Originally Posted By chickendumpling I just got off the phone with a girlfriend. In the last few hours someone has charged over $20,000 on her credit card. So just a little reminder to my LP friends...PLEASE be very protective of your info. Don't leave old receipts or anything with any identifying information in jacket pockets, glove compartments or loose in your purse where they might fall out when you go to take out your keys or something. SHRED everything. Please DO NOT carry your social security card or anything with that number on it in your wallet. Please DO NOT write your PIN numbers on other things in your wallet. The Identity Theft problem has been covered in the news so much that I'm sure you guys know how to protect yourselves but please do it. I would just feel horrible if this happened to any of you all. It is such a stressful thing. Here's a website with more info. <a href="http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/" target="_blank">http://www.consumer.gov/idthef t/</a> *stepping off soap box* Thanks for indulging my rant guys.
Originally Posted By smeeeko ^that's what we have our shredders for (and I'm not just talking the cats either, although our 5yr old kitten does a good job when he's at the Vet).
Originally Posted By SuzieQ Chickie, does your friend know how they got hold of her info.? It's an icky, pain the rear thing to go through. Tell your friend to hand in there!
Originally Posted By 4Disnee Hey chickendumpling, I am so sorry to hear about your friend that really stinks. I just got a notice in the mail the other day from my insurance Co. that handles my back injury and it said that the computer with all of my info on it has been stolen and so they gave me a years worth of Credit watching thru Equifax so we checked it out right away and so far everything has been ok but its stressfull not knowing what someone may be doing with your info. Sorry to hear about your friend and I hope that it all is straigh soon for her.
Originally Posted By tink2680 You don't just have to watch out people stealing your stuff, you also have to watch out for the credit bureaus messing up. My husbands brother went to get a car loan at the credit union that we do and they told him that he already had a car loan on his credit so they couldn't give him one. It turns out that the one of the credit bureaus had put our car loan on his credit. We think it happened because they have the same last name, it was at the same bank, and their SSN are very very similar. I freaked out when I found out about it because we have excellent credit and his brother, not so much. I did not want any of his credit affecting mine. One of our friends had the same problem a week later, a bunch of his brothers stuff showed up on his credit and he almost didn't get to close on his house! That did it for us. We have a credit monitoring service that monitors all three credit bureaus and alerts us every time anything show up on our credit. They can be kinda pricey but we got ours through Costco and it is very reasonable. So if you haven't seen your credit report in a while I would definiately check it out, or look into a monitoring service, that way you can look at it anytime you want. That way if somehow someone does get your info you will know about it right away and can nip it in the bud before it gets to be $20000.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb That reminds me I need to dig up my soc sec card (since I DON'T keep it in my wallet). Thanks for the reminder. I would also say, don't have your My Space (or similar) password the same as your email and/or banking passwords.
Originally Posted By chickendumpling <<Chickie, does your friend know how they got hold of her info.?>> SuzieQ - Her DH's truck was broken into and they think it's related to that but I don't. All the activity is on one single card so I think someone got ahold of the number when he used it on his trip this week. She was thinking maybe he had a receipt in there with the number on it which could be but most places don't print the whole credit card number on their receipts anymore. She should find out today. I just feel so bad for her. I mean she isn't personally liable for any of that money but man what a pain to have to deal with all this. Thanks for the good wishes for her, guys. I know she'd appreciate the sympathy.
Originally Posted By alexbook >>She was thinking maybe he had a receipt in there with the number on it which could be but most places don't print the whole credit card number on their receipts anymore.<< They do keep the card number in their own records. Of course, I'm sure that 99.999% of retail employees are honest people who would never steal a customer's credit card number.
Originally Posted By chickendumpling 4Disnee and Tink2680 - Ick. I am so sorry to hear about your troubles too. btw, Tink - her credit card company called her immediately. All of those charges were made within a couple of hours! Amazing isn't it? Unfortunately, I was an Identity Theft about 15 years ago too. I was pickpocketed at an AM/PM. Can you believe that?! Jerk! I had to be very proactive but finally hunted the info down myself and found out that my card info had been traded to a forgery ring operating out of a P.O. Box in San Francisco. Those jerks bought all new tires for their car, got a rental car, flew to some fancy place I can't even remember now and bought thousands and thousands of dollars of stuff. Nice to know I had such good credit! LOL. This was before ID Theft was such a hot topic and I basically got NO help at all. I was peeved. It's like a personal mission of mine to get info out to people so people can limit their exposure. Another tip? Have a locked mailbox and don't leave your mail in there overnight. I could go on and on and on and on. Sadly enough. LOL.
Originally Posted By alexbook >>Another tip? Have a locked mailbox and don't leave your mail in there overnight.<< Good point. Think of all those credit card offers you get in the mail. Somebody else could fill one out, intercept the card when it arrives, and run up a huge debt in your name. I finally got a P.O. box after having several letters and packages not arrive (including a new debit card, a check for a significant amount of money, and a Chanukah present from my brother). I later learned that the feds and the local police were jointly investigating a mail theft ring in my neighborhood. :-(
Originally Posted By SuzieQ I'm with you, Chickie. The theft is much more likely to have come during the trip than from the truck break-in.
Originally Posted By tink2680 >>btw, Tink - her credit card company called her immediately. All of those charges were made within a couple of hours! Amazing isn't it?<< That is awesome, I wish the same could be said about my bank. They had a huge email fraud happen where hundreds of members got their pins stolen and had thousands of dollars stolen. They did it over Memorial Day weekend and withdrew maximum amounts from ATMs in Russia. I had all my savings stolen as well as my credit card rung up to full. I was mad that it took them 3 days to stop the card use. You think they would notice that a few hundred members were all withdrawing large amounts of money in Russia. Anyway lucky for us they gave everybody their money back, it was just a really big pain. I don't bank there anymore surprisingly.
