I'm guessing the effort to anonymize A's name happened after this post was written - you still have A's full first name in the last two sentences.

I am sure his editorializing about Obama and layoffs will help his case. /sarcasm off

In receipt of that letter, I would certainly not be motivated to go the extra mile to help him. I doubt anyone else would either, the best approach to handling issues is to be reasonable and try to get them on your side.

Banks generally use 800 numbers which would allow them to see the ANI - the actual BILLED phone number. Caller ID can be spoofed; ANI can't (at least, not easily). However, cell phones and VoIP phones generally use a different ANI than their caller ID. If your parents use a landline, you should ask Chase/WaMu to check the ANI of the call.

@Cocoa Vanilla: A few questions...
ANI is an acronym for Automatic Number Identification, correct?
Is this information always transmitted when making a phone call?
I assume that special equipment is required to gather the ANI information. Is that equipment standard issue from a telecom vendor for in-bound customer service phone centers?
I wonder if it is on by default if it is standard.

One more question... Are there any consumer ANI ID devices available? That would be nice for the annoying telemarketers!

@kylere: I agree. The end of the letter really threw me off, because I thought this guy actually wanted help.
But we all know the best way to get someone to help you is to insult them.

@The Murderous Eyes of Eos: The rest of the letter was to-the-point and effective, he should have kept those comments to himself, for sure.

@edison234:

The ANI is almost always transmitted in the data stream of the call, unless the caller has intentionally blocked it from being transmitted. No special equipment is needed to pick it up. Most of the call center technology out there (Avaya, Aspect, etc.), build in the capability of reading ANI. The receiving company has to activate the process of saving the ANI for each call.

The consumer doesn't have to have special equipment to read ANI. It's what shows up on your caller ID.

@kylere: True, but this is an identity theft issue and the law requires the banks to do certain things, even if they don't want to "go the extra mile".

Doing the minimun that the law requires shouldn't be classified as "going the extra mile".

His letter is a bit snarky...it should have been way more professional if he really wanted someone to pay attention.

@kylere: I agree. Although, I sympathize for his position. Having actually worked for WaMu and getting numberous calls (litterally 5-6 hours of people yelling at me for an 8 hour shift) becasue someone else didn't do their job...

Yelling at me for something I didn't do certainly did not make me want to go above and beyond. In fact those are the people I would cold transfer off to someone else.

The people who were nice to me were the people I actually GOT IN TROUBLE for because I wanted to help solve their problem, those were the calls that I was on the phone for literally 30 minutes when the call center pushes for a 2 minute handle time.

@kylere: I was just about to make the same point. Every time Cosumerist discusses EECBs or any type of contact with a company, they always stress to be thoughtful and avoid being abusive or snarky.

I'm sure the OP thought he was getting in some sort of "fuck you Dad, I'm piercing my nose" pot shot, but it just makes him look immature and won't endear him to anyone who could help.

Why would you need a subpoena for your own phone records. Ok, it's the parent's phone number so have them request it. am i missing something? shouldn't that also come each month with the phone bill?

@chargernj: They did do the minimum, the investigated and found him to be in fault. Whether or not it was the right decision, who knows. We don't know that the OP is a victim of Identity Theft.

In fact, identity theft would be if someone opened a new credit card in his name.

This is not the case, this is credit card fraud, where someone, allegedly, used his card without his permission.

These cases are not always so easy to figure out, perhaps the OP had previous claims of fraud on his account? Perhaps he has been known to make transactions in California.

I'm not trying to blame the OP. I'm merely pointing out the fact that we only have one part of the story. And it's a lot easier to claim fraud if you commit fraud and attack the company on a public website like this one, without any information from the company. On top of that, the company cannot provide any information about the case because of privacy laws.

Food for thought.

@bravo369: I wondered the same thing.

@bravo369: Once, in college, I was getting harassing phone calls, and they told me I needed a subpoena to see my phone records. I was a little boggled by the whole thing, although I can kinda see how they might not want to hand over incoming numbers, I guess. But they wanted a subpoena for my OUTGOING calls too (except long distance, which they would provide me a list of). It was so weird.

