Even CPR can't save bad customer service. It's dead, gone and kaput! The end....

Hello again! I hope this post finds everyone fine and well, safe and sound. I’m fine. Hanging in there.

Last month, I spoke about the lack of customer service and I posed the question as to whether it was dead or not? I was hopeful that it wasn’t and that my experiences were isolated cases. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. This month, I had a horrible and disappointing experience with the customer service department at a magazine. Cook’s Illustrated magazine to be exact. How did my experience begin?

I'm an avid reader and I support a number of causes. One of those causes is to support my local library. Government spending is at an all-time high, but unfortunately when governments do cut funding it is always to programs such as supporting the library. Every year I order and donate a number of magazine subscriptions to the local library. Ordering magazine subscriptions should be an easy thing to do, right? No so. Not always. Not for me anyway. Anyway, out of six gift subscriptions, the one to Cook’s didn’t get to its destination. Hence, I gave the customer service department at Cook’s a call. Unlike other companies, they didn’t have an email address in order to contact them. Go figure. I checked online first to verify my order and that the shipping address was correct. It was. No problem there.

 

     I spoke with what I thought at first was a pleasant woman. Boy, was I wrong. As I began to explain my dilemma, she proceeded to tell me that they were sent out. I told her that they weren’t received. She verified the address, once but not twice. Since this call occurred at the end of a busy work day, truthfully I was exhausted. When she proceeded to tell me once again that the magazines were sent, basically reading from her script, I interrupted her. I knew this. She already told me. Guess what happened next? The woman got really angry and snapped at me. I was floored. In reply, I couldn’t help my next words, “You’re a real bitch aren’t you?” to which she snapped, “I am because you’re interrupting me.”

I immediately asked for a supervisor. Evidently, this kind of behavior was acceptable because when I requested to speak with her supervisor, she got off the line to get one. No apology. Nothing. She didn’t hang up, which also floored me. That is usually the typical response. She came back on the line, no apology to inform me that her supervisor was on the line. I explained to the supervisor what had just occurred and of my problem with my subscription. She said she’s going to look into the matter and see what happened to the subscription because they said they’ve been sending it out. Naturally, she also apologized, and stated that she’d listen to the recording of the call to see what happened, but I’m sorry, that isn’t enough for me. This was totally unacceptable. What about you? Do you think it was acceptable for a customer service representative to get rude with you when you did nothing to warrant it? Is customer service dead? Evidently so, as experienced by this blogger more than once, twice, three and countless times. Needless to say, I can’t see myself purchasing this magazine again, especially if the library doesn’t get the magazines. We shall soon see what becomes of this matter.

    Question: Where are these customer service representative coming from? What kind of training do they get? Personally, I don’t think they get any kind of training, as shown by my experiences. Why are companies hiring and keeping persons like this in their employ when so many people are unemployed? As a customer, I don’t tolerate behavior like this. Not from employees, colleagues, or from my students. The sad part of all of this is that it doesn’t occur with just companies, large or small, but it also happens with charitable organizations. I will cover my experiences with them next month in my next post. I’d love to hear about some of your experiences with companies and customer service departments. I'm sure we'd all be intrigued by it, and it'd be nice to know that we're not alone. And as evidenced by the high number of comic strips I could find about bad customer service for this post, it isn't a problem that is going to get better. As a customer, what would you have done in this situation? How you feel about bad customer service?

    Until next time, I wish you well. Have a great day, a great week and a great month.  May all your dreams come true. Be Safe. Be happy. Show compassion. Be kind to one another, especially those without a voice. Don't share your personal information just because one asks for it.     

    Regards,

    S.J. Francis
    Advocate for the underdog, and cat, et al.
 
In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Coming in 2015 from Black Opal Books.

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Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. No portion of this blog post may be reprinted, modified or used without written permission of the author.

Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author, S. J. Francis and are meant to entertain, inform and enlighten, and intend to offend no one.

What ever happened to Customer Service? Is it dead for good?

Hello all and how are you today? First off, allow me to apologize for having not posted here in a while, but time goes by faster than I can keep up. Sometimes, it is so fast, I don’t even have a chance to catch my breath, but I’m sure you can relate. Anyway….

