and cancel the account with them, and be sure to inform them of what happened. File a complaint with them, and with luck they'll track down who slammed you and get back their money. Be sure to say something like "because this was done to me, I'm never going to get a credit card from you out of principle."
Step 3: Contact the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint. All of those complaints get followed up on, and even if nothing happens, you've created a paper trail that might, someday, help someone else take them out.
Step 4: Join the rest of us in sitting back and enjoying the spam until our gov't makes it all illegal, because there's about squat you can do to stop it.
On what principle? that your a cheap son of a bitch?
Your wife ran up charges on the card, and now she owes money. How hard is that to comprehend? Its people like you that should be removed from society.
What you do is you take the form away with you and shred it into itty-bitty pieces. If they don't like it you tear it up right in front of them. Paranoid? Sure, but if you'd seen the number of dumpster-divers that go through our alley in any given day you'd be paranoid too! I wouldn't trust ANYONE to not use the info on the form even if I wrote VOID on it, especially if they had stated up front that they were harvesting info. Sure it might give you a legal lever to apply but who wants the hassle?
I don't even like tossing ATM receipts in the garbage...they come home and get run through the (confetti cut) shredder.
You're using her as bait, Master!
..they put a legal dislcaimer at the bottom ;)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
> Sure now go lookup precedence this is free money.
No, it's not free money, it's fraud on her part. They issued her a card under false pretenses. That makes the card invalid. If she takes the card that she knows is invalid, and presents it to a merchant for goods or services (and I'll assume she won't bother to inform the merchant that she knows the card is invalid), she's committed fraud for personal financial gain against that merchant. Whether she has to pay the credit card company back is irrelevant, and the card company will respond to her comment about not signing the agreement by reversing the charges to the merchant. Then, she'll be criminally liable for fraud, and legally liable (to the merchant directly) for repayment.
Dipshit.
Virg
I understand your pain, your got screwed over something stupid. Should you have shredded it? Yes. Should you have had to? No. Do I like my computer every single time I go to get a coke out of the fridge? No. Am I stupid for not trust people in my house? Perhaps. Anyways... check to see for fee's on that credit card (IE: Call them, check the number on the back of the credit card). Here you have two options. You can ask for a manager. If you decide to go this route, as soon as a human hits the phone tell them you want to speak to a manager and they cannot deal with you, don't give them a chance to say a word until they say over you "Yes sir/man, I will get a manager". Be unreasonable or you will lose this situation. Do not threaten or curse at any time. When I manager gets on the phone, tell them what happened. (IE: That you were at the mall, wanted the card, read the fine printer, threw it away, the m0nk3ys picked it up and forged your sig.) Demand that something happen to this person and that your credit card be cancelled (or make a deal such that no fees are applied at all). OR If the credit card has no fees (or you negotiated this from the manager in the previous paragraph) keep the account open and cut the credit card. Having that credit open, but not used will help your credit rating. For example, getting auto loans, personal loans, etc. Heck, it's not a bad idea to use it occassionally to up your score, but I would suggest only doing so if you have the cash to send away quickly, waiting for the grace period to end ant sending it at the last minute is a Bad Idea (TM). Following this method could help your score, and in the future get you a chance at a better credit card that won't screw you (oxymoron anyone?) or perhaps one that screws you less.
"Do or do not. There is no try." -- Master Yoda (Half man, half muppet)
Sure, the card wasn't sent to you at your request, but the first time you signed off on a reciept, you legally bound yourself to pay it off. IANAL, but I will point out that every CC slip you sign is a mini-contract to pay off the amount "According to the terms of the card issuer" - look at your signed reciept, it will have a little 1-sentence contract on it. Of course, if you were smart and only used it at no-sign places like gas pumps and McD's, then you might have a case; but if the CC company can pull up reciepts signed by you for all your purchases, you're screwed. I hope you bought your house and cars already, outstanding unpaid debt is MURDER on your credit (trust me..)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
IANAL
That beig said, there are three important questions you'll have to answer for yourself before you can really proceed. If you go after these people, what do you want out of it? How much time do you want to invest in this? Finally, how much are you willing to spend to get there?
