Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Ongoing Suspected Identity Theft? 213
njnnja writes: My wife receives periodic emails (about once every other month) from a cable company that is not in our service area that purport to confirm that she has made changes to her account, such as re-setting her password. Her email address is not a common one so we do not believe that it is someone accidentally using it; rather, we believe that an identity thief is subscribing to cable services intentionally using her name and email address.
Whenever we have gotten an email we have called the cable company, been forwarded to their security department, and we are assured that her social security number is not being used and that they will clear her name and email address out of their system. Yet a few weeks later we get another email. Our concern is that when the cable company goes after my wife for the unpaid balance on the account I am sure that neither they nor a collection agency will care much that it's not her social security number — it's her name and they will demand she pays.
We have a very strong password (long, completely random string of chars, nums, and symbols) and 2-factor authentication on the email account so we are fairly certain that no one is currently hacking into her email (at least, it's not worth it for however many thousands of dollars they can actually steal off this scam), But we think that the cable company should be doing more to not be complicit in an attempted identity theft. We have made it clear that we don't live in the area they cover so we should not have an account, but the fact that they keep setting up an account in her name means that they just don't care. Which is fine; I don't expect a cable company to care that they inconvenience us, but I would like to know if there is any way that we can make them care about it (liability, regulations, etc). I know YANAL but does anyone have any ideas about how to handle this? Thanks.
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Whenever we have gotten an email we have called the cable company, been forwarded to their security department, and we are assured that her social security number is not being used and that they will clear her name and email address out of their system. Yet a few weeks later we get another email. Our concern is that when the cable company goes after my wife for the unpaid balance on the account I am sure that neither they nor a collection agency will care much that it's not her social security number — it's her name and they will demand she pays.
We have a very strong password (long, completely random string of chars, nums, and symbols) and 2-factor authentication on the email account so we are fairly certain that no one is currently hacking into her email (at least, it's not worth it for however many thousands of dollars they can actually steal off this scam), But we think that the cable company should be doing more to not be complicit in an attempted identity theft. We have made it clear that we don't live in the area they cover so we should not have an account, but the fact that they keep setting up an account in her name means that they just don't care. Which is fine; I don't expect a cable company to care that they inconvenience us, but I would like to know if there is any way that we can make them care about it (liability, regulations, etc). I know YANAL but does anyone have any ideas about how to handle this? Thanks.
Is it addressed to her? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it addressed to her name or her email address? If just the latter, than who cares, add it to the spam filter. Or recover the login information and unsubscribe the person from all their services.
Be pro-active (Score:5, Informative)
It's a good idea to contact the credit reporting agencies and place a security freeze on your accounts. That prevents anyone from taking out loans etc using your personal information. You can temporarily lift the freeze for a particular company if you need to allow a credit check for your own purposes.
Re:Be pro-active (Score:5, Interesting)
Just something to beware of with security freezes. A few months ago I did freeze my accounts at the credit reporting agencies because my tax preparer recommended it as a proactive move to prevent identity theft.
I have a credit card that reports my current FICO score monthly. The month after I froze my accounts my FICO score dropped by 57 points. Looking back over the last year, my rating had moved up 11 points before this unexpected drop, so I think it's likely that the change was caused by initiating the credit freeze.
It doesn't matter as my credit history is frozen, but if I do need to give someone access to my credit ratings for any reason (buying a new car, getting a new job, whatever) then I presume the much lower score will be shown.
Re:Be pro-active (Score:5, Informative)
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I ran my credit reports and there's nothing adverse on file at any of the three CRAs. The credit card company says it reports FICO scores from Experian. I contacted Experian and they said there's nothing that can be done as there's no adverse information on file that can be challenged. It's a mystery.
Perhaps the FTC site is out of date, or perhaps Experian is using different criteria than the FTC expects. I have no idea.
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Did your credit card "used" credit amount go up. If it's more than 25% of your credit line, it will cause a drop.
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I pay off my cards every month - credit card debt is extremely expensive. That's not it.
