Who Thought That Was A Good Idea?

When natural disasters strike, it's sometimes hard to grasp the magnitude of the disaster, whether it's a forest fire, earthquake, or hurricane.  Sometimes a single photograph can perfectly capture the scope of the disaster.  Like this one, a photo published in the Chicago Tribune on 4/20/13 showing a flooded neighborhood in Des Plaines, IL, a Chicago suburb (north at the bottom).

 

In this neighborhood, the river forms a tight loop and the street of houses inside the loop are completely flooded.   Towards the bottom of the photo, you can see an area which is a spillway into a lake, presumably to give the river a place to go when the water gets high.   In this case, the spillway was no match for the river.

This is a google maps image of the neighborhood (north at the top):

So, here's the question: who on earth thought this tongue of land surrounded on three sides by a "flat" river that often overflows was a good place to build houses?  These are not vacation homes, they're year-round homes about 8 miles from O'Hare International Airport.  I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but was it a good idea to build houses there?  Really?  And undoubtedly repair or rebuild them over and over?  Really?

This river is one of several in Northeast Illinois that are flat, meandering rivers that don't have much in the way of river banks to hold them in their channels.  For many years, anytime there's a significant rainfall, these rivers tend to fill up and overflow, although not as badly as was caused by last week's 6-7 inches of rain in 24 hours.  So if the "weird" weather patterns of the past several years is any indication of what's happening climate-wise, we might expect that flooding is going to get more frequent.  

I suspect that we ought to be having a discussion about moving residences away from flood-prone rivers as well as from coastal areas that are repeatedly hammered by hurricanes, and hillsides prone to mudslides.   But I doubt that we'll have that conversation.

Sometimes You Just Want to Unplug From The World

So yesterday was a bit weird.   I received a letter from Capital One, thanking me for "applying for a credit account from the above merchant," and informing me that they were "unable to approve" my application "at this time."  I examined "the above" and found "Best Buy Company."   Here's the problem: I hadn't applied for a credit card from Best Buy.

I was a little alarmed and called the number in the letter that had been provided for obtaining "specific reasons or to review" my application.   I think I reached someone who was in the U.S., but it quickly became clear that it was someone who was working only with scripts and had little or no idea what Capital One did or why.  I explained that I had not applied for a Best Buy credit card and she stumbled through changing scripts to the "fraud" script.  After a lengthy pause, she asked me for name, address, date of birth, and the "reference number" in the letter.  After several more pauses she told me that someone applied online using my name and that it was OK, because Capital One required "additional verification" so the application had been denied.   I asked if that meant someone had used my correct name, address, and date of birth.   I'm not certain what her answer was, because she stumbled through that part of the script also, repeating Capital One's requirement for "verification." 

She told me the "least she could do" (I swear that's what she said a couple of times) was put a notation on the application file that it had not come from me and she would also enter it into Capital One's "fraud database."   I asked if that meant that should I actually apply for credit from a business that uses Capital One, I would be subject to providing additional "verification" information.  Her response: "That's a good point."  I wanted to ask what was the "most she could do" but by that time, it was clear it was the same as the "least."  That was apparently all her scripts told her.

The letter also included information about the credit bureau Capital One had used, Trans Union, who I could ask for the information used from their records, since "our credit decision was based, in whole or in part, on information provided..." by Trans Union.  There was an 800 number to call, so I called it.  As might be no surprise, Trans Union has designed its phone system to shield their employees from any contact with the public, and all the options were for automated systems to buy one of their "products," or obtain a copy of my credit report.   There was no one to ask if my credit report, going forward, will show I was denied credit from Best Buy.

Just a couple weeks ago, we had to close a credit card account because the bank (not Capital One) had identified a questionable online charge, which in fact, was not made by us.  So they issued new cards.  I don't know if it's coincidence, or if I should be very worried about what's going on.   I know Capital One has had a number of humorous TV ads over the years, but my encounter with them makes me wonder whether they are a real bank or that they know what they're doing.  They are clearly not invested in customer service.

The credit bureau report I looked over yesterday showed nothing unusual, so for the moment, everything's OK.  I can't wait to see what's in the mail today.