The most important thing to consider before moving forward with this is: How much are you willing to spend in order to feel vindicated (or accomplish whatever it is that you've set out to do)? This company probably has significantly greater resources than you to fight this, and in the end, you'll be lucky to get a settlement that will cover your legal fees. I'm not sure how these things work as far as a lawyer taking cases on a contingency -- but I'd be willing to bet that stuff like that tends to happen with the more lucrative personal injury cases. Work out a strict budget -- maybe this whole thing can be settled by paying $100 for a lawyer to write a cease-and-desist letter. Maybe you'll need to subpeona the companies they sent your name to and contact them. Maybe you want an apology, and the employees responsible for submitting your trashed application fired, as well as some cash for your trouble.
The reasoning here is that you can draw up a pretty direct correlation between what you want, the amount of money you'll have to invest, and the amount of time you'll have to spend on this.
Good luck -- I suggest that you go after them. If not for your own gains (which will likely be nil when all is said and done), do it to stop this from happenning to the next person.
-Turkey
Contact a lawyer for any civil damages. Contact your state Attorney General. If the AG won't do anything, contact your local FBI office.
;)
And once things settle down a bit regarding your civil suit, you might (if permitted by settlement terms) tip off your local TV news's investigative reporter, because they will *eat this stuff for breakfast* and report on these people's impropriety by dinnertime.
You're aware that writing post-dated checks is a criminal offense, right? It is literally illegal, although almost nobody gets charged with the offense. If you're post-dating checks under the assumption that the bank won't honor it until the date, don't. At best, they'll just process it anyway, and at worst, the company that you sent the check to can charge you with fraud. The fraud charge won't stick, but it's a stepping stone to charging you with writing post-dated checks.
Virg
Anyway, the problem I had was that in order to sue the credit card company, I had to prove I was wronged and that was hard to do because their mistake had not cost me any money (legal expenses don't count unless there is a criminal statute involved).
From my experience, the best thing to do is to try to call the credit card company and get them to cancel the card and remove your name from their telemarketing lists. If they do not cooperate, get a lawyer to write them a letter on your behalf quoting any consumer protection law that applies. This will probably cost you a few hundred dollars, but usually it will scare the credit card company into doing the right thing.
If that doesn't work, then you have a lawyer to give you any further advice.
Also, remember that Law != Logic. Just because you are right, do not expect that you will win (easily, at least).
> I would say it was your wife's fault, so do not waste time on lawsuit.
If his wife dropped her checkbook, and a thief then wrote a check against the account to steal money, you're saying that her carelessness is to blame and the thief shouldn't be prosecuted? Her carelessness does not excuse illegal behavior on anyone else's part. She should proceed with seeking legal recourse.
Virg
I wonder how much "identity theft" happens (or is reported) as a way to sell these additional "credit watch" services.
Notice how "freecreditreport.com" signs you up for a $70/yr service? Oh, you can cancel it within 30 days, but they know that you've done that trick before.
I'm not sure that a lawsuit is your best option, although a lawyer could advise there. My advice would be to find the name of the company who pulled the application out of the trash. Couple that with the company that owns the credit card (maybe the same company). Then, place a few calls to the local TV stations, radio stations and newspapers to see if anybody is interested in the story. If anybody bites, you have free advertising against the perpetrators. Before doing this, however, you might still want to seek the advice of a lawyer so as to prevent being slapped with a slander suit.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
> No it isn't. It's still illegal, but easy to lie about. ("It wasn't me, I never wrote that information. Someone was impersonating me.")
Yes, my statement is correct. The original comment was that she would have no contractual obligation for the debt, and I stated that that's not true. Using fraud (using a known-invalid card) and then perjury (when questioned, she'd lie about using the card) does not excuse the obligation for repayment. She may get out of paying the bill, but getting out of a contract by committing two felonies doesn't nullify the contract.
Virg
I thought information wanted to be free. This is just information, set it free!
is an idiot. does she have nice tits though?
What is your point? That people shouldn't do business with digital information? Or the incredibly obvious point that nobody here can actually do anything about: Companies sometimes cheat their customers out of their privacy rights through laziness?
You could probably try and find out (if you do sue) how much they make selling info per person ...
Not only that, but how much the application-sender-in gets per application. They would do this during the pretrial phase of discovery/interrogatories.
IANALY, but am in law school. In Torts we learned something which likely applies here. The credit card company (CCC) will, of course, claim that the guy who fished the application out of the trash and sent it in was acting contrary to policy (thus the CCC will claim no responsibility). If the reward for an approval is indeed $50 this is very strong evidence that, while the CCC officially had a policy against submission of info without consent, they actually were encouraging it. To the extent that submitting info against the consumer's will is illegal, they will likely be held liable if the reward is high.
