Let’s catch back up with AT&T
A few nights ago I didn’t have anything to do, and I got another application for Mike P. Bailey from capital one in my mailbox. So, I mustered up some coherent thought, and dialed them to be greeted by this somewhat southern 48 year old hag who sounded like she’s been chain smoking daily for the past 10 years.
I explained to them how the last call went down. How I gave cingular a fake name 3 years ago at my old address, and had called AT&T giving them information related to my real address, and my home address, and had been told that both accounts were out of their solicitation databases, and how i’d somehow started to receive applications for both mike p. bailey and paul m. bailey in my mailbox, and how no other company has records for mike p. bailey in their database except for AT&T.
Well, this woman told me straight away that AT&T never sells information to other companies. I argued that it was impossible for capital one to think mike p. bailey lives here as AT&T is the only company that has that name and this address. She then told me about how she’s been an AT&T customer for the past 30 years, and had never had any issues with them. I then began to say “i deserve compensation for this” and she immediately broke in with “wohh wohh wohh”, and actually, litterally told me, and I quote “We don’t know that!”. Can you believe that shit? The woman almost explicitly called me a liar. I never gave a single company on this planet the name of Mike p. bailey, how else could capital one make the connection between that name, and this address, without getting that information from AT&T? What the hell is this shit? AT&T just lied to me, and now i’m getting two applications per mail dropoff from random companies because AT&T wanted to make a buck off me.
It’s bad enough that they’re kicking my ass with this $60/month phone bill, and also recording my phone calls to give them to the government whenever they hint at the idea. Do they really need to butcher me threefold with this blatant abuse of my account data?
AT&T does credit checks on the name you provided, even if it was a fake name or not. This causes your name and your address to be sent along to some agency. From that agency, they can give your data to companies to allow them to provide you pre-screened offers, based on your credit score.
I get about 5 of those letters a week, and it automatically tells me that my credit is still good as otherwise those offers would stop coming in. You can opt-out by calling the 1-800 number that is enclosed either on the envelope, or in the letter they send you, and from then on you won’t be getting any more letters.
Comment by Bert JW Regeer — Sun, Dec 23rd, 2007 @ 11:53 pm