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Thing is, some card companies don't report your carried balance - they report how much you were carrying on X date. So if you simply bought 'a lot' of stuff that month, it could affect your score.
Alternatively something that had been improving your score, such as a paid off loan, might have aged to the point that it doesn't count as much(or any) anymore, thus no longer providing that boost.
Final option is that the company tweaked it's formulas. They do that regularly.
Re:Is it addressed to her? (Score:5, Interesting)
I did similar. One day I got a metric crapton of emails letting me know that my mortgage had been pre-approved. Only problem... I never applied for a mortgage. I found that someone had used my email on a brokerage web site to get a ton of quotes. now my name is unusual so I doubt someone picked my email at random.
The brokerage house would not help me saying I needed a subpoena for more information. But I am concerned about identity theft so I had "my" password reset (I am probably guilty of some hacking crime now). I found some personal information there and did some digging.
I got an address and did a phone number lookup. A lady answers. After convincing her that I am not a scammer, I find out her son has the same name as me and this guy with the same name used his name dot gmail dot com as a false email account just to set up this brokerage account. So no identity theft, but about 60 minutes of me doing detective work and a story that I get to tell.
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now my name is unusual so I doubt someone picked my email at random.
Because if I take a long list of names and pick one at random the name I pick will be a common one?
Re:Is it addressed to her? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every so often, I get email intended for some 40+ year-old guy who has [myemailaddress]@yahoo.com (instead of at gmail). Most of it is spam or websites that he's trying to sign up for, but occasionally it's a human being on the other end.
The first time this happened, it was information about his ongoing domestic violence court case (legal documents, copy of police report, etc). I notified them that they had the wrong address, and they proceeded to email me three more times with more information. Eventually I yelled at them enough and they corrected it.
The second time this happened was a few years later - it was some tiny ~20 year old girl who desperately wanted to convince him to get back with her (by sending him nudes). I can't say that I didn't take a little joy in telling her to check out his domestic violence record. I got a really angry email from him a couple days later (subject line: FUCKING IDIOT), so I think she must have heeded my advice (and dodged a bullet).
It was kind of wild.
Re:Is it addressed to her? (Score:4, Interesting)
I get something occasionally, though usually through the phone. I have a very common first/last name combo (and even more, my father has the same name). There's like 42 other guys in the city metro phone book listed, and Lord only knows how many unlisted folks bear the same name. I even have a coworker with the same name (though he's in another department), and have put up with that little phenomenon about every other job.
So - once in awhile I'd get a phone call from some collection agency. Says I owe them some $hundreds or $thousands, usually in New Mexico (never lived there in my life), then claims that I moved in order to avoid paying up. At first this was frustrating in trying to convince them to go away w/o divulging any personal info of my own. After some research a couple of years ago, I've gotten to the point where I just tell them "I am not the person you are looking for. According to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, I demand you leave me the hell alone. My lawyer's name is {the lawyer who handled my Chapter 13}, and he resides in Portland, Oregon, where I live. If you pursue this any further, I will countersue for time and trouble at $350/hr if it's in small claims court, or countersue for $50k on account of harassment if not. See you in court, sucker." Then I hang up. I have yet to see a summons from any of them, and my lawyer has received no contact.
As far as identity theft? My wife's hospital bills shoved us into Chapter 13 (one year left - yay!), so good luck with that...
Re:Is it addressed to her? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as identity theft? My wife's hospital bills shoved us into Chapter 13 (one year left - yay!), so good luck with that...
Depends on the form of the identity theft. Not all of it is tied to credit today.
Some alternatives:
Medical: They get hold of enough information, they bill your insurance for bogus procedures. Works best for patients on Medicare.
Drugs: Variant on the medical. Fake up a prescription for you, utilize online pharmacy to get pills.
Tax: Submit a bogus tax refund application the moment it's possible, long before you get around to it. Then you find yourself being questioned by the IRS as to why you claimed 15 dependents, and the precise amount of income to qualify for the maximum earned income credit...
