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On Christmas Eve I received a phone call from a credit agency saying that I was in arrears on my Pay Pal account and they specified the bank that a credit card was issued through. I had a balance of $535.00
The problem is that I never had a Pay Pal account or a credit card issued by the bank mentioned.
The people that opened the account had my correct SS# , my birth date, my phone # as well as an address in St Augustine Fl that we own but do not live in.
We were in St A the weekend that the account was opened but I also now realized that I had also sent my computer out for repair under a service plan issued through Office Depot over the same time period.
The computer was sent to Laredo Tx but was returned from Nuevo Laredo.
All charges were made the same date that the account was opened.
The Bank was very helpful in shutting the account down and is instituting an investigation regarding the identity theft and I am to report this to the local Sheriff's Dept tomorrow. I was also told by the bank that I would not be held liable for the charges.
I also took the precaution of advising my banks and credit card companies that my computer would be out of my control for a period of time and had all my accounts put on a higher level of alert. I think that this may have mitigated some potential losses.
I don't have a clue how this info was gathered but a word to the wise should be sufficient. BE CAREFUL gang.
Bill V

Thanks for the heads up. We do very little over the internet. We just opened a debit card that is re loadable and has no ties to our checking account, will start using it. The cards are separate accounts, she has her money and I have mine. We can use each others card because we know each code. That way they can only get what is on the card, which will not be very much. I used to buy on E Bay when I could use a money order but they stopped that so I have not bought anything in about 5 years.

My wife & I were identity theft victims for a 5 year period. This was back when NJ issued non-photo drivers licenses. Well not anymore since 9/11. Over $100,000 in fraudulent checks were written in my wife's name. The crooks would use other people's stolen checks and erase the name & address on so-called security featured checks. Then they would use rub-on letters & numbers to put my wife's name, our address, and a bogus phone number. They would also change one or two of the account numbers so the same checking account was never used twice.

The Secret Service was informed when the amount of the fraud exceeded $10,000. They asked me if I had any 'leads' to which I said no. They told me they were sorry but since we were not 'victims' they really couldn't help us. The victims were primarily WalMart and other businesses that were ripped off. I simply had to provide a copy of the police report which documented the theft of my wife's wallet from her purse.

In 5 years time, I had a foot high stack of collection agency notices. These agencies would buy bad checks from other agencies for a lesser amount on the dollar and I'd have to send another police report out. One check might sometimes be sold 5 times & each time required a police report. Th collection agencies never noted a police report might have been received on a check, but instead just pass it on to another collection agency. What a racket.

We use a credit card to make almost all of our purchases which earns us air miles or some benefit. The only thing I can't use a credit card for is paying my NJ property taxes. I'm told that debit cards do not provide the same protections that credit cards protect a consumer- I do not know that for a fact.

But people will do some smart things for bad reasons and companies like WalMart simply looking it at the cost of doing business. It sucks.

backhertz wrote: I'm told that debit cards do not provide the same protections that credit cards protect a consumer- I do not know that for a fact.

I think that is true in most cases. With this re loadable debt card when the money is gone it has to be re loaded before you can buy anything. It has no ties to our checking account.

Regardless, if you think you've been hit, there are 3 major credit bureaus that you should notify- Equifax, Experion, and TransUnion and have a fraud alert place on your file. They all have web sites and instructions on what to do. But the most important thing is a police report- at least in our case. The fraud alert will last for 2 years unless you remove it. The bureaus will forward you a copy of your credit report so you can review it.

Having the fraud alert will prevent any new accounts from being opened in your name- and sometimes by you unless you are at your home number or cell number which is on file. At one time you had to call each agency separately. I believe a person need only make one fraud alert and the other two agencies are notified. During the period of the fraud alert, you might be declined credit like I was at one store. But a phone call cleared it up.

There are services which offer you credit protection for a monthly fee to ensure you are never liable. Well chances are unless you somehow involved, almost all credit card companies and banks will not hold you liable, so in my humble opinion those services are a waste of money and selling you something you essentially already have- protection. But some people like receiving monthly reports and it gives them a sense of extra security.

