For this reason, I avoid debit transactions that connect to my checking account, going through a credit card intermediary whenever possible. Wouldn't help this particular problem with a fake ID.
I have an older relative who's paralyzed by fears of this kind of thing, we have lots of conversations about the details of scam messages that are not actually from Amazon or Citibank. There was an attempt to redirect her mail a few years back that really disturbed her.
I'm personally irate that the big Experian hack some years back didn't result in any kind of meaningful liability for those fuckers. Negligible data integrity measures, secured with cardboard and string.
I just started watching a maker of hotel-staff-things videos and realized something I had been insensible of, that (at least in higher-end or larger places) the front desk now just writes your room number on the keycard envelope and doesn't read them out loud, because it reduces the potential for guests to be stalked.
I still file my taxes on paper because of the time I got identity thefted by someone filing a tax return in my name. I'm also nervous every time someone uses one of my email addresses to set up an account in the U.K. I don't think that is identity theft. I think it's someone with my same last name and a tenuous understanding of how punctuation works in email addresses.
Setting up the world so that huge amounts of wealth are held by the elderly was a terrible mistake. It's much much harder for people to scam you out of a pension than it is to scam you out of your savings.
I was thinking the other day about how backwards it is that there are "senior discounts" for so many things when nowadays seniors are the rich ones. Vestige of the days when the elderly were poor. Should be under 40 discounts (or better yet, parent discounts).
I think senior discounts persist at restaurants because they eat so early and keep tables occupied when normal people are still at work.
It isn't maybe identity theft, but the sheer number of scam calls that come to the landline number we have is absurd. And who the fuck would fall for a call from "tv services."
When I'm bored I'll see how long I can keep them on the line.
One time I got conned out of $60 by a guy who said he could get me some really good weed. He came back the next week and ran the same scam on my house-mate.
huge amounts of wealth are held by the elderly
I'm curious about the statistics of late-in-life care costs, which are what financial planners trumpet as the reason for needing astronomical savings. US-specific obviously. In my immediate circle, I have one friend with a healthy parent in care whose memory is gone-- when he visits, sometimes he is his dad, other times his uncle. The family can swing it, but that's the worst financial elder situation I know of. One other case where there was a risk of financial strain, but Covid brought a terrible end to a kind man in a hospital. For everyone else, bimodal distribution, either insufficient savings for dignity or surplus
I think regardless of need, it's the ability that matters. If you were born in the right years, your ability to accumulate wealth was much greater.
9: Kind of bimodal, I suspect. When my dad looked like he would pull through I assumed there would be extensive rehab and probably heavy care costs for the rest of his life. Now he's gone, it's just my extremely healthy mom. (She was also able to get LTC insurance back in her sixties; he wasn't.)
I have TLC insurance. In the event I become a scrub, it will enable me to buy a car.
Make sure you double-check the brakes
I'm not covered if I'm chasing waterfalls.
I used to try much harder with cold callers:
https://x.com/yorksranter/status/698172672702877696
https://x.com/yorksranter/status/719485946329178112
https://x.com/yorksranter/status/757335204834996224
I told another I wasn't authorized to speak for the account holder because I was a GCHQ employee monitoring the line for reasons of national security.
I'm getting called for Medicare supplemental insurance, which may be a real thing but I should not be on that list.
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/editorial/yomiuri-editorial/20231116-149901/
The Japanese group was based in Cambodia and allegedly took turns calling the woman, falsely claiming to be nursing home employees or lawyers. [...] Whether it is possible to move into a nursing home is an issue of great interest to the elderly. Many of them may be tempted to listen to such stories from scammers.You know, there's enough old people money in the world that Cambodia might just have found its development model.
Half the time when my phone rings it says "Spam Risk." I haven't figured out how to make Android just not accept those calls at all.
I heard that in Japan, if you get old enough, your family will just hide your body if you die to keep getting government checks. Happens near here too, but the checks are probably smaller.
Anyway, nursing homes might be seen as an advantage.
We had a wild hail storm about two weeks ago, and I immediately got put on some list where I was getting 3-5 spam calls an hour. It was incredibly infuriating. It seemed to last about a week. I'm not getting quite that many still, but I'm still above baseline.
I wouldn't say I've had more than ten spam calls in my entire life.
I get about one a day now since the Hindi guy stopped and it's no longer Medicare enrollment season.
Lede from an article I just saw:
"The share of equities held by people who are at or near retirement age (55+) has climbed to about 80%, up from 60% two decades ago, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Rosenberg Research."
I'm just happy that I'm not considered near retirement age just yet.
Just today, someone used my email to apply to North West Regional College, which has campuses in Londonderry and Tyrone.
