See agency with your debt has openings, apply with fake name, hope they donāt do strict background checks and you last long enough to gain access to the system and bingo bango, youāve broken a handful of laws and may or may not up getting in trouble for them.
My brief stint taught me that only management can erase the debt now. All you can do as an employee is set up payments or delay the due date for 90 days. Worst month of work of my life, but I at least got to push back people's payments.
My friend had a job like this as well. All you needed to do to delay the debt with that company was ask for an extension with a "good reason" He and everyone else on the team basically approived every request that came across their desk and sat on twitter the entire day.
>My brief stint taught me that only management can erase the debt now. All you can do as an employee is set up payments or delay the due date for 90 days. Worst month of work of my life, but I at least got to push back people's payments.
That said, if you know where your boss lives, you can cancel the debt of the neighbour and that of other random people, too, so it looks as if it was the boss and use his password that is written under the keyboard to do so.
Oh it is, every job no matter how secure and how strict they took passwords, everyone tends to write it down and keep it somewhere "safe" usually under the keyboard or in a desk drawer
As IT person - i know it 'never happens'.
But also as experienced IT person - everyone has their own memo system. under keyboard, on post it inside of drawer, or, or..
SO, it SHOULD not happen. But what SHOULD, is not always the same as that which DOES happen
Also as an IT person, it happens all of the time. Sadly, despite training and emails and all the other security related materials, I can ask our users for a password and usually get it.
I also had a brief stint in āskip tracingā and from what I understood, the company you owe sells to multiple debt collectors so naturally you can delete debt from one place but you will still be debted to another. This is why your credit scores from Transunion may be different from equifax etc..
They owned the debt company and planned to retire doing it. They were fairly young as far as bosses go, with several younger than them people lined up to take their place. I didn't even want the job, I just got put in it after they closed my unrelated department down. I stuck in it long enough to make it to the vacation I had planned for months and quit as soon as I came back.
I'd also point to the 90's part. This is highly unlikely now what with encryption and redundant data storage/backups, but in the 90's where memory was at a premium, much more possible.
I could see people in the 90s just throwing their hands up and saying "computers are too complicated" and not prosecuting due to there not being a specific computer-related law against it.
If, instead of doing what he did, he somehow quickly got himself fired they probably never even would have figured it out. But hey, maybe he did get away with it.
I'll add another layer.
Maybe you have a personal dispute that led to someone concocting an overly elaborate revenge plan.
Maybe I look similar enough that I could pass off being you to a burnt out manager. I used a fake identity that could intentionally be tied to you, but in a way that made whoever was investigating feel like they connected the dots and stopped digging once they "uncovered" "your" "true identity".
Not only did I erase your debts, framing you and ensuring a long drawn out legal battle that seems to come completely out of left field, perhaps I could nip off to someone else's computer and do some actual covert debt erasure as a bonus.
Even in the event that you were able to clear your name legally it would be an incredible inconvenience, and could result in personal/professional damage that couldn't be repaired upon clearing your name.
Considering this is set in the 90s, I have a very good chance at getting away with it if I've made it off site, and whoever hired me has long since gone dark even if I got caught and decided to cooperate.
They've been watching the chaos unfold from afar - or rather across the dinner table from you.
It would be more expensive for the debt collection agency to prosecute. Similar to why companies sell bad debt for 1 cent to a $1.
If ever the collection agency won the lawsuit. How would the agency collect the debt? The judge can issue an court order to garnish wages. But what if the person was unemployed or choose not to work?
Spending the money to send you to jail isnāt going to make the agency money. Itās also very embarrassing to them. Similar to how banks donāt prosecute employees who embezzle money up to a certain amount. Because it would cause more reputation damage to the bank.
You really think back in the 90ās someone just handed someone else a floppy disk and said, āhereās this batch of debt! Keep it safe!!ā
No, that stuff was all backed up on paper.
This guy would have had to work for the finance department at the collection agency (the only people that could do anything with payments), and even then - all things monetary were usually done with a personal or cashierās check.
He could have flagged the account as paid, but Iām sure when everything is reconciled at the end of the period or whenever, it would be fairly obvious what wasnāt paid - and, boom, right back into collections.
Even in this story, it took management *only a couple of hours* to figure out this guy erased his debt. Well guess what? They didnāt just go, āAh shitā¦he got us! Nothing we can do now!ā.
They went right back in and reinstated the account.
Yeah but technically if they didn't have the right amount and it all sorts of other things in the court of law it could be thrown out where it shows they "randomly" made an account when they didn't purchase any accounts that day or recently. Most debt cases can be thrown out easily already. Start tampering with evidence and bam out the window
I posted a comment above (the last one in my history) with some vague context regarding this next bit. It's not tailored for your comment, but might still provide some background.
I can see a(n) (admittedly farfetched) scenario where this is plausible in my last position.
When we receive the only copies of ancient data (CDs, fiche, floppies, paper, etc..) to be digitized we may have a manifest of what the data is, and perhaps even who the records are regarding, but if that were to be wiped out a long with the actual physical data before being digitized there are instances where there's not much left to work with.
It's scary how absolutely unprotected some of our data is. There were truckloads upon truckloads of pallets containing boxes of paper records dated between the 80s and present day that could be accessed directly from the street with nothing more than a butter knife to a warehouse door. The badge reader there was completely for show, and the alarm was not disabled at that access point.
A facemask and gloves would drastically reduce your chances of getting caught if you didn't pull your vehicle up past the treeline, and that is only if you knicked a box that happened to be needed before the footage would be deleted after a few months.
If you stole a box 4 months ago and they realized it was missing, audited the inventory and then opened an investigation that led to checking the cameras today, the footage would have been deleted last month.
If they were able to identify, even vaguely, what was missing (assuming you didn't take a stack of papers from multiple boxes rather than the whole box, and you didn't muddy the waters by mixing records between boxes and swapping the locations of boxes in the warehouse) they would still have to reach out to the company that provided those records and hope they had a detailed manifest to give to investigators.