(They also wouldn't let me block the number without a police report and something like a 96-hour waiting period to see if the calls stopped on their own. I was like, "SRSLY?" Ditto when a fax machine called me at 9 a.m. every day. I could make a police report on the fax machine for harassing me, wait 96 hours, and THEN get it blocked, or I could learn to live with it. They wouldn't even help me figure out where the fax calls originated from so I could call the company and be like "stop it, jerks.")

The point of which is, phone companies do things in really bizarre, counterintuitive ways for no apparent reason.

@edison234: In some cases you may be able to forward your calls to an 800 number and get the ANI. That's the easiest way for a typical home user to receive the ANI. However, you're still going to pay for the calls to your 800 number, so this is only useful to deal with prank callers.

It's possible to get the ANI with local numbers as well, with a certain setup from the telco - an expensive one.

ANI is not caller ID either. ANI provides both an originating phone number (the one the call is BILLED to) and the type of phone (coin phone, home phone, etc.). Since calls are billed to the ANI number, it's much more reliable - I'm quite sure the telcos would fix an issue that would prevent them from charging the proper party. ;)

@oceanstate: But if the ANI is what shows up on my caller ID, why did Cocoa Vanilla say it can be spoofed but ANI can't? If this is true, then why was there trouble with finding out the identity of the car warranty robocallers?

Probably used a spoofing service.

So if Wamu is shaking someone down for money that he doesn't owe them isn't that technically a crime? It would seem like that is fraud of some sort. Since they were made aware of the mistake and have decided to continue to pursue the guy for money he does not owe that seems to have crossed that line.

Getting a lawyer or the police involved might be enough of a wake up call to get Wamu motivated to deal with this.

Wow, this one sent a few chills down my back ... the ability to obtain data like pin numbers against a stolen card, simply by electronically masquerading the phone number then asking for AND GETTING the pin from the card issuer. Is this a whole new phase of card scamming?

@jaybeas: His hometown is listed in the text as well. There's some alliteration there...

@bohemian: From what it looks like, they are not 'shaking him down' for money. They want him to pay for charges on his credit card.

He sent in a fraud claim report but it didn't come back in his favor. For whatever reason, WaMu decided it wasn't fraud and he is responsible for the charges.

It's not as simple as, oh you accidentally charged me two monthly service fees. (That would be a mistake)

He also does not have a police report about the 'crime' of credit card fraud, which I'm sure is not helping his position.

I wonder if A has contacted the police in California yet? A friend of my had her ex-bf go and commit check fraud with a check that she wrote for him in California. The guy just added a 1 to the beginning of the number on the check and the bank actually cashed it for that amount. The local PD picked him up and charged him. The dude did jail time, but she never got her $1000 back.

@usa_gatekeeper: I know for a fact that Caller ID data can be easily spoofed. I've done it myself, in fact (you know, proof of concept)...

Which brings the question - if an ANI is always your "real" phone number, what shows up when you call a landline using SkypeOut or other desktop-VOIP service where you don't have a source phone number?

@bravo369: Only if it's a cellphone. Landline bills only itemize long-distance calls (calls with specific charges involved), not local or 800-number calls.

@bohemian: I was thinking lawyer too if wamu refuses to conduct a fraud investigation and keeps asking for payments. i'm guessing the card wasn't stolen...just the number used so are you supposed to file a police report in this situation as well? maybe that will help the process

@kylere:

so close, but yet so far...that snarky bit at the end is going to take anyone who reads the letter thinking "wow, I'd really like to help this guy" and turn them right back off. 90% well written letter, 10% idiocy.

@edison234: I'm sorry, but oceanstate is wrong. ANI is NOT Caller ID. Rather than get into all the details here, I'll just mention that the two articles at Wikipedia ("Automatic Number Identification" and "Caller ID") have decent explanations of each service.

From the web:

Telus' toll-free "dial-around" is 800-646-0000, by simply calling this number with an ANI-fail you can give the operator any number as where you are calling from. As of January 2003, Telus can now place calls to many toll free numbers and the CPN will show up as whatever number you say you're calling from. So by simply causing an ANI-fail to Telus dial-around service you can spoof Caller ID to anyone you want to call, not only that if the person you are calling is in the same area as the number you are spoofing, the NAME and number shows up on the caller ID display. To cause an ANI fail to Telus all you have to do is op-divert to 800-646-0000 or dial 10-10-288-0 and touch tone 800-646-0000 when AT&T comes on the line.