...circumstantial evidence. Why not blame that new restaurant you ate at, or the fact that you wore a new pair of socks without washing them first?
While it's certainly *likely* that the credit card application was somehow responsible, you're going to have a very hard time *proving* that it was. And that's as it should be, even if it is really irritating. It may just be coincidence that your email got published in some new 5,000,000,000 e-mail CD about the same time that your phone number got traded (by your cable company? Existing credit card? Next door neighbor?) to some huge telemarketing list.
While a sudden upswing in spam and telemarketing is certainly irritating, the world would be a mess if you had legal recourse based on such circumstantial evidence. Heck, the credit card comapny could sue *you*, saying that their fraud rate jumped 10% the day your wife filled out the application, so there must be some connection. Fortunately, things don't work that way.
Besides, if you were getting 0 spams a day for a while and are now getting 20, you've got nothing to complain about -- you're one of the lucky ones.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Maybe You're New Here, or you weren't paying attention the numerous times this has been gone over, or you've just read too much mainstream news.
Copyright Infringement != Theft.
Say it again, and pay attention this time.
Copyright Infringement != Theft.
Copyright infringement is a civil tort. Theft is a criminal offense. They're very, very different. No matter what some asshat from the RIAA or MPAA says.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Technically, it's 'fraud'. Not 'stealing'. Close, though.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I am a paranoid person.
When someone asks for my name or address, I usually decline, when I have a form/receipt/etc that has my name on it I rip it up into small pieces. Garbage cans are public property (police can obtain your DNA from cigarette butts, soda cans, etc that you throw away; yes I watch a lot of court TV)
I look at credit card receipts that the merchant has and if my CC number is listed I blackout parts of it (there is no need for them to have num CC number, they have transaction #).
If I get a call from telemarketer, I say no thanks and just hang up before they say anything else. If someone calls and starts a sales pitch I ask whom are they looking for, if they do not know exact name I just hang up.
All important papers get shredded and thrown out in the same bag as catbox litter.
There are people who prey on others out there, who will sift through your garbage and try to get info about you. Identity theft is very real.
WARNING: Refusing to sign receipts may result in denial of purchase! Businesses that provide merchandise or services in anticipation of payment (restaurants, for example) may choose to notify a law enforcement agancy.
...you can feed'em information, but you can't make'em think
B) When the bill comes, say, "What credit card? I never signed up for a credit card."
C) Enjoy your new geek toys.
I had something similar happen to me. A couple of bullies at University (yes, really) smashed some of my stuff, made a movie, and sent it to everyone in my name. When I corrected my contact information, I ended up getting a spam rampup from 0 (really) to over 1500 a day. I was also contacted by various agencies to buy stuff. (Some, like the Jehova's Witnesses, know that they're othen used for pranks and leave you alone. :(
I don't have a fireplace, so it's not like I got free kindling, either.
Sadly, there's nothing that can be done. While I know - trust me, I know - she feels violated, there's nothing she can do but put filters on her email and move on. For physical junk mail, put a note on your mailbox saying, "No junk mail." A lot of postal services will stop delivering. If that doesn't work, tell the senders that she's dead or left you with no forwarding address.
If she's concerned about indentity theft, she could consider getting a flag put on her credit report that forces people to call her. I don't know how it works; I heard another slashdotter mention it once in passing.
My Mastercard company was pretty good at getting my junk mail stopped. I told them that if I got any more from them or their associates, I'd cancel my card. Now the only junk mail I get is from the World Wildlife Federation. (I bought a Polar Bear as a gag present for my brother.)
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
The US Supreme Court recently ruled that personal information is "an article of commerce," which means that it is property and can be stolen. It's also found a right to privacy in the Constitution. But there are few if any laws penalizing people for stealing it (mainly due to pressure from large corporations). You can probably sue the company that was paying people to solicit credit card applications for fraud, but it's unlikely that you can win by suing for theft of personal information.
I've always been curious why I'm not required to sign the receipt when I use my credit card if the purchase is below a certain dollar value (I've heard $10, but I don't know). This often happens at fast food places and the like. How can they do that without my signature? The first time I realized it happened I read the agreement they didn't require me to sign and it was a traditional "I agree to pay the above amount...". So if I didn't sign it, do I have to pay it?
Fine, so it's 'public knowledge'. As soon as someone else used that information and submitted it, I would consider that Identity Theft.
