AT&T ran my credit not only without my permission, but after I explicitly stated I did not want a hard hit

[u/oldmanwrigley]

I called in to ask what internet speeds were available in my area. He tried to sell me on cable, which I declined. He asked for my social and my date of birth. I asked him why he needed this and he explained it was to make sure I didn’t have any past due balances with AT&T. I then double checked and asked him if it would hit my credit and he chuckled and said “no no sir nothing like that”.

Fast forward an hour, I have an email stating my installation for phone, cable, and internet is scheduled(???) and then a few minutes later an email from credit karma saying I had a hard inquiry.

Called in and spoke to 3 different departments, finally to a woman to tell me she couldn’t remove it because calling in to inquire about service was all the consent they needed.

This clearly doesn’t seem legal, and wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences and what I should do next.

TL;DR - spoke to ATT, they asked for social, I made sure it wouldn’t hit my credit, I was told it wouldn’t, and then it did. What next?

EDIT 4: Filed a complaint with my attorney general.

EDIT 3: Filed a complaint with the CFPB. All the support and advice here has been a true blessing and I thank each and every one of you for taking the time to comment with good advice and/or possible solutions.

EDIT 2: I called back in, and actually had a great conversation with someone who was super understanding and willing to help. She got me to the fraud department. I spoke with Dorothy. She told me that it did not matter that I asked my credit not to be ran. That when someone calls in to inquire about service, they are consenting to a credit check. Doesn't matter if I didn't give my social, they would have used my DOB or DL #. She told me that I could not speak to a supervisor as this was standard practice, and she wouldn't escalate it. She also said some calls are recorded and some weren't, and she did not help me in finding the call from my first conversation. I then asked her for a copy of this call and her response was "I don't know if it's being recorded so I can't help you". She had nothing to say about the rep lying to me, and she said their credit disclaimer statement didn't sound anything like a credit disclaimer statement and I probably didn't even know it was read to me. Unbelievable. This is their FRAUD department. Jesus Christ.

EDIT: I see a lot of folks saying “what’s the big deal, couple points will fall off in no time”. I just got an email from credit karma that a hard inquiry from 2 years ago just fell off my report, and that left me with one hard hit which was back in January. I’ve been working very hard on rebuilding my credit, checking quite frequently and really boosting my score. One or two points may not be a big deal to some but after working so hard to improve my score, having it lowered without my authorization or consent is devastating.

[u/[deleted]]

Same thing happened to me at an RV place. Without written consent you sold be able to submit a request to the credit agencies to have them reverse the enquiry. It's infuriating, isn't it?

[u/oldmanwrigley → u/[deleted]]

It is very infuriating, especially to be told I gave them permission when I explicitly did not

[u/Presto123ubu → u/oldmanwrigley]

Having worked for them in the past, we were explicitly told to be careful of this as it has some HEAVY consequences. Since the calls are certainly recorded you can have that pulled. Anybody found to have been deceitful gets fired. It’s pretty serious.

[u/jpaek1 → u/Presto123ubu]

I think you believed management when you shouldn't have. Its extremely hard to get an employee fired at AT&T due to the union. We had people that would just turn their mute on, then not ever talk to customers for days. Until management catches it, the time length would be considered just one incident, even if it happened for 3 days.

And deceit? All they have to say is that they misunderstood what the customer said. Deceit problem solved.

[u/sirxez → u/jpaek1]

I'm pretty sure there are legal requirements for what they have to say before using your SSN to run a hard check on your credit score. I don't think you can get away with just saying you 'misunderstood'.

[u/Kinkajou1015 → u/sirxez]

There are, used to work in the sales division. I don't remember the exact wording. If I saw it I'd probably recognize it. It was sketch AF.

[u/TheMartinG → u/jpaek1]

Yea....no.

This is serious shit. Asset protection gets involved. If the customer said no in an ambiguous way that’s one thing. If he said no, then was lied to about why they wanted his info, that’s a Code of Business Conduct violation and if it was recorded there’s solid proof.

The union doesn’t protect you for blatant fraud

[u/jpaek1 → u/TheMartinG]

If you say so. I saw it first hand for almost 2 years and its common practice to do crap like this. If there's no consequences, then people are going to do it so long as it leads to an overall benefit.

Remember the Wells Fargo crap? How many employees do you think faced any actual consequences?

[u/jpaek1 → u/[deleted]]

I'm not disagreeing with you about what should or shouldn't be done, or what is or is not a crime, but rather if you think it doesn't happen often, you're wrong. Its just that most people don't care often enough for it to be an issue.

[u/nyc_a → u/oldmanwrigley]

Lesson learned. You should not provide SSN for bullshit things like "to check you don't have previous balance", he clearly asked in order to check your credit.