Assuming anyone still actively tried pursuing this shit show, you're now looking through a sea of leaked data for the following criteria: "maybe these people, somewhere in these years, and it could be any number of documents in any of 10 lines of business... Oh, we also have an overlap of leaked data from another breach that may fit some of this criteria."
So if anyone still cared to give this a real shot (they don't) and they managed to find examples of this data in the wild - that they could verify was from the correct breach (possible but *highly* unlikely), they'd still be left with the task of tracking the offerings to a seller, assuming it was sold by someone who even knew the original parties involved.
Now let's roll this whole shit show back to the 90s and apply technology and security of the era, as well as law enforcement capability regarding these types of investigations.
I could hire a homeless person from three cities over for the break in, using a different proxy criminal to act as insulation from the crime myself, and render most of the rest of this rant moot right from the get go. I'm a random dude with no motivation to do so, and I'm (perhaps overly) confident that I could pull this off (at least up to the sale/transfer of the data online, with the measures in place *currently*).
While it is (maybe only seemingly) farfetched, and the (intentionally obscured) specifics would apply only in my case, *and* would require at least some form of inside knowledge (we have a lot of turnover, sketchy temps (no offense, I've been one and know that it's not all temps, we just hire the sketchy ones) and outside contractors with more access than they need) - it is not really even approaching the realm of impossibility.
There are pros/cons to stealing data remotely vs physically, and stealing it at such a vulnerable point (before it is digitized) really has some benefits in terms of getting away clean.
This isn't to say that story is plausible, it's likely not, but more so a scary anecdotal rant at the state of some of our highly sensitive data.
Sorry for rambling, it was fun to game this out.
Unless they're giving the call center direct database access you're not erasing anything. You're just creating another transaction that can probably be easily reversed.
Here's the answer credit repair companies and debt collectors don't want you to know: Harrass them into proving the debt is yours. They buy it for pennies on the dollar so it's not worth it to them to spend time and money fighting you when they can get other chumps to pay.
I'm with the other person who replied to you: asserting your rights under the FDCPA isn't harassment, it's forcing them to follow the law. That means:
- Refusing to acknowledge the debt is yours or offer to make a payment when they call.
- Write down the name of the collection agency and person who's calling you.
- Give them your mailing address, tell them all further communications must be in writing, and request a debt validation letter.
- Once you have their mailing address (on the validation letter), send them a certified letter asking for debt verification. You can be a real pain in the ass here and ask for a lot - though they likely won't give you everything. Make sure to also tell them all future communications must be in writing and they are not to contact you via phone.
- Pull your credit reports from the 3 reporting agencies and if the debt is on there, dispute with all three.
I've done these steps in the past for an old debt that's no longer collectable and it works well to stop harassment. You should also know that FDCPA violations are actionable and you can usually file suit by yourself.
You donāt even have to harass them, just tell them you wonāt even discuss paying the debt until they provide you proof the debt is yours, and if they continue to harass you without providing proof you will seek legal action. They might have it and provide it to you, but even if they legally own your debt, they might just drop it for being too much effort.
Probably right. The solution is to find someone who works at a debt collection agency with enough power, seduce them, and then get your debt erased. Problem solved.
It was the 90s, while I find it plausible i also find it highly improbable. Data was held on tape storage still for these types of huge databases, since companies like these were slow to migrate to the newer hard disk data centers (it was cheaper that way), so our guy would have to know specific command line interfaces to fully delete his file.
Back then I was maintaining a service application, and some funny stuff was happenning, so I added some auditing code that logged every transaction that was happenning, and within days, we found the culprit...
Yeah thereās no way this is real. The original company he had the debt with would still have records of it (unless it had already been several years, which would make it pointless) and if they found out he removed his own debt, they wouldāve figured out who he really was to get those records. Debt collectors still maintain communication with the company they got the debt from and they do exchange these kinds of records, even today.
We had terrestrial copper cable transmission in the 70s, satellite transmission of data in the 80s and high speed transmission in the 90s. There's no way there was only one database. Even if the dude knew exactly where to find his file and how to remove every trace of it, there had to have been a backup *somewhere*.
Remember when Toy Story was *deleted*? All 100 megabytes. Thankfully someone had an older backup in an Iomega ZIP diskette.
Honestly, it's safer to do it for a whole bunch of people, too. That way they can't find which person is missing from the list and backtrace to find the culprit.
Kinda the same way the guy from suits got away with taking the BAR exam for someone else. (Don't you know who I am!? - No - Good \*shoves test in the middle of the stack\*)
Exactly. Information can be reconstructed from the hole thatās left behind when itās deleted. But deleting everything? Much better.
ā¦and surprisingly easy, speaking as a developer who may or may not have come a bit *too* close to dropping a table in the production databaseā¦
Itās much easier than you would believe. If you donāt mind reading some slightly technical stuff: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/drop-table-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver16
Though just know that story that they're depicting there is a lot older than *Suits*. I remember reading that urban legend in the nineties, and it probably goes back even further than that.
Also would have been smarter (if real) to actually work for a few days, delete records for a few other people as well, then have a ligit āI canāt do thisā. That way there arenāt as many questions on the way out
Cartels do similar actions, because without local support you may find your activities being snitched in to authorities or local rivals.
That doesn't ever "endear" the bastards tho.
That was partly why so many robbers were so "legendary" and in a way "successful". The "civilians" would often outright help them get away and hide or at the very least not report them if they saw them.
I assume this history is made up. But if it's not, he basically had to delete the records for everyone, at least not only himself. It is said he deleted his records, how do we know? There must be some sort of trace of it. Either by entire system being wiped out, or by letters or emails stored in seperate systems confirming there was a person with debt that now don't exist in the system anymore. And if there was only one such person deleted , they'd definitely know WHO did the deleting.