It's not identity theft until they claim to be her and run up a bill for her. If they just sent her a credit card and are waiting for her to run up a bill (and thus accept their contract), tough luck.
As to selling her information meanwhile - she threw it in the trash intact. If she'd shredded it or torn it up until the pieces were no longer readable without playing jigsaw-puzzle, she'd have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Since she put it in the trash intact, she gave her information to anybody who cares to recycle it, for whatever (legal) purposes they chose. Unless her jurisdiction has a specific opt-in requirement for spam email, tough luck.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why didn't she rip the form up or take it with her? DUH.....
As soon as your wife threw the application in the trash, she made it public knowledge.
You have got to be kidding. Although the only truly safe way of disposing of paper-base dinformation is to physically destroy the paper, I still count stuff thrown in the garbage as not-public. Especially anything I've placed in my own trash!
Then according to the US law you are not a "reasonable person". B-)
The FBI case referred to in a previous post in this thread basically said that a "reasonable person" has no expectation of privacy if they dump a document in the trash intact, but they do have such an expectation if they shred it - even if they use a simple shredder, rather than a crosscut, pulping the paper, or burning it.
This was significant in that case because it defines what the cops can use as evidence. If they can fish it out intact it's fair game. If they have to reassemble it, it's not. (I think they can use a reassembly if they had a warrant for whatever that particular piece contained before they collected it. But IANAL, and I only saw a media report of the decision in question.)
So by dumping it in the trash intact she made her information public. As you are doing every time you dump a document in your trash and set it on the curb for pickup.
Buy a shredder. They're cheap.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
you dropped it in A PUBLIC TRASH BIN for god's sakes...The courts have repeatedly held that even YOUR OWN GARBAGE on the curb is publically accessible. While low and evil it is legal and your wife was just silly, sorry.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
That slashdotters generaly give the oppinion that lawyers are evil and shouldn't exist, yet when somebody has been wronged, they always give the advice to go find a lawyer?
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
frag the stupid one u have currently.
ICBWSHTKTTPTIANAL
(I can't believe we still have to keep telling these people that I am not a lawyer.)
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
Check your wifes credit report. Look to see if someone has done a hard check on, if that person appears to be this bank then you have your self a lawsuit.
If they did that they ran a credit report without a permissible purpose and are in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and owe you a $1000 civil penalty.
Most states will let you bring action in small claims courts under Federal law. Otherwise check with a laywer.
Disclaimer: This comment should not be considered legal advise
> Except, that's exactly how it works. It's not illegal for me to sign you up for a credit card...
This is indeed illegal. Applying for credit in someone else's name is against the law (assuming you hold no power of attorney for that person), because if you do it without their explicit approval, you are indeed defrauding the credit issuer, by giving them information that they reasonably believe represents that person's interest to borrow money, and their acceptance of the terms of repayment. That's why the signature is required on the form, and if the credit card company accepts the application without the signature, then both you and they are in the wrong.
> It *might* be illegal if I was maliciously representing myself as you in order to defraud someone else or damage your character, but it's not illegal for me to go down to the city dump, get an address off an envelope, and fill out a credit card app with it (minus signature, which would be forgery).
See above. It is specifically illegal, because you are misrepresenting me in order to defraud the credit issuer.
> The CC company isn't prohibited from gathering personal information in any legal manner, and if they want to stoop to rooting around in the bins at the mall, whatever. It's still legal. No contract is necessary, and from the description none was inferred.
They can collect all the information they want. That's not the problem. The problem is that they acted on that information to issue credit without her explicit approval, and that's a violation of law.
> A lawsuit is frivolous and an abdication of personal responsibility following a boneheaded mistake.
In the case of the spam and junk mail, you're absolutely correct. But in the case of the credit card she now has that she never wanted, you're entirely wrong. That credit card represents a significant liability to her, and she did not authorize the creation of the account. If she applied for a mortgage, that credit line would fall into consideration, even though she didn't want it. If someone stole the number and used it, she could face a huge legal battle to recover her credit. If the company followed any sort of standard procedure, they requested credit reports on her with no authority to do so (remember, the signature on the form is what authorizes them to do credit checks, and doing the checks without the signature is actionable). Therefore, she can charge them with these violations, and she should do so because what they did was an egregious failure on their part to follow their own procedures, to the possible detriment of her credit rating.
Virg
There's nothing illegal about fishing through a public trash can. Sending her the visa card is strange however, since she didn't agree to any contract.
