June 2007 – Page 3 – Complaint Hub

Go ahead, shoot the messenger

Techdirt: Tighter Lending Standards Make Credit-Piggybacking Services More Popular

This issue — whereby a person can “piggyback” on another’s credit report and gain benefit from it — is just one that’s fueling financial institutions’ unhappiness with FICO scores, and the company behind the system, Fair Isaac, says it’s making changes to eliminate the positive influence of piggybacking.

Well, not exactly shoot the messenger, but I couldn’t think of a more accurate yet still catchy title. What’s going on here is that people are using what amounts to a loophole in your FICO score that makes it beneficial to “rent” your good credit to some schmuck, allowing the schmuck to get a loan.

The proper response here, which is what Fair Isaac is doing, is to fix the FICO so that this doesn’t give the score lender a bump. It will all but eliminate the market for this stuff because no one will want to do it anymore.

The improper response is what the lenders will probably do instead, which is to move away from the industry standard and make up their own numbers.

I did financial analysis at a very large company in the mortgage field for about a year just out of college, and one of the things I learned is that a FICO score is a remarkably good predictor of loan performance. The company I worked for employed some very smart economists to try and come up with a better method (Or at least an in-house method so they could stop paying for FICO scores), and I don’t think they ever really improved on FICO.

And lately, lenders have shown that they really aren’t very good at predicting loan performance (See: subprime mortgage market implosion). So getting away from a score that may need a little tweaking, but has been really good for a long time, seems a little silly.

I knew it was a good beer

Above And Beyond: Sierra Nevada’s Cool, Refreshing Customer Service – Consumerist

Total Wine said they’d exchange the beer for different cases — (hopefully they’ll have Sierra Nevada from this year) and Sierra Nevada said that they would send a check to reimburse the full cost of the cases if Total Wine didn’t exchange the old beer!

Story from Consumerist of a couple who bought three cases of Sierra Nevada for their wedding (The wife and I had Sierra Nevada at our wedding, too – certainly it follows that the couple in this story are just good people.) that turned out to be quite old.

Now, I’m not sure why they went straight to the brewer, but they did, and Sierra Nevada made sure they had fresh, delicious beer for their wedding. Well done, Sierra Nevada. To be fair, Total Wine, the place they bought the beer, did exchange the old cases. But you can never have too much good service. I don’t think.

Our new neighborhood bar/restaurant

Logan @ the Heights

The Heights is the quintessential neighborhood restaurant: perfect for a quick weekday bite, a night out with friends, or a lazy weekend Brunch.

The Heights is opening this Friday, according to signs in the window. I’m excited. I know it’s not the neighborhood bar/restaurant that they’d like you to think it is. I mean, this is their fourth one, which is approaching chain-status. But Merkado is pretty good, and I’ve heard good things about the others, and this one is ours. Now we can tell those snooty Mount Pleasant jerks that they can keep their crappy bars.

I’m just kidding, really. The only Mount Pleasant bar I’ve been to is The Raven, and it’s a cool place. And aside from the occasional “your neighborhood has more crime than our neighborhood” potshots, which are probably deserved, I like the people I know in Mount Pleasant. To be fair, that’s really only one couple, but still.

Anyway, the wife has a friend in town Friday, so maybe we’ll stop by the opening. Or maybe they have other plans. I don’t really know. But you can be sure I’ll try out The Heights eventually. And no, I don’t plan on calling it Logan @ The Heights unless they call the one down there The Heights @ Logan.

Weekend in Philly

The wife and I spent the weekend in Philadelphia. I’ve been there a few times, but not recently, and not for long. Philly has kind of a bad reputation, but it doesn’t seem deserved. The city is clean, there’s lots to do, and we had a good time. Maybe if we stayed longer, we’d find some reason to hate the city, but I have no complaints.

As you can see from the photo, the Latham Hotel has a bottle opener in the bathroom. How many times have you been in a hotel, and had to open a beer by banging it on the door hinge? I mean, that happens to me ALL THE TIME. And it’s not a really good way to open a beer. The Latham takes care of that.

Anyway, we got to see a lot of the city. We met up with some friends, had a really great dinner at Amici Noi on Market Street, and walked around a lot. It was a really nice weekend.