Going through this on behalf of my aunt (93) and uncle (84) now. They both need nursing home care. Aunt lost her memory years ago but Uncle was taking care of her at home unitl his stroke in February.
Uncle lost several hungred thoursand to fraud last year (not identity theft--someone convinced him to wire money to a bank account in Hong Kong), but thankfully not all that he had. He had protected himself by putting most of his retirmeent money into an annuity which could only be stolen one month at a time. Also TIAA suspected fraud and notified relaties before it was all gone.
Saddest thing I ever witnessed: Sitting in their wheelchairs watching TV. She mumbles things in her native Chinese, a language he doens't undestand. He then mumbles something in his native Yiddish, a language she doesn't understand.
Sometimes they try to talk to each other in English, but they can't really hear, so what's the point.
Cost of mediocre long residential term care in Queens New York is $170,000 annually per person. Medicare covers the first 100 days if you enter care from a hospital, which my sister was able to arrange, but that's about to run out. Between social security, TIAA annuities, long-tem care insurance, and a 401K, his assets cover about two years at that level, which will likely be more than enough.
If he survives, after two years he will probalby qualify tor medicaid, so he could continue to stay where he is. New York is apparenlty especially generous re Medicaid eligibility and payments, may not work elsewhere.
Aunt's money is separate and controlled by her daughter from her first marriage, but she seems to have enough for an indefinite stay.
Going through this on behalf of my aunt (93) and uncle (84) now. They both need nursing home care. Aunt lost her memory years ago but Uncle was taking care of her at home unitl his stroke in February.
Uncle lost several hungred thoursand to fraud last year (not identity theft--someone convinced him to wire money to a bank account in Hong Kong), but thankfully not all that he had. He had protected himself by putting most of his retirmeent money into an annuity which could only be stolen one month at a time. Also TIAA suspected fraud and notified relaties before it was all gone.
Saddest thing I ever witnessed: Sitting in their wheelchairs watching TV. She mumbles things in her native Chinese, a language he doens't undestand. He then mumbles something in his native Yiddish, a language she doesn't understand.
Sometimes they try to talk to each other in English, but they can't really hear, so what's the point.
Cost of mediocre long residential term care in Queens New York is $170,000 annually per person. Medicare covers the first 100 days if you enter care from a hospital, which my sister was able to arrange, but that's about to run out. Between social security, TIAA annuities, long-tem care insurance, and a 401K, his assets cover about two years at that level, which will likely be more than enough.
If he survives, after two years he will probalby qualify tor medicaid, so he could continue to stay where he is. New York is apparenlty especially generous re Medicaid eligibility and payments, may not work elsewhere.
Aunt's money is separate and controlled by her daughter from her first marriage, but she seems to have enough for an indefinite stay.
Check where you go because when we were doing this, many places said that if you paid for two years care at the regular rate, they would let you stay at the rate Medicaid will pay after that. Which works unless you need a higher level of care.
Anyway, it's rough. Sorry you have to manage it.
27 sounds very sad, sympathies. I'm still baffled at how expensive care is in the US, the carers aren't getting even half that. My dad's mobility is getting worse, he's taking forst steps to set the equivalent up for himself in Prague, where it will be much much less.
I'm still annoyed at the framing of the problem as "identity theft". I still have my identity!
At least I understand why it's bad that someone can pretend to be me and take my money out of my bank, but the more general form of getting loans... some random bank I've never heard of is convinced that someone else is me; why is this my problem and not theirs?
27, 28, and 29 and 30.
My major policy position. Is that the basic care part of childcare, healthcare, and long-term care needs to be financed as a social good through a combination of payroll, income and any wealth (e.g. property) taxes.. You can charge extra for nicer rent on better accommodations, because our society doesn't believe in true equality. But any system where you need to be rich, poor or savvy is not a good system. Friend of mine had a mother who died of early onset Alzheimer's (around 60 or so) whose father was able to care for her at home. She said it was the most tremendous actor love she had ever seen, and her mother was a little violent towards the end only (about 5 years ago), but that was just luck that it turned out that way.
"some random bank I've never heard of is convinced that someone else is me; why is this my problem and not theirs?"
Because when they don't repay the loan they took out while pretending to be you, the bank will come round to your house in a menacing way. Proving what has happened will be a long and emotionally draining process.
"some random bank I've never heard of is convinced that someone else is me; why is this my problem and not theirs?"
My experience with this - stolen credit card information - is that this is basically how it worked. The cops didn't care. The store didn't care. The bank covered it and I got my money back.
And ok, I could see that an argument could be made that I was careless with my card info. (I have no idea how it got stolen, and it was only that single card.) But in a case of identity theft, it's the bank or the merchant that's being defrauded. It seems to me that it shouldn't even theoretically be the customer that's on the hook.