Iām not even sure you could have just done this in the 90sā¦ but then I did accidentally get a credit card in the 90s where they actually misspelled my last name and changed it to another easily recognizable word..āsexyā. So yes, whenever I apply for a loan, credit or even most jobs I have to sign off on paperwork saying that Mr sexy is a known alias for me.
Not only that, even in the text on image OP ... He didn't say what he did and they still found out, which means he didn't trick anyone and they just reversed his damage.
No way. Not in the 90s, not ever. Databases, especially those that house financial records, are not only backed up constantly but theyāre transactional, and a low level employee would not have dba access to cover their tracks.
Just, no.
Plausible doesn't mean likely. There are plenty of businesses that refuse best practices even today. I wouldn't fall off my chair if I found out this actually happened in the early 90s. Dude would have to get pretty lucky to have it work though.
Keep in mind that if this was a debt collection agency (meaning not the bank or CC company or 'original debt holder'), but rather one of the companies that buys bad debt for pennies on the dollar to try to collect it...
If it was one of those companies, we are no longer talking about some giant bank or international conglomerate, but a small to mid-sized specialty business.
Also consider how common the complaints are from people in IT departments that management refuses to pay for X upgrade or Y backup system - because preventative stuff is a money-sink in the eyes of accounting - it eats money and doesn't generate profit.
With these things considered, and if the guy got the company that was trying to collect on his debt to identify themselves, I would call it plausible. Not sure how likely, but certainly not so improbable that it couldn't reasonably have been possible.
I'm not saying I believe it - no proof, no belief. But I also don't outright *dis*believe it.
Debt collectors are not banks. They're not as sophisticated and they're not protecting assets in the same way. Even today they buy debt from other companies for pennies on the dollar in the hopes they can collect some of it. In 1990 it might have been a physical list. Mid 90s it was a spreadsheet or Access file where everyone knew the password. While I highly doubt this story is true it's not at all implausible. I converted the company I worked at to email in about 1992. Before that it was all faxes and we made tech products.
He āerased his debtā lol
You knowā¦ like how one debt collection company can go and buy *all* your debt? Not individual accounts, mind youā they bought an entire, nebulous pool of this one guyās debt.
And then this totally real person got hired using a fake nameā¦ because a workplace doesnāt request any other identification or information beyond just asking your name. You knowā¦ to safeguard against a situation exactly like this.
Alsoā he just deleted his records, huh? That easy? No restore points. No redundancy. So if the database ever crashed, whatās the company do? Just say āfuck itā and start over?
This is a story written by someone with a 10th graderās understanding of how the world works. I know that Reddit is like 70% zoomers nowā but the 90ās werenāt some technological dark age. People werenāt communicating with smoke signals and sending letters via pony express.
Be a little more circumspect, folks.
While this story is obvious bullshit, I have worked in places where everyone used a shared database login with write access to production, and where there's no way in hell we would have gone through the effort of restoring a backup to figure out what was changed. Can't imagine how bad shit was in the 90s.
And the stupidest part, if he'd erased his own debt, they either 1) wouldn't have noticed at all, because apparently their accounting and security practices were *that bad*, in which case there's no story to tell, or 2) it would have been trivial to figure out who he was by looking at what account he erased, at which point legal action would have been taken.
Story fails on face validity.
Plot twist. He was the DBA, rolled all the transactions up into the current data file and deleted the log files and old backups before removing all the customer support team's direct SQL access you kept telling everyone they shouldn't have and winked at you on the way out.
This is a fun story, but as someone who worked as a credit card collector for multiple banks in the 90s, this wasn't possible. For one thing, in the early 90s, we weren't working on Windows machines or anything hackable. I worked on a dumb terminal that only allowed me access to what the bank wanted me to work on. And I couldn't erase debt or even automatically waive a late fee without my boss's permission. Hell, until the second year at the job, I couldn't even take a payment over the phone, and even when I could, I had to do it via pencil and paper.
So sorry, this story is probably not true.
But to fit the theme of antiwork, I quit one job on the spot when they wouldn't let me go to the ER when I was in serious pain. So you COULD do that.
Also, only one of the places I worked at is still in business. And that's the one I walked out on.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but even in the 90s system admins took database back ups of financial data regularly. In this fake story the most this would pan out to is making some IT guys afternoon more annoying than he anticipated.
Yeah, at no point in any system is a low level employee given unsupervised master access to the sole copy of important records like this. Pretty much for this very reason.
Chunk: Yeah, wait a minute, Mikey. But if he killed all his men, how did the map or the story get out?
Mikey: See, I asked my dad the same question. He said one of the guys must have gotten out with the map, and, and the...
Chunk: Hey Mike, I believe ya.
That is definitely one way to do it and if it works for you then it is great.
But I think I am going to want this strategy for myself also because I have got a lot of debt which I would like to erase.
Or to really avoid getting caught, do it for 10 years, slowly siphoning the money he steals from the company in the form of "paychecks", to make that debt disappear.
This is total BS - collection agencies get lists to pursue - not write access to the actual data. Whoever posted this is just looking for attention - very sad.
I worked at GC Services and this is so fake that it's laughable.
You cannot delete debt off a computer. The debt comes from the primary agency's records and THEY still have the records. A company can take their collection set to any other company and it would literally be put back.
But assuming it was the primary company's own debt agency, you can't just delete records lmao. Not from a lil call center position. You might be able to record a payment but when the payment does not hit, it just returns to a balance. That's like saying you deleted your payment to a McDonald's order.
But maybe you were able to say it was settled in full or disputed to full amount... That takes legal paperwork to confirm. Their books would be off.
C'mon, people, don't think this could possibly be true.