> > The original comment was that she would have no contractual obligation for the debt
> And that is correct. The key word is contractual. They never signed a contract, therefore there is no contractual obligation, although there sure as hell is a legal obligation. I should have been clearer in my reply.
Sorry, but you'd still have been wrong. You state that she never signed a contract with the credit card company, so she has no contractual obligation to repay the money. However, the original statement (and its intent, in telling her she could use the card with impunity) stated she'd have no contractual obligation to anybody at all. That's incorrect, since the contract that would be important would still be the contract of sale with the merchant. You can say that's just a point of semantics, but then how would you reconcile that with the parent poster's suggested action to run up a balance that (he states) she would never have to pay?
Virg
sue both....
visa may be avle to get out of it since they probably have some agreement with the card issuer that limits visa's liability on the matter, but then it may cause visa to turn up the heat on the issuer... (increase their rate/ or even drop them completely)
Try the ACLU or some other public interest organization. There must be someone who is looking for a test case for this kind of thing. Heck, check with the FSF, they might take your case or put you in contact with someone who will take it.
So, she got some spam offering a card,she followed through to get the card, she charged stuff on the card. Without telling you what I think about people that support spammers, lets move on...
I refuse to pay this off, on principle, at this point.
Quote the guy from SNL some years back : "Yeah, that's the ticket. It's the *principle* of the thing, yeah! My *morals* don't allow me to pay for the stuff I charged. It would be *unethical* to pay my bill after charging a lot of stuff on this card."
You're just crooks who want to buy things without paying for them. Nobody ever made her charge anything, and anyone with real morals would pay their bill.
Only use your credit card for paying bills.
With what do you pay your Credit Card bills?
I wonder if you could claim that it's a gift?
I guess you'd have to argue that a credit card itself was "merchandise" - don't know how well that would hold up in court. While the use and purpose of credit cards is fairly well-known, you might be able to argue that an unasked for, unsolicted line of credit - in whatever form - is essentially a free gift of money. Maybe this would take care of those stupid "by cashing this $1 check, you agree to switch phone service" sort of mailings, too...
In any case, you can always contact the USPS about it:
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
As many have already stated, you should see a lawyer. But here are some basics about contract and tort law.
In order to have a contract you need an offer, acceptance and "consideration". It's clear that Visa made the offer, your wife looked at it and decided not to accept. What didn't she accept? Among other things she did not accept that her personal information be passed out to anyone Visa wanted. Now the question is what kind of damages can she sue for? This is something that you definitely need a lawyer to figure out b/c of different laws and regulations in different jurisdictions.
As for tort, the basic principle is the "neighbour" principle. Tort law imposes a duty to use reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which can be reasonably foreseen as likely to injure a neighbour. The concept of "neighbour" isn't the literal interpretation and basically encompasses whoever could reasonably be foreseen as being affected by the act or ommission. Here we have a situation where without contract or authorization your wife's personal information has been released into the telemarketing wild. Again the question here is damage. I must admit that my tort law is weak but I know that tort isn't restricted to purely physical injury.
Anyways, it seems that you would have a cause of action under contract and/or tort. The question is what remedy can get out of it: injunction, damages etc...but yes, do see a lawyer about it. As mentioned above there's a lot regional differences in terms of what you can do.
so instead of signing the form she said 'no thanks' and tossed it in the garbage'
I'm sorry, but if your wife is that foolish, she's not very smart, and deserves all that happened to her, and if you were with her and did not react, you're culpable too.
Stop trying to blame others for your own shortcomings.
It might be legal to fish it out of the trash, but it is ludicrous to suggest that whoever does so has the right to do whatever they want with what was thrown away. If that were the case it would be legal for me to take your discarded credit card and bank statements and started selling your personal information.
Can You Sue Over Loss of Personal Information?
If the SCO can sue everyone, then surely you can. Whether you could win at trial or not is another matter, and I don't know as I am not a lawyer.
The point here is you don't even have to have a case, if you can turn up the heat on this company, you can get some kind of settlement. They will certainly fear a good lawyer, and the possiblitiy of bad press. These are your weapons.
funny shit
but in the future:
1) Avoid idiots. Go to your banker when you need financial services;
to your trusted electronics dealer when you need loudspeakers; etc.
Don't do these transactions in parking lots / hallways.
2) Buy a paper shredder and use it religiously--already covered.