Who sent the court documents? (Score:3)
Can they bill your email address? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can they bill your email address? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can they bill your email address? (Score:4, Informative)
I agree - This seems like mistaken identity from a noob. Years ago somebody signed me up for something - but had actually gotten their own email address confused with mine. Rather than Bob@email.com.au --- they used Bob@email.com (or something like that). I figured out via Google that there was another ISP with the same name using .au --- so I logged in using the Reset Password, and updated "my" email address to what I thought was the intended one.
And after doing that --- I again pressed the Reset Password button which (hopefully) sent notice to the real user.
Never ascribe to malice... (Score:5, Insightful)
That which can be explained by a cable company's incompetence.
Re:Never ascribe to malice... (Score:5, Informative)
Wasn't it just yesterday TWC was fined over $200k for not taking a person off their call list when they said they were (mistaken identity)? Including over 70 calls AFTER the lawsuit was filed.
Cable companies are the scum of the earth. Just because they say they've changed the wife's details in the system doesn't mean jack shit.
Re:Never ascribe to malice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Only this one thing (Score:3)
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It seems unlikely that her ID would be used only for cable...
Unless the cable account is being used to download The Interview [imdb.com]... over and over again, of course.
Re:Only this one thing (Score:5, Funny)
Unless, of course, they give you your stapler back.
State Regulators (Score:5, Insightful)
Your next stop at this point should be the regulators for the state where the cable company is operating. File a complaint with them. You may also want to file a complaint with your own state's regulators.
Most public utilities, cable, electric, telephone are hypersensitive to complaints filed with the regulators, even if it doesn't show publicly, because it affects the rates they can charge.
Good luck!
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Yes, your local or state regulator or the FCC can help. Submit an inquiry/complaint to a regulatory authority, and they basically log it and forward it to the carrier's legal/compliance department for resolution. Those departments have a company mandate to make trouble go away.
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Your rants are getting rather lame. Try harder next time.
Headers? (Score:5, Insightful)
If all possible, look at all the headers in the email to verify that it truly is coming from that cable company. Also, when you call the company, do they really have an account for her?
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Have you checked for your wife's name in that area (Score:5, Interesting)
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I had a case a bit like this recently.
I started getting mails from a cellphone company (the one I actually use myself) which had nothing to do with me. Then I started getting bills emailed. The bills had the cellphone number and a postal address, I looked it up and rang their land line. It turned out I knew the person involved - he has the same name as me and works for the same company so we sometimes get each others mails at work. He had made a mistake when he supplied an email address. It took a coup
There's something you have to ask yourself. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is easier to believe: That a sophisticated criminal organization is involved in an ongoing plot to usurp your wife's identity and destroy her credit, or that the local cable company is run by a a bunch of half-wits who couldn't figure out how to cancel an account or correct false customer information if their jobs depended on it?
Or, perhaps that Slashdot is a good source for legal advice?
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Slashdot might be an entertaining source for dealing with the likely "local cable company ... run by a bunch of half-wits". In either case I'd document in detail my initial efforts with them to correct things.Then next step would be to contact the local franchise authority [wikipedia.org] (with your notes and still documenting what you do). Last, or if things go downhill really fast, you get legal advice.
Make records (Score:2, Insightful)
Record your conversations with the cable company. If they do something stupid, like put things in credit reports, you can sue them.
But so far nothing seemed to have happened.
What is the cable company? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure that the cable company in question is a legitimate business and not just a scam hoping that you call them to be 'forwarded to their security department' so they can pull personal information from you... ya know, to make sure that you "aren't being billed anything". (sounds like a reasonable hook, to me)
Otherwise I'd imagine using someone else's name and e-mail address is not in any way indicative of a contract and they wouldn't be able to prove anything to go after you, personally.
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Simplest explanantion is easiest (Score:5, Insightful)
Her email address is not a common one so we do not believe that it is someone accidentally using it; rather, we believe that an identity thief is subscribing to cable services intentionally using her name and email address.
