[jdlshore]

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, this could have been an internal actor at the bank. The money wasn’t lost; it was moved to an investment account, apparently under the same name. There’s a big push at Chase to get people to use their investment accounts, to the point that I get flyers promising hundreds of dollars to do so. It could be that someone at Chase saw this as an easy way to bump their numbers.

Normally, I would consider this a far-fetched fantasy, but after seeing similar fraud at Wells Fargo as a result of their incentive programs, nothing would surprise me.

[ksaj]

When they were breaking up Bell Canada's monopoly on long distance services, the newer long distance providers would use call centers to get people to sign up. Sometimes a shadier phone worker wanting to make their quota would sign people up even if they said they weren't interested.

There was a term for it. I think it was "slamming" but if that's the wrong word, it was something like that.

Because of it, the alt providers had to hire outside verifiers, who literally have no stake in whether the sale goes through or not, to come on the line immediately after any customer signs on, to verify their information and that they really do want the service and were not tricked or coerced into it.

Everyone who worked as a verifier that I knew said the same thing: they had to cancel a LOT of new accounts because of this "slamming." The most affected were the elderly, and people with thick accents.

At this time, ONLY Ma Bell could provide local service. Thankfully all that is well behind us now, and whatever company provides your local service also provides your LD (unless you use a discount card, of course). Of course there is an all out war between the major providers buying out the smaller "discount" providers, but it is still infinitely better than what we had before then. And with cell phones, it's a completely moot point.