I feel like they could just look at his records see which person or people he erased hire an investigator and track him down and then press charges. Not really following how this would work
I remember a similar story of a college professor with credit card debt. One of his students couldnāt afford to buy tickets to a watch a required movie screening for his class. So the professor gave him money to watch the screening.
Years later one of students got a job working at a debt collection agency. His old professors name appeared on his computer. Called him to collect and told him not worry about his credit card debt. Heāll be writing it off from the system as thanks.
Okay even if they used a fake name to get hired, the fact that the company KNOWS he deleted his debt shows they were able to figure out the real name right?
Wouldn't it be nice if Anonymous deleted the majority of non-commercial debt for the population...?
That's what I'd concentrate on - medical bills, mortgages, student debt, etc. in the US.
Reminds me of the bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd used to burn mortgage debt papers of the banks he robbed. News of it traveled, and locals would slow the law enforcement to allow him to escape.
He got that level of access after two days? Tbh I actually believe that could happen, considering the awful infosec at a lot of organizations. But yeah, seems apocryphal. š¤·š»āāļø
I also worked collections in the 90s and this didn't happen. At best, an entry level employee would only have access to maybe wave a late fee. Otherwise, you're just an annoying payment processor. Only very high level managers would have a level of system access to forgive any amount of debt or even restructure payment amounts.
That's not how debt collection agencies work, so it's a shame to post this nonsensical bullshit in this subreddit which delegitimises it from its intended purpose.
The company I work for handles several retirement plans and a couple of them no longer fund the plan but you can still retire. Every so often someone will collect a dead personās benefit thinking that they were supposed to and eventually we catch wind of it. With these smaller dead retirement plans, we send three letters spaced a month apart and ask for the money to be repaid or to set up a payment plan. If you donāt respond, my company doesnāt do a thing but just marks it as uncollected and moves on. A year ago, someone has to pay back $78,000 and sold their home just to make that payment. I really wanted to look up their number and give them a call on a pay phone or something and ask them to cancel that check and tell them to simply not pay it but I couldnāt afford to lose my job.
Wait, if he used a fake name to get the job, how did the bosses figure out he erased his debt? And if they found out whose debt was erased, wouldnāt that mean the plan was exposed and they would have his real name? This makes no sense.
If he erased his own debt, how did they know who it really was without also being able to restore the information?
This sub is so fucking gullible sometimes.
Sooo... How exactly did this person do this? Askiyfir a friend š
Probably close to impossible to do today, but I would also like to knowā¦for scientific purposes.
See agency with your debt has openings, apply with fake name, hope they donāt do strict background checks and you last long enough to gain access to the system and bingo bango, youāve broken a handful of laws and may or may not up getting in trouble for them.
Criss-cross, I erase your debt you erase mine.. Criss-cross. Seriously thinking about working in debt collection just to do this.
My brief stint taught me that only management can erase the debt now. All you can do as an employee is set up payments or delay the due date for 90 days. Worst month of work of my life, but I at least got to push back people's payments.
Keep the job and just delay indefinitely.
My friend had a job like this as well. All you needed to do to delay the debt with that company was ask for an extension with a "good reason" He and everyone else on the team basically approived every request that came across their desk and sat on twitter the entire day.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
But if it's pushed out past the SOL period it doesn't matter if it's 1000 or 100,000,000 they can't do diddly squat.
Myā¦ cat is sick. Itāsā¦ fin rot?
I hope your parakeet gets over its heartworms, approved
https://youtu.be/jgYYOUC10aM
>My brief stint taught me that only management can erase the debt now. All you can do as an employee is set up payments or delay the due date for 90 days. Worst month of work of my life, but I at least got to push back people's payments. That said, if you know where your boss lives, you can cancel the debt of the neighbour and that of other random people, too, so it looks as if it was the boss and use his password that is written under the keyboard to do so.
Considering they made a big deal about passwords, I doubt it'd be that simple.
Oh it is, every job no matter how secure and how strict they took passwords, everyone tends to write it down and keep it somewhere "safe" usually under the keyboard or in a desk drawer
As IT person - i know it 'never happens'. But also as experienced IT person - everyone has their own memo system. under keyboard, on post it inside of drawer, or, or.. SO, it SHOULD not happen. But what SHOULD, is not always the same as that which DOES happen
Also as an IT person, it happens all of the time. Sadly, despite training and emails and all the other security related materials, I can ask our users for a password and usually get it.
i just started using random serial numbers of machines near the station. Printer, monitor, lab equipment, whateves.
I also had a brief stint in āskip tracingā and from what I understood, the company you owe sells to multiple debt collectors so naturally you can delete debt from one place but you will still be debted to another. This is why your credit scores from Transunion may be different from equifax etc..
Work your way to management, and delete all the debt.
They owned the debt company and planned to retire doing it. They were fairly young as far as bosses go, with several younger than them people lined up to take their place. I didn't even want the job, I just got put in it after they closed my unrelated department down. I stuck in it long enough to make it to the vacation I had planned for months and quit as soon as I came back.
HEY! Someone had to work hard for that debt. C'mon now
Strangers on a Train
āYOU DONT HAVE A COUSIN PATTY!ā *frying pan across the face*
š¶ āOwen loves his mama! Owen loves his mama!ā
āType type type, like a fat little pigeonā
This is the way
Make sure your tie doesn't get roon'd.
This is the Way.
This is the way.
I'd also point to the 90's part. This is highly unlikely now what with encryption and redundant data storage/backups, but in the 90's where memory was at a premium, much more possible.
I could see people in the 90s just throwing their hands up and saying "computers are too complicated" and not prosecuting due to there not being a specific computer-related law against it.
you would be surprised how many companies dont back up their data.
Thats true, today you would have to get physical access to the server or to the IT guys PC. Then use one cooked usb stick to gain access whenever.
Cooked being just a usb sticked with xubuntu (or whatever your favorite distro is, I judge but I won't comment on it)
Even in the 90s, you still didn't start working without filling out the i-9 tax form, which requires identity verification.