Or someone just happened to use a similar email address and misstyped theirs. Are you actually getting emails regarding unpaid bills for the cable company, or is it just simple account-type stuff like changing passwords? Or charges attempting to be made against any of your credit cards? If you are getting emails once a month, it sounds to me like someone put in the wrong email and when they go to pay it online they change the password because they can't log in. And even if there was an unpaid balance, the first thing they would do is send the bills to the physical address they have on file or to the holder of the card that was used to intially set up service, which is also where any collections would likely start.
Hell, 10 years ago I used to get recordings on my phone that someone had overdue movies at Blockbuster. I didn't immediately assume someone was using my identity to steal movies from them in some criminal enterprise, I just figured they had put in a wrong number.
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My money is on this. I have a simple personal domain email in the form of me@abcd.com and time or two my catch all spam account will get an email from a child case work organization in the form of someone@acbd.com. When someone sent the email, they either fat fingered it or were dyslexic. If I notice it I'll try to send a reply back to the person that sent it that they entered the wrong email address.
Re:Simplest explanantion is easiest (Score:5, Funny)
I get other people's Gmail all the time. I was one of the first to get a gmail account so I have myname@gmail.com
I have received job offers, travel itineraries, etc...
My favorite was when I received a job offer letter to be a tennis instructor at a very rich resort.
I replied back with...
"That will be great!, can you tell me what kind of bat and helmet you require for teaching people tennis? Also I will need a bucket of honey and a supply of bees."
Sadly, they retracted the job offer.
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I get other people's Gmail all the time. I was one of the first to get a gmail account so I have myname@gmail.com
I have the same format as one of my email addresses, but I have a very uncommon name (as far as I know it is the only occurrence of that name in the world for people still living-although Google does bring up the name in a fiction book someone apparently wrote). However, I once got a call from a guy who I did not know I think asking if was going to play goalie for them at a soccer match. I had no clue what he was talking about, but the guy did have my name. The week before I had a guy (might even have be
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I had something similar happen, except I registered "fmlast@gmail.com", and I got a lot of email (in German) addressed to "fm.last@googlemail.com".
All of Google's help pages insist that the guy should never have been able to register "fmlast", but he did. (That, or he thought he did, and gave it out to friends and other businesses.)
He moved to the US a little while ago. I've started getting car insurance emails now, too.
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i own my own domain and its a normal name (e.g. fredjohnson.com or such)
so i get tons of email randomname@fredjohnson.com
recently though i have been receiving legal correspondence from a firm in texas (i'm in mass). its happened a number of times
they send case related info
i keep telling them to stop
they keep sending it.
dipshits.
i know who not to hire as an attorney if i ever need one in texas (god forbid)
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Similar situation. I had a guy who thought I was his nephew (despite a couple of emails trying to explain that I really wasn't and it was a case of identity doppleganger) who'd occasionally send me 'motivational' Bible quotes. Then one day I got a friend request from him to some sort of service that alerts you if any of your friends are looking at porn sites or other soul-corrupting material. I was tempted to accept and then take him for a walk on the wild side, but I was a good boy and just deleted it.
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Same boat. Though mine is quite amusing. A comely young woman used my email address to join a number of dating sites. The resulting mail is often quite hilarious.
Taylor, if you're out there, just know that the NSA, Google, and now me, know all about your wild side.
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Taylor, if you're out there, just know that the NSA, Google, and now me, know all about your wild side.
No, it's Becky.
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Sometimes people give out BS addresses because they don't like the spam and the endless selling of their info. I like to use bob@bob.com so I feel sorry for that poor bastard.
I hate that (Score:3, Informative)
I've had some or multiple asshats do this several times.
I'm not sure why he can't get his email address right, but it's pretty clear this would stop if the offending organizations used a validation scheme.
Regardless, an incorrectly used email address doesn't quite quantify as identity theft. Hell, I'm not sure why you would think the cable bill would be remotely in your name. You see, utilities are tied to a physical address and it would fairly straight forward to rule out foul play.
