Identity Crisis

This is aimed at the innocent identity thieves who casually identify themselves falsely, all in the name of protecting a friend or family member from the aggravation of the customer support call. We, as customer support reps, vow to do everything we can to thwart your foolhardy, if altruistic, attempts.

Identity theft prevention is serious business, both for you, the customer, and for your customer support rep. Like anyone else, I know how frustrating it is to try to take care of a problem for someone else, only to be met with wall after wall, leaving you to cry to the heavens, “I was only trying to help!”

We know, but so are we.

One and One Make Two

Perhaps the most frequent of transgressors in this area of innocent identity theft are the spouses of the customer on file. This is business. All that flowery poetry over being two halves of the same whole only works over a candle-lit dinner or a passionate embrace. You may share an address, a last name, even that nifty toaster oven from Aunt Sue, but one thing a married couple will never share is a single identity.

Of course, there are different levels of security. You can probably get away with getting information from a cell phone plan under your wife’s name, but certain things like credit reports and credit information are an entirely different story.

I once had a woman e-mail me requesting information from her husband’s credit report. Of course, I politely refused, and explained to her that sensitive information like this could only be retrieved by the person. She repeated her request with increased fervor, telling me numerous times that with her marriage, she and her husband were one person in the eyes of God.

Finally I replied, I am not God. I can only give Mr. Bill Smith’s report to Mr. Bill Smith.

She called me a self-righteous bi-.

Okay. I understand that in most relationships, a husband would have no problem with a wife perusing thier personal information. An errant credit card debt is not what I was protecting in this case. Think about it this way. I had received an e-mail from a person identifying herself as Jane Smith. E-mails aren’t exactly difficult to get a hold of. There are countless free services letting you register almost whatever address you could think of. An e-mail baring the same last name as my customer tells me nothing. What if it wasn’t Bill’s wife Jane, but a true identity thief fishing for information. Sitting on the other end of a computer terminal, I have no way of knowing.

“Max … or is it Maxine?”

If you are one of those people with an ambiguously gendered name or voice, I’m truely sorry. Nothing can be more aggravating than someone calling you Mam when you’re a sir, or refusing you access to your own information because you don’t sound like Mr. John Brown.

The fact of the matter is, on a daily basis most customer support reps will get a fair few calls from male voices for a female’s account, or vice-versa. To us, you’re just a voice on the phone. No matter how infuriating it may be, there will be times when your rep will have to deny your request pending more information. Honestly, I would rather risk offending you and protecting your private information, than giving it out with the possibility I’m giving it to someone you wouldn’t want to have it. Annoyance aside,which would you prefer?

Tips For Account Set Up – Protect Yourself Before We Have To

• Don’t let someone else set up your accounts for you. Remember that to a company, the customer on file is who they’re going to protect. So many problems arise when someone who was once just trying to help becomes someone with the perfect tools to harm. A Realtor let her partner set up her website for her. It was his credit card on file, his name on the account. She paid him each month instead of us. When they parted on bad terms he locked her out of her account. Though it was her who put all the work and money into the site, we had no choice but to protect him
• If you know there are people in your life who are willing to make a phone call for you, and who you trust let your company know as well. Most companies have the ability to list authorized contacts for the account, saving you and your helpful partner time and frustration.