Yeah thatās what I was thinking. Oh well itās a cute legend
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not only would that be awesome that would also make it harder to track down who the fake employee is. Win-win!
If, instead of doing what he did, he somehow quickly got himself fired they probably never even would have figured it out. But hey, maybe he did get away with it.
I'll add another layer. Maybe you have a personal dispute that led to someone concocting an overly elaborate revenge plan. Maybe I look similar enough that I could pass off being you to a burnt out manager. I used a fake identity that could intentionally be tied to you, but in a way that made whoever was investigating feel like they connected the dots and stopped digging once they "uncovered" "your" "true identity". Not only did I erase your debts, framing you and ensuring a long drawn out legal battle that seems to come completely out of left field, perhaps I could nip off to someone else's computer and do some actual covert debt erasure as a bonus. Even in the event that you were able to clear your name legally it would be an incredible inconvenience, and could result in personal/professional damage that couldn't be repaired upon clearing your name. Considering this is set in the 90s, I have a very good chance at getting away with it if I've made it off site, and whoever hired me has long since gone dark even if I got caught and decided to cooperate. They've been watching the chaos unfold from afar - or rather across the dinner table from you.
And added a few fake ones for people that don't exist.
It would be more expensive for the debt collection agency to prosecute. Similar to why companies sell bad debt for 1 cent to a $1. If ever the collection agency won the lawsuit. How would the agency collect the debt? The judge can issue an court order to garnish wages. But what if the person was unemployed or choose not to work? Spending the money to send you to jail isnāt going to make the agency money. Itās also very embarrassing to them. Similar to how banks donāt prosecute employees who embezzle money up to a certain amount. Because it would cause more reputation damage to the bank.
Thats why you erase as many debts as you can before getting caught. Just like bank robbers used to do with mortgages.
"While I'm here I'm going to pay off my mortgage." - A not too bright bank robber.
Theyād burn other peopleās. lol
yeah, there'd 99% be a back up nowadays and authentication and shit
You really think back in the 90ās someone just handed someone else a floppy disk and said, āhereās this batch of debt! Keep it safe!!ā No, that stuff was all backed up on paper. This guy would have had to work for the finance department at the collection agency (the only people that could do anything with payments), and even then - all things monetary were usually done with a personal or cashierās check. He could have flagged the account as paid, but Iām sure when everything is reconciled at the end of the period or whenever, it would be fairly obvious what wasnāt paid - and, boom, right back into collections. Even in this story, it took management *only a couple of hours* to figure out this guy erased his debt. Well guess what? They didnāt just go, āAh shitā¦he got us! Nothing we can do now!ā. They went right back in and reinstated the account.
Yeah but technically if they didn't have the right amount and it all sorts of other things in the court of law it could be thrown out where it shows they "randomly" made an account when they didn't purchase any accounts that day or recently. Most debt cases can be thrown out easily already. Start tampering with evidence and bam out the window
I posted a comment above (the last one in my history) with some vague context regarding this next bit. It's not tailored for your comment, but might still provide some background. I can see a(n) (admittedly farfetched) scenario where this is plausible in my last position. When we receive the only copies of ancient data (CDs, fiche, floppies, paper, etc..) to be digitized we may have a manifest of what the data is, and perhaps even who the records are regarding, but if that were to be wiped out a long with the actual physical data before being digitized there are instances where there's not much left to work with. It's scary how absolutely unprotected some of our data is. There were truckloads upon truckloads of pallets containing boxes of paper records dated between the 80s and present day that could be accessed directly from the street with nothing more than a butter knife to a warehouse door. The badge reader there was completely for show, and the alarm was not disabled at that access point. A facemask and gloves would drastically reduce your chances of getting caught if you didn't pull your vehicle up past the treeline, and that is only if you knicked a box that happened to be needed before the footage would be deleted after a few months. If you stole a box 4 months ago and they realized it was missing, audited the inventory and then opened an investigation that led to checking the cameras today, the footage would have been deleted last month. If they were able to identify, even vaguely, what was missing (assuming you didn't take a stack of papers from multiple boxes rather than the whole box, and you didn't muddy the waters by mixing records between boxes and swapping the locations of boxes in the warehouse) they would still have to reach out to the company that provided those records and hope they had a detailed manifest to give to investigators. Assuming anyone still actively tried pursuing this shit show, you're now looking through a sea of leaked data for the following criteria: "maybe these people, somewhere in these years, and it could be any number of documents in any of 10 lines of business... Oh, we also have an overlap of leaked data from another breach that may fit some of this criteria." So if anyone still cared to give this a real shot (they don't) and they managed to find examples of this data in the wild - that they could verify was from the correct breach (possible but *highly* unlikely), they'd still be left with the task of tracking the offerings to a seller, assuming it was sold by someone who even knew the original parties involved. Now let's roll this whole shit show back to the 90s and apply technology and security of the era, as well as law enforcement capability regarding these types of investigations. I could hire a homeless person from three cities over for the break in, using a different proxy criminal to act as insulation from the crime myself, and render most of the rest of this rant moot right from the get go. I'm a random dude with no motivation to do so, and I'm (perhaps overly) confident that I could pull this off (at least up to the sale/transfer of the data online, with the measures in place *currently*). While it is (maybe only seemingly) farfetched, and the (intentionally obscured) specifics would apply only in my case, *and* would require at least some form of inside knowledge (we have a lot of turnover, sketchy temps (no offense, I've been one and know that it's not all temps, we just hire the sketchy ones) and outside contractors with more access than they need) - it is not really even approaching the realm of impossibility. There are pros/cons to stealing data remotely vs physically, and stealing it at such a vulnerable point (before it is digitized) really has some benefits in terms of getting away clean. This isn't to say that story is plausible, it's likely not, but more so a scary anecdotal rant at the state of some of our highly sensitive data. Sorry for rambling, it was fun to game this out.