Last person that decided they would use my email address for their xbox account found out why that was a really bad idea. At least, I hope by now they have called msft to have their account password reset and their email address set to something more tangible then 'stopusingmyemail.' I have to assume they wanted me to manage their account since they gave me unrestricted access to it and supplied my email address for said management. I might have been wrong, but the notifications have stopped.
Someone gave them the wrong email address (Score:5, Interesting)
It happens to me all the time, I have a relatively common Gmail address using my first initial and last name. I frequently get misdirected email from a variety of vendors where someone gave them my email address by mistake. I used to try to contact the merchant and tell them, but they rarely respond intelligently (usually they tell me to log on to my account and change the address... duh, I don't have an account!). So now I usually just flag them as spam and ignore them.
Comcast has been sending me monthly bill notifications for someone else's account for over a year, I emailed them, but they told me to call and I didn't feel like calling, so I've been ignoring it.
Some guy keeps sending me his flight reservations, I could screw with him and cancel his flights online or maybe keep changing his seat to put him next to the bathroom.
One guy said he was going to sue me for stealing his email address when I told him that he's using the wrong address, he swore that he'd been using that address for 5 years and that I stole it from him.
Re:Someone gave them the wrong email address (Score:5, Insightful)
The magic word is 'fraud' or 'fraudulent'. Add those to your request and they tend to get to eyes who give a damn.
For sites with email as an option to complain, those magic works make it always work for me. They usually even realize I can't login to the account to change the email without me pointing it out to them.
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I get credit card reports for a guy in South America. The return address is a non-read account and the only way to contact the company is by making a phone call there. So I just delete the emails.
Talk to a lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you familiar with the recent judgement against Time Warner Cable over a very similar matter? [slashdot.org]
we are assured that her social security number is not being used and that they will clear her name and email address out of their system. Yet a few weeks later we get another email.
Then they are not clearing it out: they are either incompetent or lying. Consider having a lawyer draft a letter referencing this recent judgement. That might help.
My Wife Had This Too (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife has had this happen to her too. Someone used her e-mail address when signing up for their Comcast account and Comcast kept e-mailing my wife with account updates. (We're not in a Comcast area.) She called and they essentially said there was nothing they could do since she wasn't the account holder. They needed the account holder's permission to change the e-mail that was going to my wife. The same account holder who put in my wife's e-mail address in the first place. (I believe they eventually contacted the person and sorted the issue out, but she still gets the occasional e-mail when the person again puts my wife's e-mail address into a system.)
All this being said, I wouldn't say that "has the wrong e-mail address in the system" is Identity Theft. You're getting pestered with e-mails, sure, but they aren't impacting your credit report, charging you for the other person's service, or anything else. As a victim of Identity theft myself (my name/SSN/DOB/address were used to open a credit card in my name), it takes a lot more than "put your e-mail address in the system" to qualify.
Re:My Wife Had This Too (Score:5, Informative)
I solved a situation like that by setting up an automated reply to send the bad comcast email to the email addresses of every single comcast executive. with the top line changed to "Why cant your people fix this?"
It stopped within 2 weeks of the 4th email.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone did that to me w/ Skype. I tried to login, requested a password reset, logged in and then disabled the account.
The original poster should probably just do this - log into the account (maybe by resetting the password) and then reset the email address to something else - maybe you can find out from the web interface the name and address and phone number of the person who screwed things up - call them and tell them their new password. If the system requires some validation to reset the email address, use an address at https://mailinator.com/ [mailinator.com] or another similar place.
Lucky you! (Score:2)
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I paid the bill and waited another five years for the entry to fall off my credit report.
No need to wait five years, you should have been able to dispute it with the CRA.
Something also tells me the Electric company is not going to risk losing thousands to the consumer in a lawsuit over a $2.75 charge.
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You may need to talk to a real lawyer (Score:2)
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you probably really need to talk to a lawyer.