It is quite an experience to endure depending on the people doing it. In our case, someone tried to open up a cell phone account and buy a used car in my wife's name - usually just before a business was closing. Other people might try to slip in one or two transactions a month & hope you are not looking at your statements.

When Walmart was getting 20 or more checks a week in my wife's name, I called their central security office and spoke to the head of their fraud department. I requested that WalMart place a photo of my wife or at least her name at checkout registers in our area as a method to catch the thief(thieves) on film and possible detain/arrest the dirtbags. I was told no. The reason being is that WalMart does not want to put any of their cashiers at risk and that the cost of all this fraud was calculated into their prices! Imagine what prices might be if there was no fraud?!!

At that time, WalMart was using a service called SCAN where a person simply wrote a check and inserted it into a check reader where it was read at the checkout register. I learned the Scan company only looked for checking account numbers that were flagged as bad. Each time the crooks change the number on the bottom line of a check, they were using a totally different account. So every time they wrote a check at WalMart, it was approved! On one day, checks with my wife's name were used at 2 different registers at the same Walmart within 2 minutes. What a racket! How did they do that? I wonder sometimes if Walmart employees were in on it- but I have no idea.

Also in my wife's stolen purse were two credit cards along with our check book and check register. The credit cards were immediately cancelled. We live in NJ. One of them made it all the way to Kentucky before a clerk took possession of it. In the stolen checkbook were only 5 checks. They were used to buy almost $2,000 in carpet, almost $2000 in computer equipment, and I forget what else. The computer store clerk was an immigrant from Italy and recognized our last name and realized the people trying to buy a new desktop computer system did not in any way, shape, or form look like any person with our last name he ever knew. So he went into the back of the store and called us. The thieves were using one of our 5 checks and hadn't changed a thing. I told him to call the cops & by the time he got off the phone and back to the front of the store, the people were long gone. He was the only person who seemed to care.

But unlike the TV crime programs, no one attempted to brush for fingerprints being that no crime was actually committed. So it went on for 5 years during which time, I appeared on a special report on identity theft on our NBC station. Well actually, my foot high stack of collection agency notices did while during the week leading up to the story, little snippets of an interview appeared during the week to get people to watch the 2-3 minute story which essentially was the news anchor doing all the talking and then panning to the stack of the collection agency notices as what a person might expect if they ever become a victim.

I agreed to the story with the understanding my wife's name would be mentioned so any merchant/cashier watching might double check any check with her name on it. But that never happened. In fact the story on check fraud was aired as computer identity theft. There was no computer identity theft- so that was a kick in the behind. The NBC producer simply interviewed me for about 20-30 minutes and small 5 second snippets were used during the week, but when the main story aired at the end of a newscast, the entire story had changed with the anchor doing all the talking and then panning to the huge stack of collection agency letters… It was a waste of my time.

We learned that the police and others were not all that interested in trying to catch the people doing this bogus check fraud operation. It was almost impossible to catch someone in the act. I even spoke with a representative of the Federal Reserve and explain to him that people should not be able to simply erase the name & address on a so-called security feature check and use rub-on letters/ numbers to create bogus checks using some unknown person's bank account.

I was told they were well aware of this problem, but the cost of changing the way checks are used/processed would cost far more than the problem with people taking advantage, so nothing to my knowledge has changed. Plus I was told we were not the ''victims as it was the businesses that were being presented these bogus checks. I disagree. I had to forward a copy of a police report to every single collection agency and that cost us time, money, and stamps over a 5-year period and it seemed like it would never stop- but it finally did.

The real kicker was that of the dozens of banks which several hundred stolen checks were issued written with my wife's name & our address, we were mailed back about 10 of these checks with a preprinted letter stating the bank apologized by omitting the check in the envelope with 'our' statement containing other cancelled checks. Not one of these banks were in our local area, nor had we ever heard of the bank name or had an accounts with the bank. By the time we would receive these checks the letters/number were starting to peel off! Some of the checks looked good while others really looked bad- like a child had used the rub-on letters, but no one seemed to care or examine a check when it was written. I would bring the checks over to the police detective who was handling the case and he'd simply stick them in the file. Nothing was ever done.