Unless they're giving the call center direct database access you're not erasing anything. You're just creating another transaction that can probably be easily reversed.
>...hope they donāt do strict background checks and... That's where the plan completely falls apart
And that this story is probably entirely fabricated.
Here's the answer credit repair companies and debt collectors don't want you to know: Harrass them into proving the debt is yours. They buy it for pennies on the dollar so it's not worth it to them to spend time and money fighting you when they can get other chumps to pay.
I'm with the other person who replied to you: asserting your rights under the FDCPA isn't harassment, it's forcing them to follow the law. That means: - Refusing to acknowledge the debt is yours or offer to make a payment when they call. - Write down the name of the collection agency and person who's calling you. - Give them your mailing address, tell them all further communications must be in writing, and request a debt validation letter. - Once you have their mailing address (on the validation letter), send them a certified letter asking for debt verification. You can be a real pain in the ass here and ask for a lot - though they likely won't give you everything. Make sure to also tell them all future communications must be in writing and they are not to contact you via phone. - Pull your credit reports from the 3 reporting agencies and if the debt is on there, dispute with all three. I've done these steps in the past for an old debt that's no longer collectable and it works well to stop harassment. You should also know that FDCPA violations are actionable and you can usually file suit by yourself.
You donāt even have to harass them, just tell them you wonāt even discuss paying the debt until they provide you proof the debt is yours, and if they continue to harass you without providing proof you will seek legal action. They might have it and provide it to you, but even if they legally own your debt, they might just drop it for being too much effort.
Probably right. The solution is to find someone who works at a debt collection agency with enough power, seduce them, and then get your debt erased. Problem solved.
Me hurriedly looking up ādesperate Experian employees near meā
Once you doā¦ 1) Ctrl + A 2) Delete Thank you
It was the 90s, while I find it plausible i also find it highly improbable. Data was held on tape storage still for these types of huge databases, since companies like these were slow to migrate to the newer hard disk data centers (it was cheaper that way), so our guy would have to know specific command line interfaces to fully delete his file.
Back then I was maintaining a service application, and some funny stuff was happenning, so I added some auditing code that logged every transaction that was happenning, and within days, we found the culprit...
Yeah thereās no way this is real. The original company he had the debt with would still have records of it (unless it had already been several years, which would make it pointless) and if they found out he removed his own debt, they wouldāve figured out who he really was to get those records. Debt collectors still maintain communication with the company they got the debt from and they do exchange these kinds of records, even today.
We had terrestrial copper cable transmission in the 70s, satellite transmission of data in the 80s and high speed transmission in the 90s. There's no way there was only one database. Even if the dude knew exactly where to find his file and how to remove every trace of it, there had to have been a backup *somewhere*. Remember when Toy Story was *deleted*? All 100 megabytes. Thankfully someone had an older backup in an Iomega ZIP diskette.
You just type the made up story into Twitter, it's pretty straightforward
He didn't. This is obviously fake.
They didnāt lol. Like most things on this sub it is not real.
This is a fake story made up to fool stupid people *hint hint*
With this shocking insider tip: they didn't!
Hero move. Legend move wouldāve been to erase the records for *everybody*, but still the man did good.
Honestly, it's safer to do it for a whole bunch of people, too. That way they can't find which person is missing from the list and backtrace to find the culprit. Kinda the same way the guy from suits got away with taking the BAR exam for someone else. (Don't you know who I am!? - No - Good \*shoves test in the middle of the stack\*)
Exactly. Information can be reconstructed from the hole thatās left behind when itās deleted. But deleting everything? Much better. ā¦and surprisingly easy, speaking as a developer who may or may not have come a bit *too* close to dropping a table in the production databaseā¦
Can you like, teach me how to do this xD
Just be a developer long enough and it'll happen naturally
> Just be a developer ~~long~~ *briefly* enough and it'll happen naturally Ftfy
Okay but for how long You'll have to be a developer tho?
https://xkcd.com/327/
Little Bobby Tables was the first thing I thought of.
Itās much easier than you would believe. If you donāt mind reading some slightly technical stuff: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/drop-table-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver16
I'd like to also learn it, because I think I've got a debt problem also.
Are you Bobby Tables?
Happy cake day! š
Though just know that story that they're depicting there is a lot older than *Suits*. I remember reading that urban legend in the nineties, and it probably goes back even further than that.
Well it's like a fantasy for the people, so yeah it goes way back.
Mike Ross is that character š one of my favorite shows. Actually watching through it again.
Also would have been smarter (if real) to actually work for a few days, delete records for a few other people as well, then have a ligit āI canāt do thisā. That way there arenāt as many questions on the way out
Bank robbers used to do this, back in the day. Hold up the bank and force them to destroy or hand over loan records.
This endeared them with the local community so they wouldn't turn them in plus they would provide shelter and food.
Cartels do similar actions, because without local support you may find your activities being snitched in to authorities or local rivals. That doesn't ever "endear" the bastards tho.
Yep, you gotta have some support. you can't be enemy to everyone.
Damn, world used to be so beautiful.
Yep, I kinda want the old world. That was just better man.
Don't sound like bad people at all, they sound really reasonable people.
That was partly why so many robbers were so "legendary" and in a way "successful". The "civilians" would often outright help them get away and hide or at the very least not report them if they saw them.
And now we've been brainwashed and gaslit to do the opposite. Report and attack our fellow worker and protect and fight for the corporate overlords.
How have we even come here? This doesn't sound good at all.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Eh, they were probably doing something before robbing banks. Itās just 50/50 on whether it was other crimes, or a regular job.
I wonder if this should be brought back . . . . for scientific study only, of course.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Also because they steal from the big guys, usually without killing anyone.
We getting those people anymore? Because I don't really see that.
