I'm finally a real American! (victim)

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Svart

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 4, 2004
Messages
5,134
Location
Atlanta GA USA
So as of today I am no longer an identity fraud virgin. I am finally a real american, my right of passage is done. Being born here just doesn't seem good enough anymore it seems.

Someone bought 400$ worth of electronics, and 400$ worth of stuff from 2 different beauty supply stores in my area.

At least the bank caught it in time to call me after my account was wiped out.

:mad:

Good thing I just paid the bills. My "account will be frozen until they determine if there was fraud". Gee, thanks. Now I can't access my money until they determine IF there was fraud.

The person on the phone could obviously see all the things I had purchased, so I ask, "does it look like I've ever purchased anything at any of these stores?" The answer was "no" but they still insisted that they needed to check my history and such out.

The perpetrators even decided to eat at Burger King.. I haven't eaten there in years. You would think that after spending all that money that they would at least eat somewhere nicer. :roll:
 
Last weekend someone tried to withdraw 50K from my bank account not once, but twice!

I only have a couple hundred bucks, so the bank froze my account and issued me new card numbers... No harm done.

Its scary to think if someone spends a lot of money, all the time that this might not be detected by automatic bank fraud system.
 
welcome to the club. My identity was stolen 2 years ago. I didn't loose anything other then time. and patience.

Best thing to do is file a police report. That proves it is not a false claim as to file a fake/false police report is a crime.

With me they took out 2 cell phones, and then tried to borrow money for a sizable ammount from a money lending company all from the fact they had my name, address and SS#. Unfortunately the address that was provided for all of that does not exist in los angeles.

I put a block on my SS# which means no one can use it, even myself for a short time period. Then spent a good year getting it all the crap sorted out.

Because my phone company was/is tied to the company that they got the cell phones from that crap was showing up on my bill for over 8 months. Best was each month when I would spend a good hour on the phone correcting it, someone else from the phone company would undoing the correction. typical one hand not watching what the other hand is doing.They thought I was full of it till I provided a case number.

fast foward to AES this past year and I'm on the phone with my bank because they think my card was stolen and blocked it. After all how often am I in NYC. I'm glad they did.
 
You guys should be careful of this one:
About six months ago I stopped using credit cards, so it's obviously easy for me to see if there has been any activity. A few months back I had a charge for like $4.50 out of Houston. I had never been to this place and it just seemed strange. I called my bank to get a contact phone for the business. Turns out it was some internet service that I've never heard of. I disputed it and won and changed my card number. But a couple weeks later I heard from a friend that the exact same thing happened to him and like two days later they wiped out his whole account. I guess they try a real small charge and see if you notice and see if it's valid or whatever and then go for the big money.

I'm so glad I don't use credit cards any more.
 
Identity theft and other fraud is apparently so extensive lately.

I had managed not to use cards much at all for some time now. Cash is tight this month, and a bank had just raised my limit on two cards, so I thought they would be reasonable to use for a short period until a client pays.

I made three modest charges via the internet. They were in different parts of the country, but that's pretty commonplace.

I went to a storage facility and attempted to charge a month's rent. Declined. So I asked them to try it again, as they were typing into the computer and the opportunity for error was consequently significant.

Declined. Another person tried it. Declined.

So I used another card. Accepted.

I get home to find a phone message from the bank's fraud prevention unit. I call the robot and wade through verification of what is now six charges. The idiotic program doesn't say which were approved and went through and which did not. So I don't know if I have paid the storage place for three additional months or not. That takes yet another call (the online bank site hasn't gotten anything listed yet, but warns me in red of unusual activity...very helpful :evil: ).

So speaking to someone in what sounds like India, who takes a good deal of coaching to understand what I'm trying to resolve, I finally establish that the first three charges (one of which was to Mouser) have gone through, and the three attempts at the storage place did not.

Another day in the life.
 
Never carry a debit card. Use only ATM or credit cards. If you want to tighten things DIY, go to lifelock.com. They offer a paid service which my family uses, but they also explain exactly what they do, which anyone can DIY if they have the time.
Oh, and can anyone help me with this Kenyan lottery win?
Mike
 
My CC has a service where they can issue unique CC# for specific web transactions. These unique CC# are only good for use with that one vendor and for a finite time period. This makes the numbers very difficult to use if stolen. It seems you could set up quasi permanent unique numbers for vendors you use repeatedly. This way if there is misuse, you will know where they were stolen.

