It’s My Imagination

Safeguarding Your Privacy

March 7, 2008 on 12:29 pm | In Some of This Some of That | 2 Comments

Several years ago, I had an obscure charge on my credit card. It was only a few dollars, but what caught my attention was that the charge had been exchanged into U.S. dollars from Russian currency. I’ve never been to Russia, so I found it hard to believe that it was something I had purchased. I called the credit card company and they immediately removed the charge and canceled the card, issuing me a new account.

While this was a pain, it’s a necessary fact of our lives today that we must watch out for fraud. Following that incident, I’ve been more aware of what is on my credit report. What is surprising though is how many people get to see a person’s credit report. Anytime you apply for just about anything, someone takes a look at your credit report. Some things are obvious, applying for any type of credit (credit cards, auto loans, mortgages), but others are less obvious. If you apply for a job, the prospective employer can check your credit. If you rent an apartment, the owner can check your credit.

It’s somewhat scary to me that so many people can have access to my personal information.

I’ve been watching ads recently for lifelock and they promise to protect you from identity theft, in other words, they’re trying to protect the consumer. This is no small promise. One of the ways they do it is my placing fraud alerts on your credit data. Apparently, the credit bureaus don’t care for this because once a fraud alert is placed, they have to be more diligent about who they give your personal information to and they have to more carefully monitor that individual’s credit data.

Hmmm, shouldn’t they just be doing that any way? Why is it up to the consumer to monitor every minute detail. The credit bureaus have it all right in front of them, daily. Wouldn’t it be easier if they notified a consumer if there was something out of the ordinary? Many credit card companies do this, why aren’t the credit bureaus doing it? I believe it’s because they’re in the credit data collecting business to make money, not to protect consumers, even though they do have the means to do so.

What do you think?

Tags: consumer protection, lifelock

Have We Been Had?

March 7, 2008 on 12:06 pm | In Family, My Imagination | 6 Comments

A few weeks ago, my husband and a few of his co-workers were heading to lunch in our full size van.  My husband accidentally backed into another car in the parking lot at work.  At least he thinks he did.  Our van is full size, it’s big, with big metal bumpers and several blind spots.  It’s one heavy vehicle.  He felt a slight bump, but none of the other guys in the van felt anything.

They went on to lunch, but my husband kept thinking he’d hit something while backing up.  When they returned to work, my husband looked at what he thought he backed in to, a car.  The car had a dent in the bumper.  My husband has assumed that he and our huge van caused the dent.  I’m still wondering.  Was that dent all ready there?

Being the good person that my husband is, he left his business card on the windshield with a note, apologizing for the dent and asking the car’s owner to please call him.  The owner called, that evening.

According to the guy that called, he wondered what had happened to his wife’s car, the dent.  My husband again apologized and asked the guy to please get a couple of quotes on having the dent removed and we would pay for it.  Mind you, it wasn’t a huge dent and we didn’t want to go through the insurance company only to have our rates hiked for a minor repair.

Fast forward two weeks.  The car’s owner finally calls back with two quotes.  One from a car dealer, we won’t even talk about how much they wanted.  The other from a body shop.  The car owner said the body shop wanted $850.  My husband took down the information and then called the body shop himself.   Interestingly enough, the body shop owner informed my husband that the quote was only $750.  Red flag here, I think the car owner was trying to make some cash.

My husband talked then with both the body shop owner and the car owner and agreed to pay $750 cash if the car owner would agree to release any further claim, in writing.  The car owner agreed.  My husband got a legal document (I have to find out from him where he got that) and a cashier’s check for $750 and took it to the body shop where he met up with the car owner.  The car owner placed his signature on the document, agreeing to accept the $750 as payment in full and no further damages would be paid.

At some point over these few weeks, we’re not sure when, the car owner had called our insurance company and filed his own claim against us.  He was claiming damages plus wanted rental car reimbursement.  Red flag, the car is drivable and my husband had all ready told him we would be paying direct for the damages.  As a result, our insurance company called us.  They also went to inspect the car at another body shop, not sure what shop it was, we didn’t know anything about it.

By the time our insurance company called us though the car owner had signed the document and accepted the cashier’s check.  I made the adjuster aware of this, thankfully.  I also let him know that I thought the guy was trying to scam us.  He let me know that the body shop (the one my husband dealt with) asked him to come today to take a look at the car because it was going to cost more than they thought.  Red flag, again!

The adjuster went to the 2nd body shop today.  Guess what, the car wasn’t there.  Nor had it been at the first body shop when another adjuster had been called out.  Now the insurance company is thinking something is fishy.  Knowing that we had a document signed by the car owner stating he would not file any further damage complaint, and that we had all ready paid for the damages, the adjuster basically told the body shop that it was between them and the car owner.  We and the insurance company had done all we’re going to do.

My husband did what he did in good faith.  I believe he was scammed, but I have no way to prove it.  I feel better knowing that the claims adjuster feels the same and is closing the claim, unpaid (by the insurance).  He told the body shop, in no uncertain terms, that they don’t want to hear from him on this claim any more, it’s done.  We’re out $750, but I think it could have been much, much worse.

Tags: auto insurance