I do asked where they get there information from they said from “various ways”. I find this to be scary and frustrating at the same time.

Any advice????

Uh….then how do THEY? If some third party company can get these answers…can’t other people?

Two separate ING customer service reps told Rick flat out that he could never ever open an ING Electric Orange account because he failed the questions after only one try. They did not say “you cannot open this account over the phone” or anything of the sort, they said he could never have that account at all. This ended up being incorrect, and was finally cleared up by the Ombudsman. But at the time of the first post, the official word from two reps was “never, not by any means.” (paraphrased)

I do understand why ING cannot disclose the name of the third party company. However, I think these companies need to be in the eye of the public and easily accessible. Yes, we cannot know exactly which company it was, but it should be like credit reporting agencies. We know the names of three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), and there are clearly defined ways to order reports from them and dispute errors. (Not that disputing errors with them always works, but the process is at least in place.) I’ve have found several partial lists of companies that might be the one Rick needs to deal with, but there isn’t a clear, concise list or a central website like http://www.annualcreditreport.com. This is what truly bothers me about the situation.

And as far as the license goes, yes, the DMV has said his only recourse is to pay $10 and have it replaced as lost. It seems silly to me to pay anything at all for a package that never reached you, but that’s life. I just wonder if the second license will actually make it to him.

Rick’s license was not sent to his old address to be forwarded, it was sent to his new address. The DMV also confirmed that the license was sent. Also, as far as I know, the DMV in Rick’s state does not allow pickups of licenses – they are printed off-site and mailed. I don’t believe he had the option to get the license in person.

From what I read in the earlier post, it seemed that the ING call centre staff were saying that rick could not open an account over the phone if he kept getting the ID questions wrong, not that he was suddenly black-listed and would never be able to open an account. To me it seems perfectly reasonable for ING to not open a new account over the phone if someone gets ID questions wrong. The real issue here is that when the ID questions are invalid there’s no way to get that problem fixed as ING isn’t willing to state who they are. But I can understand why such a third party identity data service would wish to remain anonymous (otherwise ID scammers would make accessing their data a top priority). I suggest ‘rick’ writes a complaint detailing what ID question were incorrect, and ask that ING pass his complaint on to the third party.

Regarding the lost licence, what do you expect to happen when the item wasn’t tracked? USPS can’t say that they definitely lost it just because the intended recipient didn’t get it – if it was sent to a letter box it was probably stolen. Similarly, I can understand the DMV not issuing a replacement licence until it has ‘proof’ that the original was lost. I suggest rick just tells the DMV that he has lost the licence and asks for a new one. In that case he will probably just have to fill out some form. It will be a lot quicker than trying to get the USPS or DMV to break their own procedural rules

BTW, why would he let the license come through the mail anyway? Is the security of getting his re-issued license not worth a trip to get it in person? After my 4 trips to DC DMV to prove my identity in person and other DMV crap, I’m really curious how he could get a license with address change via the mail.

Sorry but that seems a tad foolish on your friend’s part not to make getting a license in person a priority. In DC and VA, I had to do it in person because I was going from state to state. On my last move, intra-DC, I will have to do it in person to present my proof of residency. So what’s the deal here? Did he forget to send in a mail forwarding card in a timely manner?