 

 

      Life is crazy. It’s getting crazier every day. Not to mention dangerous. In the meantime, it’s also become less friendly and personal. Sometimes I really hate shopping. How about you? Companies, especially large ones don’t care about customers and customer service and it shows. Unfortunately, a great many small companies have followed suit. A number of small businesses I’ve encountered seem to prefer making money while treating customers like dirt. I know. Over just the last few years I’ve had repeated bad experiences with small businesses, some I’ve done business with for years while others were brand new. Is it just me or have you noticed this downward trend as well? We all work hard for our money and there is no need to deal with a business that doesn’t value your patronage, which is the main reason I began this blog. This post, as you have already guessed is about the lack of customer service with specific companies that I cannot under any circumstances recommend. Let’s begin with the duds, shall we….

     There was a company that I used to buy “grass fed” beef from that was supposedly sold and shipped “direct from their ranch” in Montana. You may have even purchased from them, too, or knew someone that did. I even recommended a few people to them. It received great reviews from the NY times and the Wall Street Journal. Most of the meat they sold tasted great. Others not so much. Some meat was downright awful. By accident, I discovered that when I placed an order from them, by their own admission, or slip of the tongue from a few different workers, it turned out that their meat didn’t come “direct from their ranch” in Montana. In fact, the meat was sent to a conventional meat packing plant in Madison, Wisconsin where it was processed once, maybe twice a year and vacuum packed and frozen, then shipped to customers. Imagine my shock to discover this. Of course, as you read this, this company is no longer in business selling meat “direct from their ranch.” In fact, La Cense beef doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Coincidence? Did someone else find out, such as the NY Times or someone influential discover the fraud and misrepresentation behind their meat sales? I wonder…. (see http://www.lacensebeef.com/) 

     No need to tell you about cable companies like Comcast. Their customers’ horror stories are numerous and legendary. Cable companies are just the worst. I can write an entire post on that alone. Sadly, Dish Network is no better. I was one of their original customers’ way back in 1997 (?) when you had to buy their system and they were great. Now, not so much.  

     How about the small company NaSoya that makes the mayonnaise alternative nayonnaise? First, did you know that they were purchased by the conglomerate Con-Agra? Second, their product light nayonnaise, though labeled to “taste like mayo” tastes nothing like mayo. I know. I purchased this based on the fact that their label said it tasted like mayo, when it fact it doesn’t. When I brought this to their attention and requested a refund, they declined to do so. In fact, they became rather snotty. Despite that I sent them photos of their product emblazoned with a label marked “tastes like mayo,” they refused to do anything about it. No apologies. No refund. Nothing. The company representative I dealt with even admitted in an email to me, that "this one doesn't taste like mayo, but our whipped one does." In case you haven’t tried this one, allow me to save you the time, effort and money in doing so.  It tastes like white water that resembles a watery white paste and nothing like mayo. Think wall paper paste and that is it. If you can buy another product, I suggest you do. The company that makes Nayonnaise, Vitasoy doesn’t know how to treat their customers. I guess they just don’t care. It certainly appears that way. As a result, I reported them to the BBB. (see photo and judge for yourself)

 

And the most recent case that wins my award for a crooked company right up there with LaCense Beef goes to a small business that supposedly has been around since 1850.  Years ago while living in sunny Los Angeles, I located a store in the small community Solvang, just a little bit north of LA that sold nothing but olives. Yes, I love olives. In fact, I used the jar to phone the company to buy more. On and off over the years since 1996, I’ve been purchasing these olives from this one particular company. I’ve referred friends and family to this company. The olives, most are delicious. My business dealings migrated to the web when they did. Unfortunately, the last purchase I made through them was a fiasco. In fact, it was rather a crooked transaction. 

     On three different occasions, I tried to purchase from them online. I also sent them an email to inquire as to what was going on and notify them of my problems to which they didn’t reply. When the fourth time failed, I printed up the confirmed order that didn’t go through and called in the order. As the company was “experiencing problems with their computers” the order was taken by phone. They couldn’t give me a price, yet for my difficulties encountered, they’d give me a 10% discount. That should have been the red flag. Even a little voice told me so. A few days later my order arrived without any paper work. Curious, I called the business and they sent an invoice via email. Surprise! The prices on the invoice were different than the ones listed on the website. They were higher than those quoted. When I returned to the website the prices were lower. They were the prices I found when I printed out my order. It was the end of the day and I decided not to deal with this until the next day. When I called, they apologized for the mistake and said they’d fix it. They also apologized for overcharging on the shipping and would refund the difference. They also said, “It’s better to order from the website because the prices are more accurate.” Imagine that. We did try, but the website didn’t work. Anyway, to make a long story short, I was charged more than I was supposed to by the Santa Barbara Olive Company. By the way, I went back and the prices for the items I purchased went up after I ordered them, but not when I ordered them. What do you make of that? It’s ironic that this company was ripped off by their accountant for $500,000.00 just a few years ago. I couldn’t help questioning them that if they were trying to make the money back that way by overcharging their customers? Of course, they denied that. “That isn’t the way we do business.” What do you think? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…..Looks like they’ll have to be reported to the BBB too.