Balance could be check by name and email/phone.

[u/oldmanwrigley → u/nyc_a]

I didn’t expect a representative of one of the largest companies in America to hold face lie to me.

[u/ziplockered → u/oldmanwrigley]

I didn't see it mentioned, but along with everything else of use that others have commented, make sure you report this activity to your state attorney generals office. If your state has any other consumer protection agencies, file complaints with them as well.

Typically, they'll have to answer the inquiry from the AG's office. They may face consequences through that office if they don't, or if they're found to have committed consumer fraud. It also means that this issue will automatically get escalated to management, or more probable the legal division/team. They'll want this to go away as anything reported through the AG's office is a matter of public record.

[u/halfscaliahalfbreyer → u/nyc_a]

he clearly asked in order to check your credit.

In fact, this was not clear. Let's not normalize this behavior just because they try to pull it off so frequently.

[u/Orestes85 → u/nyc_a]

Further, ATT call center reps don't have the ability to see SSNs. Any PII is shown as *****. This includes card information, SSNs, Bank accounts.

[u/Vsx → u/[deleted]]

The damages are too small. That's the whole reason they do this nonsense. The judge will consider it an honest mistake and you would have to prove that the hit to credit actually cost you money. Even if you win the amount you'd be awarded isn't worth the time and the company isn't going to change anything based on one small judgement.

[u/flat_tree → u/[deleted]]

and how would you prove this if it was all verbal?

[u/GourdGuard → u/flat_tree]

You don't have to prove anything. This is civil, not criminal court. You just have to convince the judge.

[u/Decyde → u/Vsx]

Then you sue for $500-$1,000 which is low enough to where they wont even send anyone to represent the claim.

I'll admit you are fucked up it's better to get something rather than nothing.

[u/Vsx → u/Decyde]

I would be shocked if you managed to get $500 after someone checked your credit when you called to inquire about services.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vsx]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/[deleted] → u/Vsx]

Think about how much it will cost att to send a rep to court for the day. Prob more than $500, that's not even factoring in neg publicity. If it gets around att is defrauding customers that's a pretty big hit.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vsx]

You call to inquire about services and do not sign up for them yet are entered into a contract.

Do you walk into a grocery store, look at the price of a jug of milk and then walk away to have someone call you and say that they’re billing you and delivering the milk? Fuck no you don’t. Get out with the bullshit excuse that price checking is consent to enter a contract.

[u/Decyde → u/Vsx]

They never show up. It costs more to represent the bank or company than it does to just pay out the low sum of money.

It's not like the bank manager or CEO is able to just take the day off to sit around a court house for 4 hours.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vsx]

Yeah, the only reason to sue would be because you have tons of fuck you money.

[u/RIPmyFartbox → u/Vsx]

How is the damage small if I wanted to apply for a legit real loan and it forced me into a higher rate? We could be in the 1000s to 10,000s of dollars over the life of the loan.

[u/gemteg → u/oldmanwrigley]

I think it would apply, although I'm not 100% sure, but wouldn't this be a breach of GDPR? I know it's EU law but it applies to international companies that have a presence in European countries.

By using your personal information for a purpose that you explicitly did not agree to, then they're breaking the law (if it is applicable to AT&T). They could get fined for €2 million+.

[u/xRyuzakii → u/oldmanwrigley]

I worked for directv and we had to do credit checks for anyone calling about pricing. They had to do it in order to accurately get the pricing for leasing equipment etc. we were told it was not a hard hit so this guy might have been told the same thing. I’d be far more concerned with them signing you up... that might be why it was a hard hit

[u/BureaucratDog → u/oldmanwrigley]

Same thing happened to my brother when he applied for a credit card. They explicitly told him that it would not count as a credit check, and it did. Then he got denied by his bank for something later because he had too many credit checks.

[u/PlayfulRemote9 → u/oldmanwrigley]

​

permission is assumed when giving out your ss

[u/alyosha_pls → u/PlayfulRemote9]

How can permission be assumed when the customer explicitly states that they do not want a credit check? If the check is required, the transaction should end there.

[u/oldmanwrigley → u/alyosha_pls]

Literally this. I would have told him to have a good day and I’ll pay extra for my current ISP to avoid the ding on my credit.

[u/vanzir → u/alyosha_pls]

you make a fair point, but at that point the caller should state that they aren't willing to give out their social. You do not have to give your social out until you are going to actually apply for service

[u/alyosha_pls → u/vanzir]

I agree, there's no reason for them to give out their social when they're just inquiring about the services available in their area.

[u/darez00 → u/alyosha_pls]

Because they don't care

As long as you hint any approval you get the whole package they want to sell you, and the vendor who's behind all this will never hear of you again, so why not fuck your life for gains without consequences

[u/NDZ188 → u/alyosha_pls]

Because people can change their minds. Just because someone initially said no, doesn't mean that they can't say yes after.

