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Posts: 79 | Thanked: 4 times | Joined on Oct 2007
#31
Originally Posted by poser View Post
Pretty annoying, huh?

I was asked to provide similar information about three weeks ago after attempting to purchase an AT&T prepaid phone card (for international calls on an AT&T mobile phone). They called me up at about 3am (I had made the online purchase at midnight or thereabouts), and asked me for information to "...generate a list of questions to which only I would know the answers." Sounds like the same service.

HOWEVER, they only asked for the last four digits of my SSN.

Which I gave them. Either because I was half-asleep or because...at this stage in the game, I figure you can get the last four digits of my SSN from the goddam Yellow Pages.

Anyway, the list of questions they generated was hilarious. They asked four true/false questions regarding whether or not I had ever "owned or leased property" in a given US county. The answer, in all cases, was "no." That was deemed sufficient information to authenticate me as myself.
I had something very similar happen when I recently got a new t-mobile prepaid phone. A day after I made the order, they called me up, asked for the last 4 digits of my SSN (which I find annoying, but not unacceptable, unlike asking for my full SSN) and then asked me a bunch of questions about previous places I've lived. Since I've only moved once in the past decade, they asked me questions about places I lived 14-17 years ago, which was a bit disturbing. Privacy is largely an illusion these days. OTOH, I'm still not giving people my entire SSN w/o a very good reason.
 
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Posts: 729 | Thanked: 19 times | Joined on Mar 2007
#32
Originally Posted by sparkbox View Post
I will sell you my N810 for $409 and your SSN# you can have it this Wednesday.
I'll sell him an N810 for only $350, but I also need his full name and address to go along with that SSN.

For "verification" purposes of course.

Suckers really are born every minute.

Nobody reads newspapers anymore? Never heard of "data breaches" or "sensitive data loss"?
Let's say I run a "company" in name only. I run around selling some stupid widget, beanie babies, Elmo dolls, whatever. However, with every order I collect not only the SSN but the full names and addresses as well. Then I stage a little "data loss" incident by leaving a laptop with all that data in a "locked" (yeah, riiight) car where it's "stolen" by thieves.
Then a day later I check my little hidden dead drop to find the other half of the money said thieves owe me, but even if they didn't pay I still get to collect on the insurance! Bam! Profit!
And as long as I stay the hell away from California - like operate out of Canada or Jamaica - I don't have to inform a damn soul about the loss of their personal data.
My God, it's harder to actually rob a store at gunpoint than to do this.
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Kicking Nokia in the jimmy, one marketing exec at a time.
Originally Posted by Mr. T
Well maybe Mr. T hacked the game, and made a mowhawk class? And maybe Mr. T is pretty handy with computers? Had that occurred to you Mr. Condescending Director?
 
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Posts: 729 | Thanked: 19 times | Joined on Mar 2007
#33
Originally Posted by heron61 View Post
I had something very similar happen when I recently got a new t-mobile prepaid phone. A day after I made the order, they called me up, asked for the last 4 digits of my SSN (which I find annoying, but not unacceptable, unlike asking for my full SSN) and then asked me a bunch of questions about previous places I've lived. Since I've only moved once in the past decade, they asked me questions about places I lived 14-17 years ago, which was a bit disturbing. Privacy is largely an illusion these days. OTOH, I'm still not giving people my entire SSN w/o a very good reason.
Heh. Try living outside the U.S. for 13 consecutive years.
They don't even bother to call me to ask me anything. I inform them at the store where I setup my one-year contract (also T-Mobile) that if I ever, ever, ever, get a phone call or unwanted SMS message from them that I will physically hurt them.
So far so good. No one from T-Mobile calls me or sends unwanted SMS messages. The store is right down the street from me.

Originally Posted by smammon
Again, in person in the US makes a huge difference. The US govt. is firmly entrenched in the 1700's. I've been personally shown and handed stuff you wouldn't believe. But call on the phone and it's an entirely different ball game. (Plus the N95 may not have had the magic gizmo that makes it restricted tech.)
You need to go back and re-read the U.S. export regs again, bucko.
If you're "just being handed stuff" like I "wouldn't believe" then it leads me to believe two things:

1. You're lying and/or exaggerating. Do you even know what a "blue card" is?

2. You're not being handed anything we "wouldn't believe", i.e. it's all unclassified and open to FOIA requests, unredacted.

