The Glade 4.0

*disclaimer* I understand that what offerings given here are only suggestions and I will take them as such. I know there may be no experts and those who would be hesitant to give advice for fear that I may take it seriously and blame them should a negative outcome occur.

All I am looking for is other perspectives as I am quite uninformed as to my best course of action about the following:

A little over a month ago, I had to print, sign, scan and email some documents for the starting of a new job. I was sent the documents by the contracting company and I needed to get them back for my new employee processing. Not having the proper hardware to effect this, I used Office Depot to take my signed documents, scan them in and email them to me so I could forward them accordingly. *IMPORTANT* The faxed documents included my drivers license, Social security card, a completed W4 and a voided check (for setting up Direct deposit)

I got a call from Office Depot risk management yesterday and they informed me that there has been a security faux pas on their part and they were calling me to let me know. One of their copy center drones mistakenly sent the above mentioned documents to another customer. This customer was kind enough (perhaps also wary enough) to come back to the store with the printed documents to let them know and to "wash her hands" of the situation. I was told that she handed over the docs and informed the copy center that she had deleted them from her email. She was apparently an architect who was awaiting some scanned in blueprints or designs.

So Office depot is willing to "settle" with me to the tune of $550. They would like to provide this settlement to me so I can enroll in Lifelock or somesuch credit monitoring. They are admitting culpability as such, but my part of the settlement is to sign off a release form that says by accepting said settlement, I release them from any future possible claims etc. from their negligence.

I'd love to take them up on the money and whether or not I would enroll in Lifelock is not certain, as I have several years left of fraud alert on my credit from my identity theft a few years ago. But, knowing the hell I dealt with cleaning up my ID theft, I am hesitent to release them for the price of $550.

Any thoughts, ideas, commentary...anything at all, would be appreciated. I need more perspective on this and haven't yet had time to have this discussion with anyone other than Oonagh. The thought has certainly gone through my mind to go to a lawyer for advice, but I wanted some unofficial advice from the Glade first.

Thanks as always

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Not legal advice but:

Take the $550. You don't need to worry about the lady who brought your info back, you need to worry about the one who wouldn't.

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Hopwin:

Yeah, that is the first thing that went through my head.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

This. You already have the fraud monitoring thing. Faxes are point to point, and since the other end was cool, you shouldn't have anything really to worry about.

Take the cash and buy something awesome for your family.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I guess the "pre-identity theft" would have taken the money and ran and not given it a second though.

It really has shaken me to the point that I want to make sure to cover my @$$ as much as possible.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Did their screw-up interfere with your hiring process at all?

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1 million dollars!!

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Not in the least, fortunately. I received my documents that very day over a month ago and I sent them right to the contracting company.

What went down is that they were retained at the Office Depot (I don't know their policy for scanned document retention) and the copy center worker somehow mistakenly selected my files to send to the customer who was in their store yesterday, instead of her architechual plans.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

So you're saying I should hold out for more?

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Take the money, Toombs.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yeah, it's likely they only sent it that one customer, and they returned them. While I would love to be evil and say "take them to court and sue them until you can buy an island", really it's easier to take the money and run. Especially since you already have years left of fraud alert ( I wouldn't sign up for lifelock on top of that). Just take it and buy something fun.

Take the money. Buy a handgun.

For a suit to go through you have to show harm, you would lose the suit but this is cheaper than the time it would take for a lawyer to defend them.

It's a win for you and a pre-emptive "whew" for them.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Tell them you want the money and a top notch printer/scanner so you never have to use this type of service again. Even if you never put ink in it, the scanner will come in handy for years.

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Raell Kromwell

That's a good idea.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Also get them to sign a statement saying that your information has now been deleted off their database/repository/information storage device, and any future mistakes on their part is not covered under this payment.

Release is signed, notarized and returned. I should have the check by next week.

What a weird occurance. It's like I hit the WTF lottery.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Rainmaker!

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