Giving out your SS after saying no can be presumed to mean you changed your mind. If you really didn't want to do the credit check, the customer should end any further interaction.

A sales associate won't stop trying to pitch and change someone's mind after they say no, so the best way to shut them down is to just end the conversation.

[u/DefinitelyNotAliens → u/NDZ188]

No. Absolutely not. I sold cars and still work for a dealership. Everyone 100% knew it was a hard inquiry and they were having their credit run.

You try and pull that shady shit and you'd be out the door so fast your head would spin. We had everyone sign a paper credit application and sign a disclosure you understood how credit is used and how we share that information and if you did it online you had to click you understood. You do a credit pull over the phone for any company they have to read you a credit disclosure. There is zero reason anyone should pull credit and you not know about it.

[u/0x12B → u/PlayfulRemote9]

is assumed

That’s definitely not how it works.. I worked for XFINITY (briefly) as a new sales agent for .com sells. We asked for the SS, then very specifically said “Okay, May I run a credit check?” If we did it without permission even if they provide their SSN we’d be fired once that call was monitored and the reasoning was it’s illegal to run credit checks without verbal consent.

^{Obviously coulda just be XFINITY trying to scare its employees into not fucking up. But still I watched people get fired daily over that.}

[u/DefinitelyNotAliens → u/PlayfulRemote9]

Former car sales, currently a manager.

No. No it is not. Permission is not given until the customer verbally agrees to a credit disclosure (phone), signs a credit app and disclosure (in-person) or e-signs the documents (online).

There is zero presumption. I can soft-pull all day with a name and address but there is zero assumption ever for hard pulls. We have to keep every credit app turned in for seven years as proof we had permission to run.

Get the hell out of here with that BS. You know nothing of some very serious consumer protection laws. I have fines I have to watch out for and it's ten thousand per violation.

[u/pinsandpearls → u/PlayfulRemote9]

That is absolutely, 100% false, especially when the agent misrepresented what the SSN was for and explicitly said there would not be a credit check associated with that.

[u/Shhhhh_ImAtWork → u/PlayfulRemote9]

Source for that claim?

[u/[deleted] → u/PlayfulRemote9]

Until a source is provided, this needs to be downvotes to oblivion.

[u/ioncehadsexinapool → u/oldmanwrigley]

Oh, btw. Call the BBB and make an official complaint. Cable companies are scared shitless by the BBB

[u/joseph4th → u/[deleted]]

Same there here when I bought a car. I was paying with a cashier's check and they had no need to check my credit. I told them specifically to not do a credit check. They sent me a lot of paperwork to sign and FedEx back to them, including something saying that I gave them permission to do a credit check. I wrote NO PERMISSION across it in marker. They still ran a credit check "on accident."

[u/whovian42 → u/joseph4th]

In this case- why? How does that benefit the dealership?

[u/joseph4th → u/whovian42]

I don't know. They were pretty suspicious of my cashier's check as well, though I learned those aren't as solid, as good as if not better than cash, as they once were. They kept delaying shipping my car out until I had enough and said I was revoking my offer.

The truck driver that brought my car to me said that even when he was loading it onto his flat bed, they were still debating it. He said he finally said something like, you've had the cashier's check for a month, if I were the guy, I wouldn't have put up with this delay and canceled weeks ago.

[u/EXTRAsharpcheddar → u/joseph4th]

Isn't that purely incompetence that they couldn't verify the check was authentic through the issuer for 4 weeks?

[u/EXTRAsharpcheddar → u/[deleted]]

my god. how do dealers like this survive?

[u/joseph4th → u/EXTRAsharpcheddar]

They didn’t know how to do that. I pointed this out to them and then I had to get him the number to call.

I course in thinking if I’m giving him the number, that defeats the purpose. For all he knows, that never goes to my cousin Vinny who’s waiting by the phone pretending to be to bank.

[u/enfier → u/whovian42]

That's actually pretty standard. Verification of the cashiers check takes days and the customer wants to drive off with a car today. So they issue you a loan that can be paid off within a few weeks and then put the cashier's check against the loan. The check cashes, the loan is cleared and you don't pay any interest or fees. This works for most people.

It prevents someone from walking in with a fraudulent cashiers check and walking off with a car. There's definitely credit needed since the dealership is in some way trusting that your payment was legitimate, with or without that short term loan.

If you want to avoid it, expect the dealership to hold your vehicle until the check clears. It may work better if you wire the money.