See! You do become "responsible" for it in some respect, you have to spend money on a lawyer, Or else, damage will likely happen to you as a result of the identity thief.
If the debt is not yours, then you are not liable for it, BUT, It can be emotionally and financially trying to get out of being held liable for debt you are not suppo
Musical Identities (Score:5, Funny)
This one is simple: steal someone else's identity. The last one left without an identity loses and we shun them.
email? Who cares? (Score:2)
I get email on my yahoo account for someone with the same first initial and last name as me. They
I get similar, don't worry (Score:2)
I get similar emails from auto places saying this r that service ws perfgormed or whatever. It appears to me that someone associated my email with a real person who really is doing these things, getting service etc. In my case the person doesn't owe money, so i don't worry about it. If it was an unpaid bill, I still wouldn't worry about it since an email is not an identifier and neither is the fact that someone has your name and email a contract with that person.
There are lots of innocent ways your email an
I have a similar thing going on (Score:5, Informative)
A Hotmail account I signed up for in 1996 or 1997 is often used as a throw-away e-mail by idiots all the time.
Often, I will log in to the service they used my address for, and reset the password and take it over, just to let it sit.
If morons are dumb enough to use my e-mail, then they should not have access to whatever service they signed up for.
One time, a "sugardaddy.com" account used my e-mail, and I took it over, changing the profile pics to some handy images from "faces of meth" and spicing up the profile. Sadly, a drug-addicted, STD carrying woman still sparks a lot of interest, apparently, among "sugar daddies"
Contract (Score:2)
Since you don't have any contract with that company for the provided services, why do you worry ?
At least in EU, no cable/telco company can provide you such service without a contract, and without a contract they cannot bill you for anything. And technically speaking, if you have no access for those services (and I assume you have not), they cannot bill you - you can still receive a letter claiming so, but it's empty of legal support.
Maybe it's different in US, but I'd find it very strange if so.
password recovery to defeat reverse identity theft (Score:5, Interesting)
Now any time she gets a bill for any service, her first step is to recover the password, then schedule service disconnect. Seems harsh, but it is the only way. She has dealt with this for years... Hell if she were malicious, she has the account balance, social security number, bank account numbers, credit history, and/or University staff login credentials for half a dozen people who have targeted her for "reverse identity theft. [xkcd.com]" No matter how much she begs them to stop.
Oh by the way... other woman who lives in NYC, 5 guys burgers emailed and said your order is ready for pick-up.... Maybe eating burgers and fries 6 times a week isn't the best for you though.
Re:password recovery to defeat reverse identity th (Score:5, Insightful)
My policy is to never respond to emails that I receive if they are intended for other people. Here's why.
Back in 1998 I received an email intended for an attorney at a personal injury law firm. The firm's domain name is very similar to mine, the only difference was that they have a hyphen in their domain name and I don't. Being a good guy, I replied to the sender saying he had the wrong email address. That was a serious mistake.
I was accused by their office manager of hacking their emails. I told her that I don't control who sends email to my domain. She said I shouldn't open email not addressed to me, and the firm reported me to the US Attorney for their location for violating attorney/client privacy. Back then, the name, address and phone number of domain owners were always public so it was easy to discover my details.
The US Attorney passed the information to the FBI and I received a visit from two agents who were polite but computer clueless and somewhat concerned about what had happened. As I said, this was 1998 and the whole concept of malware and hacking was somewhat new and esoteric. I explained to the agents in detail what had happened, showed them my email setup and explained how email works. They thanked me and left saying they would be in touch. I haven't heard a word from either of them or anyone else about the complaint since.
However, this experience did change my attitude to incorrectly addressed email. I've received several emails for this law firm since then and I ignored them. These days a complaint of this nature would be ignored but why take the chance.
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Exactly. The response to the FBI should've been to invite them to ask the law firm why _they_ were violating attorney/client privilege by sending sensitive information to a third party.
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It's not "the only way" at all. If she can login to schedule service disconnect, she could login and simply change the email address to 'foo@example.com'.
