Identity theft - has it happened to you and what can be done to avoid it?

[Fender32]

I've read about "identity theft on the Internet"and always assumed that it was just something which affected careless people, who used dodgy websites and zero firewall protection software on their computers (how much of a snob am I ?).

Then, last week, somoeone used my credit card online to go on a $5,000 spending spree in an Isreali-based, online casino .

My credit card company dealt with it OK (sort of ), but it left me wondering what kind of information fraudsters actually need commit this kind of fraud and more importantly, what can I do to avoid it happening again .

Any advice folks?

Obviously, this is a tricky subject to discuss publicly and online and I'm not excpecting anyone to publish a "How to Rip People Off Online" kind of checklist here. But, if anyone can suggest some key "Do's and Dont's", it would help me tremendously.

Thanks in advance .

[Lalabadie]

Use paypal so you don't have to give your credit card everywhere.

I guess that's a "do".

[tplyons]

Check your credit report at least once a year at annualcreditreport.com. It's free, and this is the only OFFICIAL way to get the free report once a year.

Second, use online banking. Check activity often. I personally use Quicken to keep track of my finances and if the two don't match up, somebody's getting a phone call.

[ubado]

+1 (prior posts)

You can also sign up for programs like "watch dog" and "life lock" ... each have a monthly service charge. Each of these will limit the amount of junk mail you'll receive too.

Besides guarding your credit card number on the internet, however sometimes it can't be helped (some sites get broken in to, even credit card companies) ... paper shreaders are a must as well (especially with preapproved credit card forms, old bank statements, utility bills and other personal information), there have been idenity thefts linked to people going through trash to get information.

[NJL]

dont ever use life lock

[ubado]

Originally Posted by NJL

dont ever use life lock

Why???
I was thinking about using it.

[tplyons]

Originally Posted by ubado

Why???
I was thinking about using it.

The president or CEO of Lifelock posted his social security number in ads displaying his confidence in the program, however, his identity was stolen because of it.

[NJL]

Originally Posted by tplyons

The president or CEO of Lifelock posted his social security number in ads displaying his confidence in the program, however, his identity was stolen because of it.

it just makes me laugh thinking about it, sorry

someone had here posted the article about this happening, but on the page it had an ad for life lock LOL

[Lalabadie]

Originally Posted by NJL

it just makes me laugh thinking about it, sorry

someone had here posted the article about this happening, but on the page it had an ad for life lock LOL

Hurrah for contextual ads. The best period IMO was when you had the ad saying "Find [your search term] for cheap!"

You could search for "slaves" or "children" and... well it worked.

[ubado]

Originally Posted by tplyons

The president or CEO of Lifelock posted his social security number in ads displaying his confidence in the program, however, his identity was stolen because of it.

LOL ... I was wondering if that could happen when the ads ran. I didn't think he was daft enough to actually use his real SS #.

Glad I thought it, but didn't do it.

[GregC]

Well, it hasn't happened to me online. But when I was in the hospital in Miami in 2000, someone started a phone account in my name soon after (in one of the worst sections of the city) and rang up a big bill. Took 2+ years to get my credit clean.

Since then, my former employer had some backup tapes stolen from a storage company's truck with employee info, including mine. And the former health insurer for my current employer has lost some employee info, too. I figure my SS# is probably on a web page somewhere in big red font by now.

[Fender32]

Originally Posted by GregC

Well, it hasn't happened to me online. But when I was in the hospital in Miami in 2000, someone started a phone account in my name soon after (in one of the worst sections of the city) and rang up a big bill. Took 2+ years to get my credit clean.

Since then, my former employer had some backup tapes stolen from a storage company's truck with employee info, including mine. And the former health insurer for my current employer has lost some employee info, too. I figure my SS# is probably on a web page somewhere in big red font by now.

Bummer!

Seems like the best defence against this is to either be so poor, or have such a bad credit rating that nobody will be able to get any money by pretending to be you .

Better go sell the rest of my basses ....

[fourstringdrums]

Originally Posted by tplyons

The president or CEO of Lifelock posted his social security number in ads displaying his confidence in the program, however, his identity was stolen because of it.

I always wondered about that. Sucks to find out that your company doesn't work when you go out on a limb like that

[mothmonsterman]

We had a lady here at work running the management information system for a while, ahe was stealing student, parent and employee info and selling it.
My guitar player who was working as a janitor for a while got his stolen and it was being investigated but i don't think he heard anything cept for the lady slipping him the street names where she lived (he tends to not tell anybody if he does things in retaliation).

I took my info off the system because they don't need it anyway.

[Bob Clayton]

be wary of phishing on sites that have credit information like ebay, paypal, etc.

i just received an email from "ebay" that said i had a question for one of my auctions. before i even clicked on the link to respond now, i saw that a lead to a url that was definitely not ebay. i logged into ebay and saw i had no pending questions. so i went back to this email and clicked the link to "respond now". i left them a nice message as my username and password.

i went back to ebay and changed my password, just to be sure.

[MIJ-VI]

"A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the
house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was likely to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents."

And this:

"This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her hand- bag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet... etc...

20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says ‘I received your text asking about our pin number and I’ve replied a little while ago.’

When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text ‘hubby’ in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the Lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....

And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.

Also, when friends or family text you to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don’t reach them, be very careful about going places to meet ‘family and friends’ who text you."

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&gl=ca

--------

Some advice: http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/newsr...pdfs/18285.pdf

[tplyons]

Originally Posted by MIJ-VI

"A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the
house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was likely to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents."

And this:

"This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her hand- bag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet... etc...

20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says ‘I received your text asking about our pin number and I’ve replied a little while ago.’

When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text ‘hubby’ in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the Lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....

And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.

Also, when friends or family text you to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don’t reach them, be very careful about going places to meet ‘family and friends’ who text you."

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&gl=ca

That's absolutely INSANE. Clever thieves and entirely unaware football fans. It's hard to believe that things that are so commonly left in one's car can have your house broken into.

[MIJ-VI]

Yup. Can't take much for granted these days.

[Disraeli Gears]

Definitely track your card's transactions regularly; it seems identity thiefs often start with a couple small transactions to check if the card number is legit before moving on to the big ones (I'd assume they don't ALWAYS do this, but I've heard several first hand accounts of this happening.) If you check your transactions regularly hopefully you can catch 'em while they're in this stage, so you'll only have to recover tens of dollars as opposed to thousands or worse.

[MIJ-VI]

Makes sense. Rats usually nibble the cheese at first.