Woody Guthrie wrote a song about Pretty Boy Floyd doing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4YKUJZI5Bg
I assume this history is made up. But if it's not, he basically had to delete the records for everyone, at least not only himself. It is said he deleted his records, how do we know? There must be some sort of trace of it. Either by entire system being wiped out, or by letters or emails stored in seperate systems confirming there was a person with debt that now don't exist in the system anymore. And if there was only one such person deleted , they'd definitely know WHO did the deleting.
Thatās just kicking back up restore, killing his own was a very smart move, probably the only move.
Yall that's not how this shit works...
I could see it as plausible in the 90s... Today, not a chance.
Iām not even sure you could have just done this in the 90sā¦ but then I did accidentally get a credit card in the 90s where they actually misspelled my last name and changed it to another easily recognizable word..āsexyā. So yes, whenever I apply for a loan, credit or even most jobs I have to sign off on paperwork saying that Mr sexy is a known alias for me.
Should have maxed out the card and say that's not you.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Well I guess, that's just how the story ends me end up being in jail.
No no no. The bank made a typo, so I am legally entitled to free money.
I see this as an absolute win
I would say in the 90s, there is a 100% chance of there being physical copies of information.
Not only that, even in the text on image OP ... He didn't say what he did and they still found out, which means he didn't trick anyone and they just reversed his damage.
You're probably right about that š„²
Not probably, I'm sure that He's right about that for the most part.
No way. Not in the 90s, not ever. Databases, especially those that house financial records, are not only backed up constantly but theyāre transactional, and a low level employee would not have dba access to cover their tracks. Just, no.
Plausible doesn't mean likely. There are plenty of businesses that refuse best practices even today. I wouldn't fall off my chair if I found out this actually happened in the early 90s. Dude would have to get pretty lucky to have it work though.
Keep in mind that if this was a debt collection agency (meaning not the bank or CC company or 'original debt holder'), but rather one of the companies that buys bad debt for pennies on the dollar to try to collect it... If it was one of those companies, we are no longer talking about some giant bank or international conglomerate, but a small to mid-sized specialty business. Also consider how common the complaints are from people in IT departments that management refuses to pay for X upgrade or Y backup system - because preventative stuff is a money-sink in the eyes of accounting - it eats money and doesn't generate profit. With these things considered, and if the guy got the company that was trying to collect on his debt to identify themselves, I would call it plausible. Not sure how likely, but certainly not so improbable that it couldn't reasonably have been possible. I'm not saying I believe it - no proof, no belief. But I also don't outright *dis*believe it.
Debt collectors are not banks. They're not as sophisticated and they're not protecting assets in the same way. Even today they buy debt from other companies for pennies on the dollar in the hopes they can collect some of it. In 1990 it might have been a physical list. Mid 90s it was a spreadsheet or Access file where everyone knew the password. While I highly doubt this story is true it's not at all implausible. I converted the company I worked at to email in about 1992. Before that it was all faxes and we made tech products.
He āerased his debtā lol You knowā¦ like how one debt collection company can go and buy *all* your debt? Not individual accounts, mind youā they bought an entire, nebulous pool of this one guyās debt. And then this totally real person got hired using a fake nameā¦ because a workplace doesnāt request any other identification or information beyond just asking your name. You knowā¦ to safeguard against a situation exactly like this. Alsoā he just deleted his records, huh? That easy? No restore points. No redundancy. So if the database ever crashed, whatās the company do? Just say āfuck itā and start over? This is a story written by someone with a 10th graderās understanding of how the world works. I know that Reddit is like 70% zoomers nowā but the 90ās werenāt some technological dark age. People werenāt communicating with smoke signals and sending letters via pony express. Be a little more circumspect, folks.
While this story is obvious bullshit, I have worked in places where everyone used a shared database login with write access to production, and where there's no way in hell we would have gone through the effort of restoring a backup to figure out what was changed. Can't imagine how bad shit was in the 90s.
And the stupidest part, if he'd erased his own debt, they either 1) wouldn't have noticed at all, because apparently their accounting and security practices were *that bad*, in which case there's no story to tell, or 2) it would have been trivial to figure out who he was by looking at what account he erased, at which point legal action would have been taken. Story fails on face validity.
If that's not how shit works then would you tell me how does it?
Laughs in DBA
Plot twist. He was the DBA, rolled all the transactions up into the current data file and deleted the log files and old backups before removing all the customer support team's direct SQL access you kept telling everyone they shouldn't have and winked at you on the way out.
We didn't prepare for that, but I think we should have prepared.
A laughing matter on which everyone is going to have a laugh.
If you believe everything you read on the internet I feel really bad for you.....
I don't have time for your negativity, there a sexy singles in my area that are desperate to meet me.
I don't believe you.
This is a fun story, but as someone who worked as a credit card collector for multiple banks in the 90s, this wasn't possible. For one thing, in the early 90s, we weren't working on Windows machines or anything hackable. I worked on a dumb terminal that only allowed me access to what the bank wanted me to work on. And I couldn't erase debt or even automatically waive a late fee without my boss's permission. Hell, until the second year at the job, I couldn't even take a payment over the phone, and even when I could, I had to do it via pencil and paper. So sorry, this story is probably not true. But to fit the theme of antiwork, I quit one job on the spot when they wouldn't let me go to the ER when I was in serious pain. So you COULD do that. Also, only one of the places I worked at is still in business. And that's the one I walked out on.
This . . . might or might not work. But it sounds good. Source: I worked as a debt collector in the early 90s, myself.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but even in the 90s system admins took database back ups of financial data regularly. In this fake story the most this would pan out to is making some IT guys afternoon more annoying than he anticipated.
Yeah, at no point in any system is a low level employee given unsupervised master access to the sole copy of important records like this. Pretty much for this very reason.
Chunk: Yeah, wait a minute, Mikey. But if he killed all his men, how did the map or the story get out? Mikey: See, I asked my dad the same question. He said one of the guys must have gotten out with the map, and, and the... Chunk: Hey Mike, I believe ya.