 

 

    Don’t get me started on magazines. I love to read. I’m a self-confirmed bibliophile and a card carrying member of my local library even though I have my own home library. Aside from books, fiction and non-fiction, I love reading magazines. I subscribe to at least a dozen or so, though over the last couple of years I’ve had to cancel some of them. The magazines changed dramatically from the ones I favored and subscribed to. The issues lost pages as they shrunk down in size, though I was paying the same price to purchase them. Some went digital only and I don’t care what others say about it, I prefer leafing through a magazine and holding in in my hands and reading it wherever and whenever without having to worry about turning anything on, carrying extra weight, or being concerned about a power source. The latest issue (pun intended) I experienced with magazines was with Southern Living published by Time magazine. I ordered a three year subscription.  I paid in advance. Word of advice: don’t pay for anything in advance. I normally don’t, but they offered a discount to do so. Big mistake for me. Anyway, I was given a date for my first issue. The issue didn’t arrive. I telephoned customer service and was given another due date for the first issue. When I asked for a supervisor to clear this up for sure, I was given the run around from the broken English-speaking customer service representative. The supervisor, of course apologized and gave me the same date I just received. Of course when that date arrived there was still no magazine. Tired of calling and being put on hold, I sent an email with my problem. Still no magazine so I cancelled. They had the nerve to tell me that they’d only refer a portion of my payment. I had to remind them that I never received an issue and wasn’t satisfied, then they gave me a full refund. Needless to say, I can’t recommend Southern Living magazine or any publication from Time.

 

    This is just my take on the growing trend in business. It is obvious that businesses no longer care about the customer, you and me. It all comes down to the mighty dollar and they must be independently rich since customers no longer matter to them. You’d think that with so many of us counting dollars and cents and cutting down or eliminating the little niceties such as magazines, etc. that companies would treasure each and every customer. Wrong! That has been my observation anyway. What is your take? What do you think of all of this? Do you think that businesses, large and small care about your patronage? Do you think they value customer service? Have you experienced a nightmarish encounter with one of the companies you do business with? What did you do about it? We’d love to hear about it. What did you do to rectify it?

 

     Until next time, I wish you well. May all your dreams come true. Be Safe. Be happy. Show compassion. Be kind to one another, especially those without a voice. Don't share your personal information just because one asks for it.

 Regards,

S.J. Francis

 

In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Coming in 2015 from Black Opal Books.

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(Customer service From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

     Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. According to Turban et al. (2002),^[1] "Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation."

The importance of customer service may vary by product or service, industry and customer. The perception of success of such interactions will be dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest,"^[2] according to Micah Solomon. Customer service can also refer to the culture of the organization - the priority the organization assigns to customer service relative to other components, such as product innovation or low price. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization, or proactively interview customers for feedback.
From the point of view of an overall sales process engineering effort, customer service plays an important role in an organization's ability to generate income and revenue.^[3] From that perspective, customer service should be included as part of an overall approach to systematic improvement. A customer service experience can change the entire perception a customer has of the organization.)

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. No portion of this blog post may be reprinted, modified or used without written permission of the author.

Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author, S. J. Francis and are meant to entertain, inform and enlighten, and intend to offend no one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Limit Tracking on Face Book...

Privacy. Intrusion. Identity Theft. Data theft. Cookies. Surveys. Do we really have any privacy left?

 

In this age of social media and date theft, one's information seems to be up for grabs and there isn't anything we can do about it. Seeing how our information is shared from one company to another, legal or not, what is one to do? Not much, but one can try to limit how much our information gets out. One way is by limiting your tracking on Facebook...