When my credit card number got stolen, I assume it was by a waiter at a restaurant in central Pennsylvania.
Yeah Europeans think it's insane that in the US your card just goes away with a stranger for a couple minutes and everyone's cool with that.
Someone went into a Tmobile store pretending to be me and bought $4k worth of phones and bill it to my account. They tried the day before but the salesperson was suspicious when the thief mispronounced my last name. But instead of freezing the account or calling the cops they just let the person go away and they came back the next day with a different salesperson who let it go through. Tmobile ate the loss on that.
The one that freaks me out is someone spoofing or reassigning my phone number because of how much identity verification is tied to that, and it doesn't seem that hard to do.
Is it cool that I have your card read? Because I know that it's delicate.
I'm pretty sure I couldn't recognize a single Taylor Swift song. My kid played an Ed Sheeran song for me and at least I thought it sounded familiar.
Yeah. He's not as unique of a talent.
I had a card cloned about 20 years ago. At the time I was _extremely_ poor* and it was a disaster for me. It was my only credit card and it got maxed out, so I couldn't use it, and it took several months to get the money back. Even when I did get it back, the various late fees and over-limit fees that accrued were never repaid, so although the actual fraudulent transactions were eventually repaid, I remained out of the pocket and the financial hit lasted months.
Since then, I've had a few potentially fraudulent transactions, but there's a load of 2FA authentication on almost everything these days.
I did also set up CIFAS identify protection a while back, which is a UK thing, because an old neighbour seemed to have tried to apply for credit in my name. The credit application was denied long before it ever got accepted, though.
* literal "not sure I have enough money to buy food to eat" poor.
So I guess there is no VRA any longer.
If you steal the identity of a right wing justice do you get to vote on cases?
43: demand Clarence Thomas pass a literacy test before he's allowed to issue an opinion.
37: even more so that insane thing where you can process debit card transactions "as credit card" using a magic PIN that seems to be the same for everyone.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. But I never use a debit card.
Here you go, Moby: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/what-happens-if-you-use-debit-card-as-credit/
Huh. I heard that, per 42, it is hard to get your money back if you use a debit card and easier if you use a credit card, so I've just never used a debit card. Years ago, I carried a paper check book for stores that wouldn't take a credit card (mostly groceries) and where I was spending more than I usually carry cash for. Those were the days.
The grocery store has all kind of new ways to pay and it's making me feel old. I'm thinking about going back to paper checks.
I have my old cheque book stubs in a box somewhere and one of these days I must go through it to find exactly when it was that I wrote the last cheque of my life. I'm pretty sure it was some time between 2005 and 2009 but I'd like to narrow it down.
We still write checks for some bills, probably two a month. Plus more, to send gifts to nieces and nephews (fuck shopping). Plus checks for farming, though the fertilizer place now wants me to download an app.
Goddamnit I was terrible at mailing in actual checks. Just the worst task. As soon as online autopay became available, I never looked back. I used to constantly get delinquent letters and occasionally a utility would get shut off. It was awful.
As long as you stayed current with the ag coöp.
55: If you didn't, the consequences were diaeresis.
re: 52
Last week, for a driving license renewal. Because that's what the DVLA want if you are sending in a paper form. Online renewal wasn't possible, as my wife has changed passport and citizenship since the last time she renewed it.
I had to order a cheque book. Twice. Because the chatbot on the bank app messed it up. It took around 8 weeks before i finally got one.
Checkbooks got really expensive here. Like our costs a well over a dollar to send a check if you need to buy the stamp.
Perfect Blue is on paper hackneyed as fuck, but is executed so well it works like gangbusters. Hasn't aged a day. (Which says as much about human nature as the film, but still.) And is also actually on topic. A very timely restoration.
Yeah Europeans think it's insane that in the US your card just goes away with a stranger for a couple minutes and everyone's cool with that.
We're converging now, with Americans getting chip cards and POS devices increasingly coming to the table.
some random bank I've never heard of is convinced that someone else is me; why is this my problem and not theirs?
Especially vexing that we have passed a law that effectively encodes this principle... but for credit cards only, not debit cards or debt more generally. (15 USC §1643: If your credit card is stolen as plastic or as its number, and you report that promptly, the banks take the hit and you are out $50 max.)
Or the credit card company takes the hit? No idea which. Someone other than the consumer, is the point.
POS devices
It's going to take me a couple of years before I stop reading that as "piece of shit."
I had to order a cheque book. Twice. Because the chatbot on the bank app messed it up. It took around 8 weeks before i finally got one.
