Creepy UPS identity confirmation

[malkin]

As part of our never ending kitchen update, we ordered some pine shelves. Apparently they got stolen off of our front porch. Williams-Sonoma kindly replaced them, but I was nervous as all get out waiting for them to arrive. After waiting for a backorder delay, the box I retrieve from the porch is OPEN. I guess the thieves took a look and thought "Oh no, not that again!" and left it.

After installing the shelves, we decide to order another piece of the same shelving. This time I change the delivery address to Brewer's office for security. After another funky backorder delay, we receive tracking indicating that they are scheduled for delivery Christmas Eve. Which is fine, but it might be easier to pick them up at will call at UPS.

So I try to sign up for the nifty UPS "My Choice" which lets users log in and change delivery and has some other nifty features. In the process of doing that, I get to an identity verification screen that asks me to select people I am "closely affiliated with" and to select streets where I have lived which go back to the early 1980s. Even creepier is that the street list includes a residence where my ex-husband lived after we got divorced.

The creepiest yet is that the third question asks me to confirm the birth month of my ex-husband's ex-wife!

I'm just going to let them deliver the package, and let it go at that.

[Irulan]

Here is another slightly creepy thing. When UPS drops a package off, the GPS location of the drop off it noted. I had never heard of this until this fall. I did not receive a delivery as expected. (Side note, I get UPS almost every day, and my driver is super. He gave me the local dispatch number to use in special situations until the premise of "don't tell them where you got the number" and not to abuse it) anyway....so I called dispatch and they looked up my package on their end. I forget why I didn t call the 800# but there was a reason. They can see in google earth where it was dropped off!!!! She described the location to me to confirm it was not my house. We determined it was delivered four blocks away and they made the sub driver who had done the misdelivery go and get it.

[thekarens]

That doesn't sound creepy to me. That sounds like a great thing. Otherwise you might never find your package and there would be no way to prove it wasn't dropped off at your place.

[Irulan]

I basically agree- it's just a little creepy too me a) that we don't know all the technology that is being used and b) how pervasive it is.

[BikeDutchess]

Malkin - I just went through that UPS My Choice program sign-up yesterday as well and was a little creeped out also. I added several household members. For my daughter, they asked about her brother's (my son's) year of high school graduation, they asked about cars that we had owned, etc. What it drove home to me is that all this info is out there on the internet. There's no hiding out anymore. UPS knows all this stuff already - cars, addresses, birth dates (or they wouldn't have put it in their multiple choice answers) - and with them, many other companies too.

[OakLeaf]

That's run by one of the big credit reporting agencies, I forget which. It's the same one the USPS and the health care exchange use.

I mean ... none of this is new. The only thing that's new is that since all the hoopla over the past year, police agencies have been much more public about using people's phone history to track where they have been in the past. I keep my GPS off as a matter of course ... although obviously they could turn it on remotely if they wanted ... and there's still the cell tower triangulation to give ballpark locations.

[Irulan]

Hnmm, I don't know what UPS My Choice is. I use one of the commercial services, My UPS. (ups.com) username/password is it.

[tulip]

I had a package stolen off my porch, too. Apparently there are people who follow delivery trucks specifically for that purpose. I now have packages held for pickup.

[BikeDutchess]

That's run by one of the big credit reporting agencies, I forget which.

Yes, and for some reason I thought that was tied to your SSN, which I did NOT supply to UPS My Choice. That's why the questions surprised me.

[Catrin]

hmmmmm I didn't have to go through all of that weirdness when I signed up...

[Crankin]

I generaly don't worry about this stuff; I accept the surveillence stuff as, well, the price we pay for not getting the sh*t bombed out of us. But, DH is vigilant about checking all of our stuff, which is good. He's the one whose Amex card has been breached at least 5 times, mostly because he uses it so much! We use a password security system that generates random passwords for everything we do and I don't have to remember them. Well, almost everything. Some things I like to control!
But... many years ago, before the advent of anything to do with a computer (1978?) I applied for a very small loan from my credit union, so I could finish my masters degree. I was denied because they said I owed Sears 300.00 (a lot of money then). It turns out, the credit reporting agency had my parents' Sears account listed under my name. My dad and I have the same first 3 numbers in our SSNs and our names begin with the same first 3 letters. My dad went to the credit bureau and threatened a lawsuit. They removed the balance from my report, and magically, Desert Schools Federal Credit Union gave me the measly 300.00.

[TrekDianna]

Those kinds of questions aren't just used by UPS. We use a system when a student is taking a remote exam online that asks them for those sorts of answers also and the time limit they have to type the answers in is short. There is also a web camera watching them.

[goldfinch]

That's run by one of the big credit reporting agencies, I forget which. It's the same one the USPS and the health care exchange use.

I mean ... none of this is new. The only thing that's new is that since all the hoopla over the past year, police agencies have been much more public about using people's phone history to track where they have been in the past. I keep my GPS off as a matter of course ... although obviously they could turn it on remotely if they wanted ... and there's still the cell tower triangulation to give ballpark locations.

I ended up with a glitch verifying my identity through the healthcare exchange. The credit reporting agency had incorrect information about me so I did not answer the questions correctly. They also had odd information about my spouse but I managed to guess what they really wanted and get him signed up. I ended up having to mail in a copy of my drivers license to sign up.

My problem is having homes in more than one state. The credit reporting agency just doesn't know where we live.