Limit tracking on Facebook… 

Worried about tracking while on Face Book? I do. There are a few things you can do to limit tracking and I want to share them with you. Mind you, these steps help, but won’t protect you 100%, but they’re a start. When I saw these, I knew I had to share. Here they are…

1)      Edit your interests: Like many Web sites, Face Book tracks your online activity whether you’re on the site or not. They then profit from the targeted ads. To limit the interest that marketers presume you have, choose a Face Book ad and click on the corner icon. A menu will appear. Select “Why am I seeing this?” and then, “View and manage your ad preferences.” You can trim your profile to your age, gender, and where you live.

2)      Manage your cookies: To tell Face Book (and other web sites) to stop showing ads based on your browser activity, visit aboutads.infochoices, an ad-industry webpage.

3)      Change Your Phone settings: To keep Face Book from collecting data about your use of phone apps, tell your phone. On an iPhone, go to Settings, then Privacy, then Advertising. On an Android, go to Settings, then to Accounts, then select Google, and then Ads. 

Source: Wall Street Journal.

Until next post, I wish you well. May all your dreams come true. Stay Safe. Show compassion. Be kind to one another and those without a voice. Don't share your personal information just because one asks for it.

Regards,

S.J. Francis

Regards,

S. J. Francis

In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Coming in 2015 from Black Opal Books.

My Black Opal Books Author Page:

            http://www.blackopalbooks.com/author-bios/bio-sj-francis

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 Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. No portion of this blog post may be reprinted, modified or used without written permission of the author.

The Ice Bucket Challenge: Was it altruism or narcissism?

The Ice Bucket Challenge: Was it altruism or narcissism?  

       

Truthfully, when I heard about this ice bucket challenge I had no idea what it was about. I slowly began rumblings that people were jumping on the bandwagon on it. I was tempted too, as it was for a good cause. Then, I discovered this; a person was to donate one hundred dollars for the cause or to take a photo of themselves pouring a bucket of ice over them. Naturally, I wondered if those who took photos of themselves were actually donating to a worthwhile charity, or were they merely taking a selfie?

 

Interestingly, more than 2.4 million flooded Face book and Twitter with videos and photos of themselves getting soaked with ice water. Question: did any of these people donate to the ALS drive, or were they merely being narcissist with their selfies? Did we really need to see so many, including celebrities posting selfies in order to raise money? Couldn’t all these people just go ahead and donate to the cause instead? In this day of social media, one cannot deny everyone wants to have their fifteen minutes of fame, which is why so many participated in the challenge.  Vanity drives social media and social media drives society. That is obvious.

Fortunately, through this gimmick, the ALS association raised about ninety million dollars since the end of July, which is thirty five times more than the charity raised in the same period the prior year. Granted, the disease is a horrible affliction, but a rare one. I can’t help but ask that perhaps the money raised for just one disease could have been better utilized to fight a few diseases. Spread the wealth. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think ALS sufferers or anyone with chronic disease, fatal or not has an easy battle and if we can help someone with their suffering, it is only the right thing to do. I just can’t help but want to help everyone and not those just afflicted with ALS. In the end, the ice bucket challenge did a good thing, but I still can’t help but wonder how many actually performed a selfie to boost their image rather than actually making a donation to a worthwhile cause. What did you think about the ice bucket challenge? Did you feel it accomplished what it set out to do?

 

 

Until next post...Stay safe. Show compassion. Smile. Ba Happy. Be nice to one another. Pass it forward to others.

Regards,

S. J. Francis

 In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Coming in 2015 from Black Opal Books.

My Black Opal Books Author Page:

            http://www.blackopalbooks.com/author-bios/bio-sj-francis

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Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. No portion of this blog post may be reprinted, modified or used without written permission of the author.

Is Your Private Data Safe? Think again…

Is Your Private Data Safe? Think again

     In the never ending battle to keep your personal information private, it’s not just hackers you have to worry about but lax security and stupidity. No one cares more about keeping your information safe than you do.  Unfortunately, in our modern digital age, every company we deal with wants a piece of our privacy pie and we have no choice to give it to them if we wish to conduct business with them. However, a survey of data breaches in this year 2014 continues to show an increasing number of incidents in which data, including names and addresses, credit card and Social Security numbers, and medical records was lost or exposed to criminals. Scared? You should be. According to the Justice Department, 16.6 million adults were victims of ID theft in 2012.