And at no time, EVER, is a piece of freely-available-around-the-world consumer electronics EVER going to require a U.S. retailer to obtain SSN data from a purchaser due to non-existant U.S. Government regulations.
Just because you are anti-U.S.-government doesn't mean they don't think you're stupid.
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Kicking Nokia in the jimmy, one marketing exec at a time.
Originally Posted by Mr. T
Well maybe Mr. T hacked the game, and made a mowhawk class? And maybe Mr. T is pretty handy with computers? Had that occurred to you Mr. Condescending Director?
 
Posts: 53 | Thanked: 7 times | Joined on Nov 2007
#34
I will admit that I now feel quite stupid having given Letstalk.com my SSN. I feel worse when I stop to think that even my SSN wasn't good enough; they had to call & verify my bank card info. Oh well, folly of youth. I'm sure it will be quite an adventure when I discover that my identity has been stolen for the first time. Maybe it already has *shivers*. Hopefully a low credit rating makes my identity an unattractive theft.


In the meantime I will play with my shiny new N810, as it shipped today
 
Posts: 26 | Thanked: 1 time | Joined on Oct 2007
#35
Originally Posted by iball View Post
Heh. Try living outside the U.S. for 13 consecutive years.
They don't even bother to call me to ask me anything. I inform them at the store where I setup my one-year contract (also T-Mobile) that if I ever, ever, ever, get a phone call or unwanted SMS message from them that I will physically hurt them.
So far so good. No one from T-Mobile calls me or sends unwanted SMS messages. The store is right down the street from me.



You need to go back and re-read the U.S. export regs again, bucko.
If you're "just being handed stuff" like I "wouldn't believe" then it leads me to believe two things:

1. You're lying and/or exaggerating. Do you even know what a "blue card" is?

2. You're not being handed anything we "wouldn't believe", i.e. it's all unclassified and open to FOIA requests, unredacted.

And at no time, EVER, is a piece of freely-available-around-the-world consumer electronics EVER going to require a U.S. retailer to obtain SSN data from a purchaser due to non-existant U.S. Government regulations.
Just because you are anti-U.S.-government doesn't mean they don't think you're stupid.
Interesting - one minute I'm defending the govt based on my speculation. The next I'm anti-govt. Busy day... Plus I got called "Bucko" bonus points!

Congrats on your physical intimidation of your local t-mobile store too.

Who knows how a given company meets export regs. I've jumped through all shorts of hoops. The root of this is just my guess as to why the "security questions". Draw your own conclusions - Hell I'm probably wrong and I just contributed the contents of my bank account to some criminal organization - that incidentally is automatically forwarded from the Nokia corporate telephone system. It's true I have no common sense and can't tell classified material from my elbow. You've outed me.

I've grown to be somewhat of a cynic over the years - sometimes it shows. Sometimes I stay home.
 
Posts: 237 | Thanked: 167 times | Joined on Feb 2007 @ Powell, OH
#36
Originally Posted by iball View Post
Nokia - and whatever reseller they're using - can shove that SSN requirement up their asses.

They also need to be DAMN careful. One word in the right ear about a European company collecting American SSN data....buh-bye.
I'm only bitter because the entire EU community slammed the U.S. Army for trying to issue special ID cards to "Local National" civilians working for them overseas in Europe that would allow them to access the computers and networks they would need to in order to do their jobs. Took them more than two years to work that out, the lazy rat bastards.
Also, no U.S. company - or government agency - can collect and house data on EU citizens, according to the EU regs. But we all know they are.
Trust me, the first time someone with a slight foreign accent rings up a bank to query an American SSN and credit card info someone at the bank will wind up calling the cops thinking it's yet another 409 scam.
If your bank lets that slide, put your money in a better bank.