At that point I would be giving serious consideration to writing it on the side of a cow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Inland_Revenue_v_Haddock
62: I learned it from Waiterrant. It's mostly restaurant industry jargon, I think.
If they have the ability to deposit a check by phone, what happens to the cow?
Anyway, I've noticed some businesses that used to be cash only are now accepting cards. I assume they felt the need to take cards because they were losing customers.
A new one in the last year or so is a QR code on the restaurant check, you scan and it takes you to an app or website (usually Toast) and you just pay there and leave when you want. It feels weird walking out without confirming with the server that you actually paid. I give an awkward nod and kind of wave my phone to show that I'm not doing a dine and dash.
68 as is Tokyo Godfathers though not as good as Paprika orPerfect Blue.
59 is there a new restoration? I have the Blu Ray put out by Shout Factory in 2019.
Fucking fucked up the html italic tags there
Toast is pretty good about making sure you can't lose your place. Most other ways to pay the bill on your phone I've seen tended to be far jankier.
Unless they have Dirtbag stories, I'm not downloading another app.
One thing I learned from people complaining on the internet is that much of the identity theft is done by relatives and that parents have been known to run up huge credit card debt in their young adult kid's name with the intention of defaulting and the hope that the kid won't try to use their credit for long enough that the bad debt will drop off the report.
74: That happened to the manager at my wife's store. A really sad story; amazingly, he doesn't hold much of a grudge.
59, 69: Have you seen Kon's miniseries, Paranoia Agent? Very much along Paprika lines.
75: It just got on the infinite waiting list!
69: No idea, but it's on release here.
So I just now got an alert that my social security number, date of birth, name, and a 20-year-old address where I lived for a year are on the dark web. I have filed a fraud alert with Experien, but the IRS, for instance, doesn't seem to want to find a way to deal with this until someone files a fake return. Anyone know a good resource for this sort of thing?
They can't charge you any taxes if you go to an admiralty court wearing crocs.
I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
How the fuck are the Pirates up by ten runs?
"If they have the ability to deposit a check by phone, what happens to the cow?"
Addressed in the case! Legally the cheque remains the property of the account holder and should be returned to him after the bank has processed it.
They used to do that with paper checks, but it's been ages since they stopped.
||
Your military-industrial complex at work.
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The story linked in 88 is impressive. Thank you, and I'll share that with others.
Well, I'm six weeks into my anti-fraud job now, and I'm afraid the news is not great: if someone rips you off, it's most likely a family member. There are plenty of scammers out there, many associated with organized crime, but the daily grind for us is people stealing from their parents.
Having said that, there are still an amazing number of people in the US who think that it's reasonable to take investment advice from someone who contacted you through a social media/dating site. Especially when that advice runs to wiring several thousand dollars to some nebulous entity who then informs you that you've made a 3,000% profit in two months, but you need to wire them more money to cover the taxes.
There's a lot of gallows humor in my department, because it is so utterly depressing to think about the actual human cost of all the scams we see perpetrated. And the rank brutality: there was a case a couple of months ago where one of our brokers got a call from his client's wife, who relayed that the client had fallen down, hit his head on some concrete, and was now in a medically induced coma, so she needed several thousand dollars from his accounts to pay bills. Lo and behold, when the client awoke from his coma, he declared that he had not fallen down, rather, his wife had sent someone to his house to hit him over the head. Once he left the hospital, he decamped for another state to hide at his brother's house while he obtained a divorce. Can't help but chuckle when you hear something like that -- many uncomfortable thanksgiving meals ahead for the extended family, I'll wager.
Best advice:
1. Do not click on any link you are unsure of. Evar.
2. Turn on all the extra security features at your disposal (2 factor identification, push notifications of activity, add a security alert to your account if you believe your information has been compromised, get your devices professionally scrubbed in person if there's any evidence of malware)
3. Read your statement/log in to your account regularly. Note: logging in is important. We capture all the login info, IP address, device id, location, carrier, etc. It makes it a lot easier to figure out if a login/transaction is illegitimate if we have historical info to vet it against.
4. Obviously, any legitimate anti-fraud representative will be happy to have you call in to their financial institution's general client service line to be connected to their department. If someone tells you that you can only call them back directly, they are lying.
5. Also obviously: no legitimate business is ever going to ask you to make transactions via gift cards or other instruments convenient to money laundering. Nor will they ever request you to break up payments into amounts less than $10,000.
6. If your financial institution allows you to name a trusted contact person, do so. And be very careful about who you give your power of attorney to. Make that person different and unrelated to your trusted contact.
7. Above all, and I shouldn't need to say this here, but remind your relatives: if something sounds too good to be true, it is a scam.