3) Don't give your SSN to anyone except your banker, tax preparer, and
employer (not even to a prospective employer, see Cringeley@PBS)--that's it.
4) As suggested by Harry Shearer (The Simpsons, Spinal Tap, Mighty Wind) on his NPR program "Le Show", copyright your life.
Use the DMCA to prosecute all violations of infringement.
It may prove cumbersome, and who knows if it works in any way to reduce your junk mail, but god, it's satisfying.
"It's an erotic, spectacular scene that captures the thrusting, violent, vibrant world Bohemian spirit..."
How could anyone be so stupid? This is a serious question, because I simply can't imagine how anyone could do something so dumb. Next time tear up the form before you throw it away. Sheesh! As for legal action, forget about it, because anyone could have fished that paper out of the trash and sold the information.
You're not listening to what I'm saying. I'm arguing that because copyright infringement does not violate criminal law, it's not a crime. I don't care what you can garnish theft (which is a totally different legal idea) with.
One more time: neither federal nor state law defines copyright violation as a crime. It's a tort. Which is why people are being sued for violating it, not arrested and put on criminal trial.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If I got a VISA card I did not apply for, and then they sent me a filled out application with a signature of 'N/A', I would be on the phone with a lawyer immediately. Who gives a flying fart about the fact that you're getting more telemarketing calls and spam? At least when compared with the fact that they issued you a credit card without your authority. They can start charging you an annual fee if their card has one ... they broke the law!
You call the company that issued it, and state that 'N/A' is not your signature, and ask why they issued it that way. If they give you the runaround, state that you want a manager. Continue going through that until they can tell you WHY they were able to issue you the card without a signature. No answer will suffice, so eventually, you tell them, "I am going to contact my lawyer, because you issued me the card illegally, without my approval. That is fraud." Their only excuse could be that "No, you don't have to sign it" which is a damn lie.
The fact that this was brought up here bewilders me.
And can I have some? This thread is talking about using a credit card that was sent to you in unauthorized fashion to intentionally receive actual merchandise from a real store, without intending to pay for same. That is, in fact, theft and fraud, no matter what some crack-smoking fool tells you.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Did someone attempt to impersonate your wife or try Identity theft ? If not, if they just set you up for spam sorry but it is legal. Why do you think your BANK ADVISES YOU NOT to just throw away your cancelled checks and statements ?!?!? :)
There are specific laws about impersonating people, identity theft or fraud, but after a legal search of the DB here in CA, and a call to a friendly lawyer I still stand by my comment.
Evil, venal but not illegal. Note I am not a lawyer, did not pay my buddy to do real research, but just took his informed opinion on the subject. There have been several cases where public figures' info has been salvaged from trash and posted in public places, ie in the newspaper for instance and there has been no legal recourse
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
When I filed papers for divorce, I intercepted a letter from a credit card company I have never heard of requesting more information so they could approve a credit card application.
I immediately called the company and reported the application as fraudulant and demanded a copy of the application. When I received it I found it had been written out in my soon-to-be-ex-wife's handwriting, using my personal information with her signature, and she named herself authorized user.
At the time she had diverted my mail without my consent to a PO box. If I had not put a forwarding on mail in my name, that account would have been approved, the cards delivered to the PO box in her hands without my knowledge, and she would have maxxed out the $12,500 limit and left me stuck with the bill.
I immediately closed all joint accounts, cutting her off completely. The bottom line is, every credit card has a phone option for reporting fraud which get you a human on the phone, and when the magic word "fraud" is mentioned they are extremely cooperative.
I also reported mail fraud to the authorities and put a fraud alert on all my credit reports.
That credit organization refused to fax the application - if you think about it, it's for a good reason. I demanded that they mail the paperwork to me, and if they had refused I would have used the state BBB, the state AG, and the FTC against them.
What happened to you constitutes identity fraud which is a federal felony - banks do not take this lightly. Someone forged your signature on an application, that is assuming your identity. However foolish you were to casually discard paperwork containing your SSN, that is still identity fraud.
Because your signature was forged on that application, that constitutes credit card fraud. Because that application has a forged signature, you can argue that you are under no obligation to the credit card company.
Having been a victim of underhanded tactics, you have to learn to be aggressive. Shredders. Keeping SSNs secure. Refusing to disclose SSNs except to banks, hospitals, insurance companies, and law enforcement. Stop the tirade of credit card junk mail offers to your mailbox. I suggest that you do the same. Especially when it jeopardizes your credit history and your potential to secure a mortgage - or if you have a catastrophe like a serious hospital bill while you're raising a family and you need a loan to pay it off. The last thing you need is to be turned down and find out you were a victim of fraud.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
You can sue anyone for anything... so yes, you can sue. Can you win? That's another story.