I accept CC for my business and the security has improved in recent years. By law I'm not allowed to store customer CC numbers, and in fact the way my website is set up I never even see them. Check your receipts from any CC transactions. If they print more than the last 3 or 4 digits on the receipt they are not in compliance with current security rules.

I am not irritated when my own bank asks me for ID.. I prefer that to the alternative.

But these are dangerous times. I've had my personal data compromised at least twice in the last couple years. Once by Veterans admin, and again by an investment firm. The latter signed me up for a free year of a credit watch service that notifies me if anyone checks my credit.

JR
 
Dude!!! I just happened to look at another account that I have that i ONLY use for paypal transactions-and ONE purchase:

From the Indie Venue Bible

Someone just tried to withdraw $200 from my account this weekend!

Took care of it right in time but WTF!?! Seriously, that is the ONLY online transaction i have ever done with that card!
 
That is good to use one card only on the net. I have a separate bank account for use only with paypal, and I like the card idea.
John, which provider issues a different number to internet vendors? I likee!
Mike
 
Does anyone here belong to the LifeLock service?
Thoughts, opinions, experiences?

My wifes purse was pilfered through by a co-worker at the restaraunt where she waitresses. It's hard to know what they took for certain since women carry tons of crap in their purses. They did get a cc of mine that I had a duplicate for the wifey. Lucky me there was only like 100$ left on it so of course they overcharged it that very day.
We've narrowed it down to 2 people. One male and one female. As soon as I get someone to tell me if the signatures were from a man or woman since it's usually really easy to tell, me and my wrench that I have for 1.5" bolts are going to pay this person a visit and get this cleared right up.
 
Further signs of the times:

So I attempt to log on to my Chevron card account to pay a bill. Doesn't accept. Tells us how wondefful their new site is with better security yada yada.

Finally go through the beginning of the tedious re-enrollment procedure. Nothing is apparently acceptable. Finally give up and call customer service. Spend about half an hour (!) with them on the line trying to get things to work. Each time am told now it will work. Doesn't work.

Finally we establish that they don't have my SSN. I've had this card so long it dates from the days that it wasn't even required, probably.

Give them the SSN.

Finally works to get me into the re-registration process. More crap to wade through---passwords, three challenge questions. Finally gets me to where I can try to pay the bill. More fields to fill (of course). Finally am able to pay bill---which I also just notice that, with no warning, they have hiked up the due date on, which had always been the 25th.

Suddenly it's the 19th !!! :twisted: No warning, but had I not decided to pay "early" I might well have been late. And we all know how that will summon up the hellhounds!

Maybe time to buy someone else's damn gas.
 
tell me about it. QuickTrip(gas stores here in GA.) showed up on my CC twice as part of the fraud.. So either the person who stole my CC# lives close enough to me that they go to the same gas station or someone from that place is the culprit.. Time will tell.

On another note, I've already received the printed papers detailing my charge overages and their subsequent fees. I received them BEFORE THE LEGAL PAPERWORK I NEED TO SIGN TO GET MY MONEY BACK!!! WTF.

WTF. This angers me to no end. They want THEIR money NOW but take their sweet time to help ME get MY MONEY back.

I'm going to the branch tomorrow and launching a bitch-out campaign. This is NOT acceptable.
 
Just when you think it's all over.... I find out today that one of the fraud accounts that was opened in my name over 2 years ago still needs to be paid even though AT&T told me 2 years ago that it was fraud and I didn't have to pay it.


Today when talking with customer service about a change in my local service plan they are like you still owe 65.00 on an account in woodland hills which is a part of LA I never lived in and was one of the fraud accounts opened in my name.

:evil:

I never got a bill for it in over 2 years and part of me is saying just pay it to get it past you but the rest of me goes why should I pay for the fucko who stole my identity.


Oh Svart they were doing something similar to that in out here. As explained to me by a co-worker who had his bank account cleared. What was going on was they would tinker with the key pads and swippers at the pumps so that when you would swipe your card, it would copy the info off the strip and then copy your info you would punch in on the key pad and record all that data then they they would come back ang retrieve the data at a later date. sneeky...
 

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