She then no longer gets mistaken emails, but with the advantage of not being a total dick to the poor sod who made an honest mistake with their email address.
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Phishing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you certain the emails are from the cable company? A common scam is to send fake emails to convince you to give them your account info and passwords. Usually those scams are for bank accounts, but you never know -- especially since they're asking you to make a payment. Is the URL in the email the same as the cable company?
Another possibility is that someone entered her email address instead of their own when making their account.
Re: Phishing? (Score:2)
I agree, I frequently get mails for netflix account that actually are scam mails. I don't have netflix, so it's easy to just junk them.
Re: (Score:2)
My wife once called me up and told me we'd gotten one of those, just like the 200 million we had received before, but this time she clicked it because "it was from *our* bank this time". "Our bank", btw is one of those big multistate banks. Probably about the first one a phisher would guess.
(*head to desk*)
On the bright side, at least she had the acuity to call me about it immediately. I had her *call* the bank with the phone # from our paper statement and change all our contact info immediately. No notic
Kill the account (Score:5, Interesting)
When people sign up for things using one of my email addresses, I simply recover the password through email, then login, cancel the account, change the password and move on.
There is a jackass in NYC who shares my name, and has signed up for things like Spotify and Netflix using a variation of my gmail address (minus the periods, which do not matter to gmail). I cancel everythng he orders using my email address.
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When people sign up for things using one of my email addresses, I simply recover the password through email, then login, cancel the account, change the password and move on.
There is a jackass in NYC who shares my name, and has signed up for things like Spotify and Netflix using a variation of my gmail address (minus the periods, which do not matter to gmail). I cancel everythng he orders using my email address.
I get the same thing, but I've found, if you simply cancel the account, the jackass tries to make a new one the next day. I've found it's better to reset the password. After he tries to reset the password a few times, he'll go away.
Better yet is if it's tied to an account ID rather than an email, change the email to something at mailinator.com or another throw-away address. Then you don't even get the account reset attempts.
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Lawyer up (Score:2)
Get a lawyer to send them a letter saying you've already informed them multiple times you're not even a customer, and will now sue for harassment if they don't cease further communications with you.
When they don't care, you hrie a lawyer (Score:2)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/time-warner-cable-placed-163-robocalls-about-unpaid-bill-to-wrong-person/
Here time Warner ignored a woman's repeated attempts to get them to stop robo-calling her.
So she hired a lawyer and sued. They continued to call her even after she began her law suit. They lost the lawsuit, paying more than $200,000.
Most likely it won't go to court. Your goal is s
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Yeah, that's a great idea 'cause every time I fart $100 dollar bills fly out!
Re:When they don't care, you hire a lawyer (Score:2)
Yeah, probably an accident (Score:2)
I run into the same thing with my Yahoo address. It's not a very common name... but there's somebody who thinks (or, at one time, thought) that it was his email address. I've gotten emails from his daughter complaining about the kids at school bugging her, Olan Mills appointment confirmations, saxophone enthusiast newsletters, Gamestop emails saying how many points he's earned buying stuff from them. The last one I got was a Fedex delivery confirmation for somewhere over a thousand miles from me; I print
Document Everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Just document your communications with the cable company, especially their security department. Always get a case / incident number from them in addition to the names of everyone who you talk to. Figure out what the legal rules are recording telephone conversations in your state and theirs and make recordings of your calls. Even if you do not have to notify them that you are recording (assuming you both are in "one party consent" states), do so anyway.
If you want to go the extra step, write up a summary letter after you contact them and include all of the information and let them know that you are retaining a copy for your files. Make sure to date it. Mail it to them and request a delivery receipt to keep in your files.
If it happens again, do the same thing again but include some additional verbiage about it being the second time that you have dealt with this with them. Explain that you are not doing business with them, do not ever intend to do business with them, and will not be held liable for the cost of any services that they provision with your wife's information. Keep a copy for your files and forget about it.