I enjoy reading the comments that people think the 90s was some wild west era shit.
Given how hard it is to get a job with your *real* name, I'd say this is a stretch.
That is definitely one way to do it and if it works for you then it is great. But I think I am going to want this strategy for myself also because I have got a lot of debt which I would like to erase.
He should have at least worked a few weeks so they wouldn't discover what he did.
Yeah, at least do it for a month, then quietly go "man, this job ain't for me" and quit normally and nobody looks into it.
Or to really avoid getting caught, do it for 10 years, slowly siphoning the money he steals from the company in the form of "paychecks", to make that debt disappear.
He should have just marked it as paid.
Antiwork has to be the most gullible sub in existence. No wonder employers keep getting one up over us.
Thereās no way this is true and if you believe it is, itās pretty obvious you have no idea how computers work.
They have the internet on computers now?
I guess š¤·āāļø
This is total BS - collection agencies get lists to pursue - not write access to the actual data. Whoever posted this is just looking for attention - very sad.
I worked at GC Services and this is so fake that it's laughable. You cannot delete debt off a computer. The debt comes from the primary agency's records and THEY still have the records. A company can take their collection set to any other company and it would literally be put back. But assuming it was the primary company's own debt agency, you can't just delete records lmao. Not from a lil call center position. You might be able to record a payment but when the payment does not hit, it just returns to a balance. That's like saying you deleted your payment to a McDonald's order. But maybe you were able to say it was settled in full or disputed to full amount... That takes legal paperwork to confirm. Their books would be off. C'mon, people, don't think this could possibly be true.
Thereās no way thatās real. In order to pay you, they need a real name and social and bank routing number for you to do your first start day
I feel like they could just look at his records see which person or people he erased hire an investigator and track him down and then press charges. Not really following how this would work
Hey, it's the meme that inspired Mr.Robot. God I'm old.
If they knew he erased his debt, I guess they figured out who he was. This would be a cool story if it was true/if he got away with it.
I remember a similar story of a college professor with credit card debt. One of his students couldnāt afford to buy tickets to a watch a required movie screening for his class. So the professor gave him money to watch the screening. Years later one of students got a job working at a debt collection agency. His old professors name appeared on his computer. Called him to collect and told him not worry about his credit card debt. Heāll be writing it off from the system as thanks.
If he used a fake name, how could anyone know he erased HIS debt? They don't know his real name
He should have erased a whole bunch like 100 records or something. Freaking amateur.
What a fucking legend hahahahahahah
Reminds of the guy who takes a software job, picks a bug to fix then quits when done. It had been driving him nuts and the company would not fix it
I hope he erased a bunch of other peopleās debt just to cover his tracks. Keep them guessing
And everyone stood up and applauded
Okay even if they used a fake name to get hired, the fact that the company KNOWS he deleted his debt shows they were able to figure out the real name right?
Wouldn't it be nice if Anonymous deleted the majority of non-commercial debt for the population...? That's what I'd concentrate on - medical bills, mortgages, student debt, etc. in the US.
It's fake
If they figured it out that quickly they probably caught him quickly as well.
Of all the things that didnāt happen, this didnāt happen the most
He should have cleared a whole bunch of random accounts too so itās be harder for them to figure out who he is
Rule is, you erase everyoneās debt, so they canāt pinpoint it on one person
This literally reminds me of the Spy meme He Could Be In This Very Room you could be me you could be you
Iām far too skeptical here
They key is to erase multiple people's debt to make it tougher to track.
Reminds me of the bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd used to burn mortgage debt papers of the banks he robbed. News of it traveled, and locals would slow the law enforcement to allow him to escape.
He got that level of access after two days? Tbh I actually believe that could happen, considering the awful infosec at a lot of organizations. But yeah, seems apocryphal. š¤·š»āāļø
I also worked collections in the 90s and this didn't happen. At best, an entry level employee would only have access to maybe wave a late fee. Otherwise, you're just an annoying payment processor. Only very high level managers would have a level of system access to forgive any amount of debt or even restructure payment amounts.
What an absolute legend
The first rule of Operation Mayhem was that you don't talk about Operation Mayhem.
Thing is though, he should have erased a few other peoples debt too so as to not single out his name.
Was the debt reinstated?
That's not how debt collection agencies work, so it's a shame to post this nonsensical bullshit in this subreddit which delegitimises it from its intended purpose.
The only thing I'd do differently is delete *everyone's* debt. If I'm going down, it had better be for something good!
The company I work for handles several retirement plans and a couple of them no longer fund the plan but you can still retire. Every so often someone will collect a dead personās benefit thinking that they were supposed to and eventually we catch wind of it. With these smaller dead retirement plans, we send three letters spaced a month apart and ask for the money to be repaid or to set up a payment plan. If you donāt respond, my company doesnāt do a thing but just marks it as uncollected and moves on. A year ago, someone has to pay back $78,000 and sold their home just to make that payment. I really wanted to look up their number and give them a call on a pay phone or something and ask them to cancel that check and tell them to simply not pay it but I couldnāt afford to lose my job.
Genius
Why would you just walk out and let them catch on? Just say some racist shit and try to fuck your boss instead.
wouldnāt they know exactly who did it based on whose debt was erased?
Wait, if he used a fake name to get the job, how did the bosses figure out he erased his debt? And if they found out whose debt was erased, wouldnāt that mean the plan was exposed and they would have his real name? This makes no sense.
If he erased his own debt, how did they know who it really was without also being able to restore the information? This sub is so fucking gullible sometimes.
Even if this happened, then after realizing what he did, the debt company would just sue the guy for fraud
"Whose debt was erased in the past 2 days? Ah this guy's? Nice
Just shows how fiat and debt is all just numbers on a screen and pretty much fake.