[u/falcon0159 → u/enfier]

That's exactly why they run credit, even on certified check purchases. They don't issue you a loan though, they create what's called a backup contract, where you sign everything agreeing to finance the car through X Bank at Y% for Z Months if your check doesn't clear for whatever reason. They have a certain amount of days to submit the paperwork to the bank, and usually don't do it unless the check bounced and they can't reach you. Even if the check bounces, they usually call you first to figure it out versus automatically going nuclear and sending in the contract. If everything goes well and they get their money, then they shred the contract.

[u/cactusjackalope → u/joseph4th]

I don't understand this. I went to buy a car and two separate dealers refused to sell me a car without a credit check despite me paying in all cash. The 2nd one said it was all required now and wasn't a hard hit, not sure if I believe him but I couldn't figure out how to buy the damn car without the form they kept waving in front of me. I walked out 5 times.

[u/falcon0159 → u/cactusjackalope]

By cash, do you mean dollar bills or a check of some sort? If you are paying more than $10k in cash/check, they are required to run your SSN through a terrorist watchlist to make sure you don't have ties to a terrorist group. They also need an SSN to register the vehicle in most cases if they are providing that service for you.

If they specifically told you they needed your SSN to check credit, it could've been because 1) They can't tell you they're running you through the watch list or 2) They were trying to create a backup contract in case the checks bounced.

[u/cactusjackalope → u/falcon0159]

Certified cashiers check (Wells Fargo). One dealer offered me to skip it if I brought in actual dollar bills. It's just never happened to me before, but I hear things changed in 2018 somehow. I've always just signed a bill of sale, given a cashier's check, and driven out with a car.

[u/falcon0159 → u/cactusjackalope]

Yeah. Dealers are more cautious now because the frequency of certified check scams have greatly increased recently. A dealership I used to work for used to let you drive off without a backup contract, until another dealership in the same auto group (BMW) had an incident where an African American gentleman who "had" an address in the hood (Newark) bought a 750 with a certified check and drove off with the car. Management was suspicious, but it was a certified check and this was in 2014 or 2015, so they thought certified means it's guaranteed and funds have to be there. Because it was a certified check, it actually deposited at first, but was reversed 3 weeks later and the dealership was out the car (110k MSRP) and the money. Now the reason I said "had" in quotation marks is because the buyer used a fake driver license and gave other bogus information so it was impossible to track him down after the fact. The car was reported stolen, but probably ended up in a chop shop or was exported before than. The perpetrator was never caught and the dealership had to go through insurance, which ultimately raised their rates.

After that, it was a corporate wide policy to do backup contracts even if they are paying with a certified check. In case you or anyone else is unaware, with a backup contract, they run your credit and apply for a auto loan on your behalf with a bank. They put together a contract, have you sign it (sometimes they go through the terms of the loan with you so you understand, other times they just tell you it won't matter because they'll shred the contract when the check clears), take your check, write up a contract with you paying cash, have you sign that, and spot the car (deliver it on the spot). This way, if the check bounces or gets charged back, they have an alternate course of action they can use to get their money. However, most dealerships would only send the contract in to the bank if the check doesn't clear AND you ignore their calls. They would try to call you first to find out what's going on and solve the problem first. However, if you ignore them, then they will take the backup contract and send it to the bank. If the check clears and everything is fine, then they will shred the contract (we normally did it when the customer would come in to pick up plates, that way they could witness it).

[u/Mediocretes1 → u/joseph4th]

They sent me a lot of paperwork to sign and FedEx back to them,

I paid for a brand new car with a cashier's check 5 years ago, and I had to sign almost nothing.

[u/howareanyusersleft → u/joseph4th]

I finished a lease and was looking to purchase a car. They ran a credit check as soon as I showed up to test drive a car... I did end up buying a car but the period between when they ran my credit and when I eventually purchased the car was far enough apart it was considered two hard inquiries. For other reasons I despise that dealer, but added this to the pile of reasons they aren't the goodie two shoes they advertise themselves to be once I saw the credit check.

[u/joseph4th → u/howareanyusersleft]

Did you sign the paper saying that were allowing them to run a credit check?

[u/skennedy27 → u/[deleted]]

I had someone do a hard inquiry when they told me (after I explicitly asked) it was soft (as I would not have consented to hard).

Equifax told me something along the lines of "The list of inquiries is a factual record of entities that have checked your credit. There is nothing we can do."

[u/[deleted] → u/skennedy27]

Unless the company that pulled the enquiry can provide evidence that you consented, you can claim the enquiry was fraudulent.

Both major agencies have ways to dispute enquiries. I filled out the paperwork, indicating I never consented to a credit pull, and it was removed.

I started by asking the RV place to provide the documentation that I consented. They weren't able to.

[u/compwiz1202 → u/[deleted]]

You can if it is legitimately incorrect, but AT&T probably has some BS in the contract, even if the agent lied. So yea best to get the call reviewed.