The Social Security Number was invented solely for the purpose of the Social Security Administration.
It was NEVER intended to be used as a national ID number similar to a Nazi concentration camp ID tattoo as it is today.
Do you see that number on your driver's license? No, you don't. If you do then your state is in violation of federal law.
Letstalk is an American company. They are an order filler for Nokia. Letstalk has probably been burned alot by credit card fraud. Also lets be realistic SSN is used all over the place to track you, otherwise credit reports wouldn't exist.
 
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Posts: 51 | Thanked: 7 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Powell, OH
#37
Originally Posted by smammon View Post
Interesting - one minute I'm defending the govt based on my speculation. The next I'm anti-govt. Busy day... Plus I got called "Bucko" bonus points!

Congrats on your physical intimidation of your local t-mobile store too.

Who knows how a given company meets export regs. I've jumped through all shorts of hoops. The root of this is just my guess as to why the "security questions". Draw your own conclusions - Hell I'm probably wrong and I just contributed the contents of my bank account to some criminal organization - that incidentally is automatically forwarded from the Nokia corporate telephone system. It's true I have no common sense and can't tell classified material from my elbow. You've outed me.

I've grown to be somewhat of a cynic over the years - sometimes it shows. Sometimes I stay home.
Yeah after reading some of iball's posts it seems that he/she goes a little overboard on the forum - I wouldn't worry to much about the info you gave you might want to be more cautious in the future it is not worth dealing with ID theft trust me. I have a customer that has been dealing with effects for 3 years now and it has been a real hassle for them. Not mention limiting because their credit score got screwed up in the process.

Enjoy your new 810!
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Posts: 130 | Thanked: 5 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Maine & Florida - USA
#38
Originally Posted by LurkerN View Post
... In the meantime I will play with my shiny new N810, as it shipped today
Congratulations.
 

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#39
Not completely off topic, but I ordered airbags for the rear springs of my Jetta from a reputable mail order company via the interent. A couple days later my wife tries to get funds from our checking account and is told by the teller that there are no funds. She know's there's supposed to be funds there, but is told "no". She talks to our personal banker (at WAMU), who looks at the account and tracks 4 attempts to get our funds, two from Canada and two from Nigeria. The attempts from Nigeria were successful. The bastards got $1750.

They probably used a key-logger that went undetected, even though I use AdAware an SpyBot on a regular basis as well as McAfee in the background.

WAMU was good to us and restored the funds.

While not an outward case of identity theft, it does happen and a person needs to be careful. I have bought tons of stuff over the Internet, but nothing since this incident 5 months ago. If I do in the future it will be with a debit card that is not tied to my main account and that has only the funds necessary for that transaction.

I recently bought a new DSLR and lens. Instead of searching for the rock-bottom 'net price like I'd normally do, I bought it from a reputable, local brick-and-mortar. They didn't ask for my SSN or life history.

3 years ago I had someone in a nearby town order hundreds of dollars worth of stuff via a Sears Mastercard they'd set up in my name, with my SSN and their address. How they got the name and SSN is beyond me, but statistics indicaate that nearly every person in the country has had their identity compromised. I ended up with a credit-hold for three years, which CITIbank was very helpful in setting up, as well as resolving the incident and covering the funds.

In each case my security and identity is compromised and a big company takes it in the shorts (passing the costs on to the consumer). All of this is just to say that I'm not nearly as cavalier about buying things over the 'net as I once was and that we should always be wary... caveat emptor!

Tony

Last edited by treynolds; 2007-11-20 at 03:44.
 
Posts: 69 | Thanked: 10 times | Joined on Nov 2007
#40
I ordered an 810 from Lets Talk. What a pain. They pre-notified my credit union of upcoming charges for two 810's. So, currently my Debit Card is maxed out do to the extra 810. Then, they notified me that I hadn't gone through the Social Security Number plus 3 mystery questions process. I called them and they would not listen to my complaint. The woman I talked to didn't have a brain in her head.

When I sign off, I am going to cancel all orders. Tomorrow I'll dispute the charges with my Credit Union. Then in a few days I'll try again and ask for the $75 discount.

I expect more nonsense, but maybe eventually it may work out.
 
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