If a collection agency ever contacts you,
1. Send them a copy of your file and let them hash it out.
2. Hope and pray that they continue to pressure you for payment
3. ???
4. Sue them for fraud, plus attorney fees. (PROFIT)
Check Current Credit Report And Go From There (Score:3)
You need to do this at least once a year anyway:
Ask each of the three credit bureaus for your free credit report. You usually fill out a set of forms and they'll e-mail you a report. For each credit report:
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You can get one free credit report a year.
Check your credit report from only ONE agency (one of Experian, Equifax, or Transunion). Four months later, check it with another agency. Four months later, check it with the third agency. Four months later, it will be a year since you checked with the first one; now you can get another free report from them. This way, you can get a free report every four months.
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Many credit unions will give you a report for free.... and it doesn't count against your annual free ones the FTC mandates be given to you
Keep it simple. (Score:2)
Send the cable co a letter, certified, return receipt required, explaining things with dates of calls. Ask them to acknowledge that your wife does not live in their service area, state that you and your wife own no property in this area, and that you will not honor any billing unless that changes.
Asking them to prevent your wife's email from being used is probably pointless. But notifying them that this is happening, in writing, and warning them you will not pay a bogus bill is a start.
Don't threaten lega
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Do not send the letter merely to the cable company. Do some research and send it to the company's CEO or president.
Also, save all the E-mails from the cable company and any E-mails you send them. Someday, you might need to use them as evidence in a lawsuit.
I too get someone else's e-mail (Score:2)
My name isn't very common, but there is a retired medical professional in California who shares it. I occasionally get e-mail on my gmail account directed at him: I have watched him retire, visit resorts and get his fancy car serviced. I once printed out some correspondence directed at him and sent it to his home address using the US Postal Service, but nothing changed. Sometimes I reply to the e-mail explaining that I am a computer programmer in New Hampshire, not a medical professional in California, a
password (Score:5, Funny)
My email provider forced me to use a minimum of 8 "characters" and at least 1 number as a password.
So as my password I chose: "Snow White and the 7 dwarves"
I've not got a particularly common name (Score:2)
All been fine for years - and then recently I've had:
1) Info from a Ford dealer in the US, discussing servicing, receipts for servicing etc. (In US, I'm in UK)
2) Gym membership that hasn't been paid in the UK - right up until collection agency was mailing me
3) Mobile phone bill in UK (but few hundred miles away), that's been purchased, and seems to pay each month.
4) Random US woman, who thinks I'm her newly married husband and told me "she loves me
Wrong email addresses are more common (Score:2)
There is an artist in Vermont, a real estate person in Texas, and a guy in Britain who all routinely give my email address thinking it's their own.
It happens constantly. I've stopped being nice.
For the guy in Vermont, he signed up for voicemail. So I password-recovered his account, got his phone number, and gave him a call. Bastard got upset at me thinking it was a scam. Later... I got a request for a caricature for the police chief. So I drew one, MS paint style and sent a $300 invoice.
For the guy in
Did they pay you the $300? (Score:2)
Are you sure it is from the cable company? (Score:2)
Verify the headers to make sure the mail came from the cable company. If you can verify the sending IP address. I get all sorts of email directed at me from supposedly cable, credit, banks etc. The sending IP is some dynamic att or time warner address. Your wife's email is no secret really. Every person that your wife has sent email to or is in their contact address book is a possible leak of her email to spammers. I see it all the time.
Revenge (Score:2)
It's unlikely that they'll come after you... (Score:2)
A lawsuit is going to require alot more than just an email address, particularly if the company that accepted it did nothing to make sure the email address was actually one belonging to the person services were extended to before extending services.
Same thing with the credit reporting agencies.
If they ever do come after you, then have a field day filing a countersuit. Refer to the fair credit reporting act for the protections it offers.
And it may simply be someone typed in the wrong email address.
To give an
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What is it with "SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid"
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use a 30 alphanumeric chars WPA2-AES PSK
Way to instantly defeat your password reset. You'd rather want to do something like EAP-TLS instead.