A lot of you are interested in Vector Security

Looking at my Google Analytics stats, many people have come here looking for information about Vector Security. I really have only one complaint about them, and that is that it took two months and repeated requests from my wife to get them to send us the referral bonus check we earned when our upstairs neighbors had their system installed.

But the check arrived yesterday, so it was just an annoyance, not a serious problem. The alarm system has been perfect so far.

If anyone is interested in Vector, and wants to have a system installed, send me an email: Jon at complainthub dot com. I’ll be happy to refer you and wait another month or two for a check.

Maybe I should have said this before I did it

I just installed a WordPress plugin that forwards the default WordPress RSS feeds to a brand new Feedburner RSS feed, which allows me to track not only hits to the site, but people who just read the RSS. Now, that may only be me, but now at least I’ll know.

Anyway, if you experience problems with the feed, let me know. It should be a transparent change for any of you subscribed to the feed.

I may be throwing in the towel

I’m just not enjoying Script Frenzy. The initial fun of using Celtx is wearing off, and I’m really not having a whole lot of fun.

I think part of it is that I only know two people doing it this year, and one has already quit. And I haven’t paid much attention to the forums. And I’m a little behind, and going out of town this weekend, and that will put me even further behind.

The other thing is that doing this, and doing Nanowrimo, don’t inspire me to take the next step. It was cooler when I thought, “Hey, I’ll do this in a month, and then go on to write a whole novel, or a whole screenplay”. But it seems pretty clear that isn’t happening.

Maybe I’ll take the story from this year’s Script Frenzy, which is something I’ve been kicking around for years, and make it into a novel. Or maybe not.

Anyway, I haven’t officially quit yet, but it’s sure looking that way.

Mmm, wine.

Finding Gems in the “Off” Vintages

Reading this site always makes me want to go buy wine. And I do need to fill up our wine racks – currently we just have a few special bottles that we’re saving (Actually, that we’re scared to drink). One of them is for our anniversary in August, and one of them is my favorite wine, a 2004 Gibson Wilfreda, that we bought on the honeymoon. I think I’m afraid to drink it because I worry that it won’t be as good as I remember.

Anyway, one of these days reading Vinfolio might actually make me buy the wine, rather than just think about it. I’m sure that would make them happy. Maybe they can get me a deal on a case of Wilfreda . . .

I also have to give Mr. Moore credit for correctly using both “its” and “it’s” in the span of three words. I’m always surprised at how often I see people get this wrong, and often in publications that should really know better.

OMG I have DC tags!

Finally. My car is registered in DC, complete with tags, until 2009. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about that any more.

My experience at the Georgetown DMV was pretty good. I was there at 8:07, and they open at 8:15. The line was longer than 95 M St. All the employees I dealt with were exceptionally friendly and helpful. The woman giving out numbers actually joked with me. A woman waiting also loaned me a pen, which I had forgotten to bring. One bit of advice – the Georgetown DMV has a bunch of clipboards to write on, but about three pens, so bring your own. They also don’t validate parking, which was no problem for me, since I rode the bus. But it might be a problem for other people who relish the idea of driving into Georgetown at 8AM.

I got my number at 8:33AM, and walked out the door with my tags at precisely 9:00. Well done, Georgetown DMV.

I have to say, my experience with the DC DMV has been entirely pleasant. Dealing with Capital One to get my title was a hassle, and there is still the matter of the $100 failure to register ticket that I have to contest, but the DMV has been very good.

And, just to top off a fabulous day of working from home, a little later I’m going to fish a stool sample out of the litter box and take it to the vet so we can try and determine if the cat’s recent behavior issues are medical or (As we suspect) psychological.

It happened again

The disaster magnet once again worked its magic. I went out back yesterday to retreive the trash can before someone stole it, and I saw a note on the disaster magnet. I suppose I was being nosy in going to look, but I couldn’t help it.

Someone had hit the car. Parked in the driveway. Who gets their car rear-ended while it’s parked in the driveway? The person left a note, but seriously.

Even funnier, perhaps, is that I went out to retrieve the trash can after the salesman who was supposed to meet me to talk about installing garage doors at the back of the driveway stood me up. We want to put in doors because our driveway is currently the only one without them, which means that everyone turns around in our driveway. And sometimes hit the cars parked there.

Anyway, there wasn’t a lot of damage (And the car still hadn’t been repaired from last time, so he can get it all taken care of at once, that lucky guy). But it’s enough to send you to Zipcar.