Fraud Alert when Applying for Credit

[ultrarunner]

I printed in large Font and Laminated above the phone in Mom's house the following...

"My Son takes care of this... leave your number"

Which 98% of the time is followed by a hang up.

When people call for donations Mom says this:

"I tithe through my church"

I've been at her home when solicitors call and she tells them to hang on and talk to her son... almost always they hang up...

Just a lot of scammers out there and with many off-shore their is little any individual can do if their mind is going...

Many of my friends simply do not answer the phone unless it is known... for people in their 80's and above this is still seen as impolite for the most part.

 

[Otto Syracuse]

I use my cell phone for business and it is not uncommon for me to get a business call from a number that is not in my contacts. So I do answer almost every call, unless it is from an area I am sure would have no reason for calling me.

My latest gripe is Marcia, from the warranty department....Sometimes three or four calls a day...Very irritating to say the least. I always block the nu her when I hear that, but I still get them all the time.

Also, Sirius Satellite calls frequently....From a local number. I never answer it, they can send me a letter if they want something.

 

[thepumpguysc]

Funny you should mention Sirius.. Got 8 from them last week. The new car free trial isn't even up yet, still have 2 months left..
I had to cancel the subscription from the old car.. wrecked.. and put it on hold.. then when the free trial runs out, the old contract will kick back in..
Try explaining THAT to the caller.. I told them to mail me the info.. and I hung up..

 

[ultrarunner]

Sirus...

One of my friends is very hard of hearing... zero on one side and 30% on the other.

The Radio people are relentless. It got to the point he told them he was going to file an ADA complaint against them for harassment... he can't hear except for loud noises like a car horn.

 

[hawkeye08]

It is hard teaching the older generation not to fall for these scams. I got a call from a ~90 year old retired financial planner, he was paying his bills when a popup came up on his computer screen. It looked official and instructed him to call 800 number immediately to fix his computer. He thought it was from his bank since that is what he was logged into at the time. He called me after the he got concerned that he let someone work on his computer remotely, they wanted $400 to finish the fix. I told him to turn off his computer and gave him a reputable computer guys number. I got the same popup a few weeks later, it really looked legit.

 

[ultrarunner]

This one has got a lot of my retired friends...

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

I use my cell phone for business and it is not uncommon for me to get a business call from a number that is not in my contacts. So I do answer almost every call, unless it is from an area I am sure would have no reason for calling me.

My latest gripe is Marcia, from the warranty department....Sometimes three or four calls a day...Very irritating to say the least. I always block the nu her when I hear that, but I still get them all the time.

Also, Sirius Satellite calls frequently....From a local number. I never answer it, they can send me a letter if they want something.

When I had a truck that had satellite radio, those people called all the time, most annoying company to do business with.

 

[ishiboo]

I just learned a very concerning source of fishing phone calls resulting from checks on your credit.

I started applying for a mortgage last week. 3 days after the phone calls started coming in from fishers proportioning to represent other mortgage companies to solicit a loan. The last one said they were from Experian (the credit bureau). In quizzing him he stated that Experian is also in the Mortgage business. When I asked to speak to his supervisor, at that point he hung up.

Some internet searching revealed that they are not even a US company. They are headquartered in Ireland (the home of a lot of scam deals). Also there is a lot negative reports on the internet about their business practices which indicates they are less than an honest business. They are the only credit bureau of the three that charges for a credit report and they scam a lot of people with their subscription service.

Beware is all I can say.

Ron

When someone pulls your credit, it goes to 1 or more credit bureaus to provide the info. Usually for a mortgage, all three. Experian sells the notification of that to mortgage companies so they can solicit your business when they know you're looking to purchase/refinance. It's not phishing, it's not a scam, it's just sales and marketing.

Mortgage Leads Generation | Refinance Leads | Buy Mortgage Internet Leads For Sale | Experian

Experian PLC is the parent company located in Ireland - it's a very large company with a lot of acquisitions over the years. Experian North America is the subsidy that does the credit reporting - it's located in the US. We use them for verifying e-mail addresses in our marketing efforts as they acquired that company. They're an honest business, but when you pay late and it's recorded to your credit report it tends to piss people off.

All three credit bureaus charge for credit reports and offer a paid subscription service, it's not a scam at all. Your FREE yearly credit report as required by the government is NOT required to include your score, up-to-date monitoring, etc. It IS required to be offered by all 3 bureaus, and of course Experian provides it for FREE as required. FICO scores are licensed by the 3 bureaus from Fair Isaac and they pay big bucks for it, so some services use a different scoring methodology like VantageScore, even though anyone looking at your credit for a loan/etc. is using a FICO score version. Your numerical score is irrelevant to the point of a free credit report - for you to ensure the information on your credit report is accurate - and so it's not provided.

Ireland is a first world country who actively investigates and prosecutes wire fraud. They're not the "home of a lot of scam deals", in fact there's far more in the US. Ireland has a 12.5% corporate tax rate, versus 35% in the US in a place like Indiana. They did 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS worth of PROFIT last year, so being located in Ireland generated $255 million dollars more profit for their shareholders than if they were located in the US, among other things.

You can opt out of receiving those offers, of course: https://www.optoutprescreen.com

Take off the tinfoil hat.

 

[ishiboo]

Sorry, I linked the wrong product of how they found out you were shopping... in the industry it's called a "trigger lead" and their information is here: Reach Customers Actively Shopping for Credit | Prospect Triggers | Experian US

 

[ultrarunner]

I put a roof on my home and charged it to the credit card to get a rebate as there was no difference.

My FICO plummeted and I paid the card in full when the statement came and never have used it again... the next month the FICO was back to where I started.

It did tick me off that simply using the card would have such a negative effect.