@edison234: ANI data is generated by the billing information used by the telcos, so it's pretty much guaranteed to be accurate. It is a part of WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service) which is the foundation of toll free 800/888/etc. service. These services are provided over digital lines (typically T1 lines) and the ANI data is simply a part of that digital signal.

Caller ID is a consumer-oriented service that the telcos essentially hacked together to fill the demand for it. Caller ID is designed to operate over analog "POTS" telephone lines, which is what virtually every residential phone in the US was up until the advent of VOIP services. Since POTS lines are analog you can't send a digital signal over it, so the Caller ID protocol injects what is basically a datastream like those between two analog modems between the first and second ring of the phone.

Caller ID data can be spoofed fairly easily because the Caller ID protocol basically assumes that the originator of a call is properly identifying itself. If a call originates on a digital line, which is standard for organizations that have large PBX's like big corporations, call centers, telemarketers, etc. then the telephone network simply relies on that PBX to provide the Caller ID data. It's a fairly simple matter to reprogram a PBX to display a different name and/or number. ANI data, however, is generated internally by the telco mainly for billing purposes.

Here's an example of why the two are handled differently: A company like Dell has a huge technical support department (actually they have many, for the sake of argument suppose they have one). That department may have a requirement for 1000 telephone lines. The telco provides that to Dell in the form of multiple digital lines (like a T1) which each can carry dozens of simultaneous calls. The telco assigns a unique phone number to each of those 1000 lines for accounting & billing purposes. So the individual phone numbers 800-555-1000 to 800-555-1999 may connect to one of each of those 1000 individual lines. Now all of those 1000 lines feed into a PBX at the support department, and when you call Dell's toll free support number the telco knows that it should route your call to any one of those 1000 lines that is currently free. The PBX answers the call, puts you into a queue, and routes you to the next support rep. when they become available. If the support rep. needs to call you back then the PBX finds one of those 1000 lines that are free and routes the reps. call over that line to call you.

Now in the above scenario if ANI was used to provide the Caller ID data then the first time Dell support called you then you might see 800-555-1927 show up on your Caller ID display, the next time you might see 800-555-1364, etc. Not only would the random numbers seem confusing to most people but Dell doesn't want you to call that number back. They want you to call the main 800 support number. If you call 800-555-1364 back you might get a busy signal if another call was already using that specific number. By calling the main 800 support number the telco knows to route you to whichever of the 1000 lines are free. But by calling the specific number the telco assumes you know what you're doing. So Dell support wants your Caller ID to show up as "Dell Support (800) 555-DELL" (or whatever their main number is) and not the actual digital line number that the call originated from. So this information is programmed into Dell's PBX and provided to the telco when a call is placed from the PBX. The telco then uses that data for your Caller ID display.

So in a nutshell, the customer wants to display a specific message & phone number via Caller ID no matter which outgoing phone line is actually used to place the call, whereas the telco needs to identify each specific line individually for billing/accounting/support purposes, which is what ANI is for.

@DefineStatutory: Exactly. This guy is getting shafted and I hope that WaMu finally does something about this, but the snarkiness at the end he comes off as immature and childish, which will not help his case, no matter how valid his arguments are.

@idip: Identity Theft is where someone pretends to be you and requests a PIN to withdraw cash from your credit card line of credit. But yes, this is also credit card fraud.

Sure, we dont know if anyone who posts to consumerist is really a fraudster looking to falsely malign a company, but I would guess the vast majority are truly reporting a real problem.

Did you read the part about where your poor attacked honest credit card company required phone records, records which cannot be released without a subpoena? Something OP could not get on his own? Then they based their denial of fraud on the fact that A could not get those phone records? I think the credit card company could have filed the police report needed to get those phone records, what do you think?

And I must say, I love the speculation of new info, like the interjection about how the OP might have reported fraud before, or his shopping habits in other states...

Heres hoping that you never get caught up in a similar situation, but if you do, PLEASE come and post here so you can listen to trolls blaming you for getting yourself into a mess.