     43% of companies had a data breach in the past year. The report, released October 3, 2014, was conducted by the Ponemon Institute, which does independent research on privacy, data protection and information security policy. That's up by 10% from the year before. A total of 589 data breaches have been recorded so far in 2014 by the Identity Theft Resource Center. About 76.7 million records have be exposed. Every Two Seconds in This Country, Someone's Identity is Stolen. Are You At Risk?
 

Sears owned K-Mart is the latest company to get hacked into and have data stolen. They don’t even have a number yet as to how many accounts were affected. It appears based on the information that they’ve shared that Kmart’s point of sale systems were compromised by malicious software. Kmart has discovered themselves in the unenviable position of being shoulder to shoulder with other hacked into companies like Dairy Queen, Neiman Marcus, AT&T and more.

From Kmart: “Based on the forensic investigation to date, no personal information, no debit card PIN numbers, no email addresses and no social security numbers were obtained by those criminally responsible. There is also no evidence that kmart.com customers were impacted. This data breach has been contained and the malware has been removed. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our members and customers.”

From Kmart: “If customers see any sign of suspicious activity, they should immediately contact their card issuer. More guidance is also available on our website, kmart.com and customers can contact our customer care center at 888-488-5978.

Dairy Queen   

On Thursday, October 9, Dairy Queen confirmed that nearly 400 Dairy Queen locations (and one Orange Julius location) were compromised by Backoff malware in August. When news of a potential breach first broke in August, Dairy Queen denied the the breach initially but then began an investigation. The investigation revealed that the attackers used compromised account credentials from a third party vendor to get into Dairy Queen’s systems. Customers’ names, card information, and expiration dates were all accessed in the breach. Dairy Queen now believes that the malware has been contained, and the company’s website lists all affected stores as well as the dates of the attack.
 

 

 

AT&T  

An employee accessed personal information belonging to approximately 1,600 AT&T customers in August, Reuters reports. AT&T informed these customers in a letter that their Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and internal AT&T information were all potentially compromised by the employee, who has since been fired. AT&T is offering free credit monitoring services to customers, and recommends they change their account passcodes.

 

JP Morgan Chase is notifying customers that their contact information, “specifically name, address, phone number and email address,” was compromised in a data breach that has reportedly affected 76 million Chase customers who have used Chase’s “web or mobile services: Chase.com, JPMorgan Online, Chase Mobile or JPMorgan Mobile,” according to a post on the company’s web site. In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said that the compromise impacts approximately 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.

Chase said that “there is no evidence that your account numbers, passwords, user IDs, date of birth or Social Security number were compromised during this attack.” The company also said that unlike recent attacks on retailers, “we have seen no unusual fraud activity related to this incident.”

 

Home Depot reported that cyber thieves stole information from 56 million credit and debit cards, far worse in terms of data loss than a similar attack late last year on the Target store chain, but no less worrying. Malicious software, or malware, was placed on Home Depot point-of-sale terminals, or cash registers, from April to September 2014, the company said in a news release. The malware was found in Home Depot stores in the USA and Canada. The home improvement chained confirmed that the 56 million credit cards may have been exposed during a five month attack on its system, and fraudulent transactions have begun to strikes its customers. In some cases, criminals have used the stolen card data to buy prepaid cards, electronics, and groceries. As if that isn’t enough, the criminals also siphoned cash from card owners’ bank accounts. The number of cards involved in Home Depot's loss dwarfs the 40 million Target says were compromised over a three-week period. Target said that breach also resulted in the theft of personal data for up to 70 million customers — including names, phone numbers, mailing addresses or email addresses — but the amount of overlap is unknown.
                                                              

The Home Depot and Target cases show that big-box retailers are particularly vulnerable to cyber thieves.

Thieves "are able to invest time in researching their targets to find a way into the network," says Trey Ford, a global security strategist at the security firm Rapid7, in a statement. "Once they're in, they stay quiet and fly unobserved under the radar."

Brian Krebs, who first broke news of the breach in his KrebsOnSecurity blog, reported that the malware was installed in terminals in self-service aisles, which limited the data loss. Though both credit and debit information was taken, the chain says, the thieves would have been unable to retrieve PIN numbers used on the debit cards.

Home Depot says the criminals "used unique, custom-built malware to evade detection. The malware had not been seen previously in other attacks," according to Home Depot's security partners.

 

Target, after acknowledging that as many as 110 million customers had personal information and card data stolen, said it would speed up its adoption of more secure payment technology. Suddenly, banks were being pressured to issue customers new cards with microchips, which have been used in Europe for more than 20 years. Congressional committees asked, with urgency, what more could be done.