The thing that hurt me the most was our almost full check register was also taken. So I had to get almost 200 duplicate checks. Her purse was stolen on Halloween 1994 and it wasn't until the end of February 1995 that the bank was able to provide me copies of all the checks.

Strawbridge and Clotheir, a department store in/near Philly which is no longer in business was a company that wasn't satisfied with just a police report. They told me they required my wife to complete a 10-page handwriting analysis examination in order for the company to decide on whether to press charges against my wife in a strongly worded letter.

I simply provided them a copy of the police report. I was in no mood to put my wife through an experience like that where this store's internal policies in my opinion were harassment and implied that my wife might have created the story of her wallet being stolen. I think Barney Fife must of been in charge of their security department or maybe Andy was on vacation. I never received a response back from them.

The bottom line is to be very careful.

We were not liable for a single cent; however it is not an experience I would ever want to endure again or see anyone else go through. I've seen these 'smart card' or proximity card readers. It seems when a product comes out to make our life easier, there are people out there simply waiting to take advantage of it for their benefit.

wa2crk wrote:On Christmas Eve I received a phone call from a credit agency saying that I was in arrears on my Pay Pal account and they specified the bank that a credit card was issued through. I had a balance of $535.00
The problem is that I never had a Pay Pal account or a credit card issued by the bank mentioned.
The people that opened the account had my correct SS# , my birth date, my phone # as well as an address in St Augustine Fl that we own but do not live in.
We were in St A the weekend that the account was opened but I also now realized that I had also sent my computer out for repair under a service plan issued through Office Depot over the same time period.
The computer was sent to Laredo Tx but was returned from Nuevo Laredo.
All charges were made the same date that the account was opened.
The Bank was very helpful in shutting the account down and is instituting an investigation regarding the identity theft and I am to report this to the local Sheriff's Dept tomorrow. I was also told by the bank that I would not be held liable for the charges.
I also took the precaution of advising my banks and credit card companies that my computer would be out of my control for a period of time and had all my accounts put on a higher level of alert. I think that this may have mitigated some potential losses.
I don't have a clue how this info was gathered but a word to the wise should be sufficient. BE CAREFUL gang.
Bill V

Bill V
I got smart on computer quite by accident a few years ago. My father passed away and I put all the info for handling the estate on my computer.
I have my SS# my brothers and fathers and all sorts of good info you would want on a computer. Then a few years later my computer died. So I took it to the computer repair shop. Later my friendly computer repair guy called and told me that my computer was fixed and that I was crazy and needed to talk to him.

I learned from him all that he could discover from the info I have left on my computer. Frankly I believe if he wasn't an honest guy he could have made millions stealing info from customers computers.

Biggest thing I learned is when I use quicken, turbotax, or want to store info like Social Security cards and such I should always use removable storage (thumb drive or portable hard drive). That way no sensitive info is ever stored on my computer and before I go back online I always remove the removeable storage. I have Quicken on one thumbdrive, Turbotax on another, financial business on a third and so on.

I keep nothing personal on my harddrive that is accessed by the machine when I'm online or when I take my computer for repair and etc.

My US Air Visa (Bank of America) used to offer a one-time use credit card number which I would set a limit on & expiration date when making on-line purchases. Unfortunately, US Air switched me to their Master Card with more perks with Barkley's Bank which doesn't offer that service.

I don't use any personal info, if possible when I do anything on the computer. One thing I learned which was surprising was that deceased people's social security numbers are easily available to people doing a search. I've found my deceased uncle's, my grand parent's, and other social security numbers. I don't think that is right, but what do I know?

A friend of mine just cleared up a mess with his bank accounts. It seems with all the bank mergers, one bank did not pay attention to account numbers and there were instances where two people might have the same account number like my friend- the guy I took to a Lowe's demo last Memorial Day.

He started seeing his one account going down without his writing any checks. He doesn't use computers for anything. The bank checked it out and apologized, but that is just one more thing to look out for.

We do our best to protect our privacy and banking information, but so many people don't. I can drive down my block and log into wireless networks that are left with the default wireless router login information and simply log in- if I was so inclined, but it's against the law to my knowledge. As a result, I don't use Wifi, but have a wired network in my house- it's much faster & far more secure.