Vent
Update: In case anyone tried to log in and respond to this post, there were some security issues with the blog that prevented this. Those issues have now been resolved. Sorry for the inconvenience. You can thank the &@%# comment spammers.
Although my rants used to be the cornerstone of this blog, I’ve largely let that kind of bloviating fall by the wayside in the past couple of years. Mostly, I just don’t have time to sit around for an hour and type up a hyperbolic complaint that, in the grand scheme of things, does nothing to help solve my problems. However, there are times when I feel like a tirade is in order — lest I go quietly mad. Right now is one of those times.
I’ll start with something nice, though. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I spent a few days in Michigan, visiting family and friends in my hometown. It was actually a really good trip, filled with pretty decent weather, lots of catching up, some home-cooked meals and a few fun outings. More than anything, it was an opportunity to get some different scenery, drive some different cars, work in a different place and just enjoy the change. My daily routine here at home varies little from day to day, and simply gazing upon new things — even when they weren’t necessarily better things, as aspects of my old neighborhood can be a tad bit depressing at times what with how far they’ve fallen — was just what I needed.
As soon as we got back, though — and I mean literally within hours — the trouble started. It arrived in the form of a letter from a collections agency, which claimed I owed AT&T over $1,000 in unpaid bills for a wireless account that I knew absolutely nothing about. In fact, I’ve maintained every one of my accounts in good standing for my entire life — the idea that I was late on anything was patently absurd. Alarm bells started going off, though, when I realized that the collections agency was the same as one that my parents reported had contacted them at their Michigan address, apparently looking for me there. I decided to just call the creditor, AT&T, and get to the bottom of it.
Bad news: Some ass apparently opened an AT&T account using my name and social security number, then over the course of three months somehow racked up over $800 in charges and paid none of them. Two New York City area number were active on the account, and it had a bill-to address of somewhere in Indianapolis, IN. Interestingly, the account was opened just a matter of days after I noticed an unsolicited Hard Inquiry on my credit report from T-Mobile, another wireless provider. It seems that somebody got hold of my personal information somehow and used it to shop around for wireless service. They apparently did not succeed in getting any from T-Mobile — at least, not to my knowledge! — but perhaps because I was already a current AT&T account holder, the thieves were able to more easily bypass security procedures and open a new account using my data.