Breached at Target: 70 million had names, addresses, emails and phone numbers stolen. 40 million credit and debit accounts and data of cards used at Target were stolen.

 

EBay

The online retailer suffered one of the biggest data breaches yet reported by an online retailer. Attackers compromised a “small number of employee log-in credentials” between late February and early March to gain access to the company’s network and, through it, compromised a database that contained customer names, encrypted passwords, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth. The breach is thought to have affected the majority of the company’s 145 million members, and many were asked to change their passwords as a result.

 

Michaels Stores                                                         

The point-of-sale systems at 54 Michaels and Aaron Brothers stores “were attacked by criminals using highly sophisticated malware” between May 2013 and January 2014. The company said up to 2.6 million payment card numbers and expiration dates at Michael’s stores and 400,000 at Aaron Brothers could have been obtained in the attack. The company received confirmation of at least some fraudulent use.

 

Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services

Triggered by suspicious activity, officials conducted an investigation in mid-May that led to the conclusion that a server at the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services had been hacked. The server held names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers on roughly 1.3 million people, although the department said it has “no reason to believe that any information contained on the server has been used improperly or even accessed.”

 

Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co.

A former financial adviser at the company was found in possession of a thumb drive that contained details on 774,723 of the company’s customers. The drive was provided to the company by law enforcement as the result of a search warrant served on the former adviser. The thumb drive included full or partial Social Security numbers, but the insurance company said it didn’t believe any of the data had been used to access customer accounts. It’s not the first time the company has lost data on a thumb drive. In 2006, it wrapped up a lawsuit against a former financial adviser for downloading “confidential customer information” onto “a portable flash drive.”

 

Spec’s

A 17-month-long “criminal attack” on the Texas wine retailer’s network resulted in the loss of information of as many as 550,000 customers. The intrusion began in October 2012 and affected 34 of the company’s stores across the state. It continued until as late as March 20 this year, and the company fears hackers got away with customer names, debit or credit card details, card expiration dates, card security codes, bank account information from checks and possibly driver’s license numbers.

 

St. Joseph Health System

A server at the Texas health care provider was attacked between Dec. 16 and 18 last year. It contained “approximately 405,000 former and current patients’, employees’ and some employees’ beneficiaries’ information.” This included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical information and, in some cases, addresses and bank account information. As with many other hacks, an investigation wasn’t able to determine if the data was accessed or stolen.

 

In closing, there really isn’t anything we can do to keep our data safe, except to no longer do business with anyone, unless it is strictly cash. If you are fortunate to be able to do so, paying cash for everything will keep your data more safe and private than any company can keep it. As most people cannot afford to pay everything with cash, limit your use of private data to those that absolutely need it. Don’t give anything and everything out simply because someone asks for it. Try to limit your transactions with a small number of companies. Don’t apply for every credit card available to you. The less your data is out there, the less chance that some cyber thief will steal it. Remember, in this day and age, there is no such thing as privacy. Your data is always subject to being compromised.

 

 

I’m enclosing a few contact numbers in the case you are subject to identity theft:

Internal Revenue Service: Telephone Assistance for Individuals who believe they may be a victim of Identity Theft: No Tax Administration Impact - Did not receive a notice from the IRS. Toll-Free 1-800-908-4490 (Automated and live assistance)

Hours of Operation: Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. your local time (Alaska & Hawaii follow Pacific Time). For additional information, refer to our Identity Theft and Your Tax Records page on IRS.gov.

 

Federal Bureau of Investigation: FBI.gov or your local field office. A stolen identity is a powerful cloak of anonymity for criminals and terrorists…and a danger to national security and private citizens alike.

 

Social Security Administration: www.ssa.gov. 

If you are the victim of identity theft, take these steps immediately:

1) Place an “Initial Fraud Alert” with one of the three credit reporting agencies.

2) Order your free copy of your credit report.

3) File an “Identity Theft Report” with the Federal Trade Commission at: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#crnt&panel1-2

Until next post, I wish you well. May all your dreams come true. Stay Safe. Show compassion. Be kind to one another and those without a voice. Don't share your personal information just because one asks for it.

Regards,

S.J. Francis

In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Coming in 2015 from Black Opal Books.

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Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. No portion of this blog post may be reprinted, modified or used without written permission of the author.