@bravo369: Landline companies (at least here in Minnesota) have never provided a list of phonecalls. When I requested this, I was told it would cost $100 and would require the subpoena.

I am guessing if they ever start metering the service, giving you 100 minutes a month they will have to start itemizing the calls, but until then, you are out of luck

@bravo369: The subpoena isn't because they're protecting your privacy, it's because they're protecting their butts.

I think that it is unlikely that a scammer is going to go through this level of effort to rip someone (who likely does not have a very high credit line) off. They would need to do the following:
1. Actually get the credit card number (and likely the security code)
2. Need phone number on the account.
3. Need pin number.
4. Need to find someway to fake the ANI system.

What is more likely is that someone else in his parents household (a younger sibling perhaps) received (or requested) a replacement card and used it.

The letter as others said was a bit snarky, and also did not meet the legal requirements to withhold payment. I can't site the legal requirements myself, but I've done some and generally you want to cover the specific charges that you feel are invalid, including all the information from the statement, and the reason that you feel they are invalid. Then you have to state, specifically, that you are challenging those charges and withholding payment. Legally they cannot collect those challenged amounts until they investigate and respond back to you.

I hate to dis the OP but a properly worded letter will automatically set off a legal process that the bank cannot ignore.

@humphrmi: Protecting their butts does not involved hiding a person's own phone records. You should not need a subpoena for that. Hell, if you had purchased a 1-800 number they would automatically give you the list.

@idip: Well if his local police won't let him file a report, then there is really nothing he can do. He isn't going to travel to california just to file a report.

@lincolnparadox: Strange, it would seem like the bank is responsible for fraud like that. Especially since the written words should not have matched.

Yeah! Obama has been in office for four months, why the hell hasn't he fixed everything!!!

For the record, while ANI might be invincible in theory, not so much in practice. I use it on a daily basis - it's a crucial part of my company's fraud countermeasures, in fact - and I see garbled ones routinely. Most commonly it'll be a random string of digits - not a valid country or area code in sight. Interestingly, I've also seen a string of zeros on a number of occasions - and nine times out of ten, it's suspicious if not obvious fraud. I have no idea why or how this is happening, but it is.

@anthonyhasp:

What is more likely is that someone else in his parents household (a younger sibling perhaps) received (or requested) a replacement card and used it.

Which shouldn't matter.

@rekoil: LUDS, Local User Directory Services. LUDS basically is a record of every call a person has, including time / duration. Since it can include people other than the requester, you need a subpoena (so the phone company doesn't get sued by John Q. because Jane Y. was requesting the info because Paul Z. was harrassng her)

@humphrmi: And usually, a letter like this should not go to the same address that the bill goes back to with payment. Those are usually just payment clearing houses and would probably toss any other correspondence that comes with the check. Most of my bills have a separate, different address to send this type of correspondence to, printed somewhere else on the bill.

@greggen: I don't know about all phone companies but the one I work for doesn't store customer's phone records. It is handled by a third party and costs us around $100 for each time we need somebodies records. We require the subpoena in order to obtain records because it shows the customer is serious about getting the issue resolved so it's worth our cost to get the records for them. Versus we get the call records for the customer, pay the $100, and then the customer decides that they have better things to do and don't persue it further.

Yeah, your letter was good, until you went all douchebag at the end. I'd be less likely to help you now.

@RandomZero: The ANI can be blank if the caller op-diverts. (Call the operator and ask to be connected to an 800 number, and the ANI will be blank.)

@edison234: oceanstate is wrong. The car warranty robocallers were identified after someone forwarded their number to an 800 number (which provides ANI). It's on BinRev somewhere.

Why was the telephone number associated with the account his parents' number, especially if they lived out of state? If he is responsible for the bill, shouldn't that number have been his own, regardless of whether they had co-signed for the card or if he was living in CA at some point?

And this is just one more reason to go cell phone only. If a company ever questions whether I made a call to them, I can produce a record of every number dialed over the last several years.

@UlanBaazo: That's old info. AT&T won't divert to an 800 number anymore. I just called the Qwest operator who was able to put me through, and indeed Telus asked me for the number I'm calling from. There seemed to be some confusion since I'm calling from the US. But I doubt they'd spoof the ANI - more likely just the caller ID.