The bottom line to ask yourself anytime you consider sueing someone is "How have I been hurt?"
If you can prove you've been hurt in any way, then yes, you have a good chance of winning. But only you and your lawyer can decide if it's a viable case with how you've been hurt.
You have to show damages to win a settlement. If there are no damages, then you won't win... even if it's slimey and unethical.
Every card I ever got (in the last few years, by a legitimate bank) needed to be activated by a phone call before it could be used. If she activated it, it's hers. If not, with no original sig, it simply isn't hers.
I think the real complaint here is the use of the info on the form used by the folks soliciting by spam and stuff. But, lesson learned: You just wrote down all your personal info INCLUDING your SS# and threw it in a container near them. Not a good move.
Spend the credit card limit, when they try to collect, sue Visa for millions, then sue the submitter, and Visa some more... only if revenge was that sweet... :(
Karma: Good, or bust!
Pay in cash, and never give out your name and address (radio shack!).
.. wonder where that information is going to end up!.
I avoid giving out any personal information to anyone, my girlfriend wonders why I never want to 'sign up' for a chance for a free car or trip.. gee
Though if you have friends who know your name, address and phone number well enough you could end up giving that info a way. While in University I had a friend sign up as me for a credit card so he could get the free gift.. bastard!
-b
This story brings up an interesting Internet parallel: You see a popup that offers a free trip to Fiji, and having nothing better to do at the time, you decide to look into it. The link takes you to a form that seems to ask for some basic contact information so they can tell you if you won. Whatever, you think, why not? You fill in your street address, your name, your email account (the one you use for junk mail) and scroll down. Near the bottom of the page you encounter some small print that basically says that by submitting this information, you agree to allow it to be made public to anyone willing to pay. Knowing that this is not a Good Thing, you search for a checkbox you can use to nullify this piece of small print. There is none. Darn, you think, well, no harm done; I didn't submit anything anyway. With this warm, reassuring thought in your head, you close the browser window. Immediately another popup appears. I hate those closing popups, you think as you close it too. But here is the scary part: The second popup was launched by Javascript in the form page, and all of your form values were transmitted as part of the popup fetch. (embedded into the popup's URL as an URI-encoded data string.) By closing the form window, you actually ended up submitting the data anyway. This doesn't happen in reality, you think. Ummm... yes it does! I have ( cough, cough ) seen webpages employ this very tactic. I wonder what the lawyers could do with that? -Anonymous Coward for a REASON!
Your wife abandoned the credit application in the trash. By abondoning it she has give up all rights to it. Some of the information on it could be collected and used (such as to send email messages or phone messages). Some information on it is protected by federal and state law (mostly the SSN).
Now by not signing it your wife did not authorize any credit checks. If the credit company performed a check you may have a legal issue. You may wish to get a credit report from all three credit reporting agencies.
If there is a signature on the credit application you may have grounds for forgery.
Do not use the credit cards to make any purchases. You would be knowingly using invalid credit cards.
You should make a photo copy of the credit card(s) (they belong to the credit card company and they have a right to ask for them back!). The photo copy if so that if you go to court you have evidence that you had them if the company takes them back.
Your wife should sit down, write down EVERYTHING she remembers about this issue. What was the date and time she filled out the application? Does she remember what the people who worked there looked like? How about their names? Where were they located (for example "in front of the Sears entrance on the second floor")?
FYI: Your credit rating is a magic number (each credit reporting agency has a closely guarded formula) which is effect by many things. One thing is your total available credit. A credit card with a limit of $15,000 will lower your credit limit more than a card with a limit of $2,500. Just by having your credit report polled the creidt card companies assume you are applying for MORE credit and it lowers your credit rating. Bankruptcies and delinquent payments also effect your rating (but you already knew that!).
Buy a shredder. Don't throw out VISA/Mastercard receipts (many contain your full CC number, exp. date and full name). This one is a big of common sense, if you ask me.
Would you throw away a credit card? Would you just cut it in half and toss it? Perhaps you don't realize how many folks have access to your trash... I'm a bit paranoid, but I cut mine into about 20 pieces and toss them randomly into 5 different trashcans in my house.
Oh, give me a break! Before you get all "high and mighty" on me, take a minute to examine the whole situation. I had no idea this card was applied for, first of all. It's something my wife did using her own poor judgement (and at the time, probably assuming she'd be able to pay off since she was working at the time she got it). I already held 4 credit cards of my own which were always paid off on time, so I would never have wanted this card in the first place.
Yes, we were married when she received the card, but the state I live in is not a "community property" state, meaning debts entered into individually are not automatically made the responsibility of both marriage partners.
This entire time, my stance has been that my wife needs to pay off the debts she owes. I advised her several times to work with a credit counseling place as soon as she gets her next job, and try to work something out to pay these debts off. (Unfortunately, she also has quite a bit of past debt with medical bills from before we were married, so those are still on her credit history too.)
My issue with the whole thing is primarily this: The collection agency altered the records in their computer database, to falsely show that *I* personally applied for this card (without my wife so much as even been listed as a co-signer, according to them), and they rattled off MY social security number as the one supposedly entered on the initial application form. Furthermore, NextCard was being stupid to hand out these pre-approved cards like candy to people like my wife, who already had poor credit and would not normally qualify for a card if she tried to fill out a standard application for one!
As soon as I make a payment on this debt, I'm effectively agreeing that it is indeed MY debt that I owe, and I don't feel that's the case at all. (Incidently, there don't even seem to be any tangible goods my wife received using the card, so it's not as easy as saying "Sell whatever you bought with it to pay it back!" It was spent on going out to eat, gas for the car, etc. etc.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
...about keeping private info safeguarded? She should have pocketed the app and shredded it at home.
Well, look at that. Egg on me.
... but then again, (a)(2) would require that the retail value of a single work was greater than a thousand bucks. Which, without RIAA math (you shared a thousand songs, multiply by eighteen bucks a song, damages are eighteen grand), doesn't really cover much of anyone.
[USC 17 506]:
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
But I'm still confused about one thing. Why are all the RIAA/MPAA cases civil, and not criminal, if there's criminal law out there which applies? It can't be under section (a)(1), which requires that a profit be made...
So.
Unless we're talking about WareZ K1dz tossing around the latest Maya or 3DSMax (that's still under copyright infringement, right?), it ain't a crime.
So.
I appear to still be right. Copyright violation, in terms of movies and songs, is not a criminal act, since no single movie or song has a retail value of over a thousand dollars.
Nyah.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You'll pretend that Prepaid Legal couldn't stop them - but if it's an office full of lawyers, I'm sure they could file some lawsuites. But they aren't going to, because they don't care that they are hiring spammers. (And that's giving them credit - they may have no lawyers at all. Most spam advertised businesses are *not* on the up-and-up.)
You're here on SlashDot to advertise for PrePaid legal. You've hardly posted about anything else. You are a spamming con man.
> The whole fucking point is SHE DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THE CARD -- SHE DID NOT SIGN TO HAVE A CREDIT CARD -- SHE DID NOT SIGN ANY CONTRACT. Make sure you know what you're talking about before playing "I'm so fucking smart."
Take your own advice. Not only are you incorrect about your original statement (I addressed this in another post), but you're wrong on this specific point as well. When you buy something on a credit card, with very, very few exceptions, you have to sign your name to the credit slip. If you don't sign, in most cases the merchant won't sell you anything, and they'll call the police if you've already received service (like not signing the slip at a restaurant). Printed on the form, in most cases right over the signature line, there's a statement to the effect of "I agree to be bound by the cardholder agreement". Even if she didn't sign the original application, by signing even one of these slips, she'd have signed a contract in a legal sense. If she only used the card where no signature is required, like pay-at-the-pump stations, she'd still be committing fraud just by presenting the card, so my post above applies.
Virg
> Yes, fraud, not breach of contract. I still stand behind my insults, albeit slightly further behind, being later in the day and I'm more awake.
Take another step back. It's both fraud and breach of contract. Fraud is a criminal charge, levelled by the district attorney. Breach of contract is a civil charge, pressed by the affected party (in this case, the merchant that was defrauded). The contract she'd be breaching is the contract of sale, wherein she accepted goods or services and promised payment. Her signature (or lack of signature) is not relevant in any way to that contract, which case after case has established as valid even when implied. If she receives goods or services, and then doesn't pay for them, she's breached contract. If she used a known-invalid credit card to defraud the merchant, she has also committed fraud.
Virg