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Identity Theft. How do they do this???

Stewie26

Stewie26

Feb 15, 2012
1,557
13,571
Redondo Beach-Palos Verdes, California
#1
My wife's purse was stolen at our local pet store about 11 months ago. She put her purse down on a counter for a few seconds and a women grabbed it and ran out of the store with it. Within a few hours we had cancelled all our credit cards and were issued new ones from the credit card companies. So 11 months later we keep getting bogus credit card charges on these new credit card numbers. BTW, we live in California but the bogus charges always originate in Florida. I can't figure out how the douche bags can figure out what our new credit card numbers are. This has happened about six times in the last 11 months on our Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards. Anyone have any idea how they do this? Also, anyone else had problems with identity theft?
 
#2
All they need is your name and maybe a Social Security card number.
Unfortunately, there are a number of websites where you can buy more information on someone once you have their name.

Sorry about all your hassles with that, hope it gets rectified.
 
#3
Demon_Hunter said:
All they need is your name and maybe a Social Security card number.
Unfortunately, there are a number of websites where you can buy more information on someone once you have their name.

Sorry about all your hassles with that, hope it gets rectified.
Click to expand...


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my wife's Social Security number was not in her purse so they did not get that. They did get her cell phone, drivers license, car and house keys
etc.
 
#6
sloasdaylight said:
This sounds more like a case of Internet Identity fraud than the type that would have resulted from her purse being stolen.
Click to expand...

That's my thought also. Did you sign up for an "identity theft protection" that came through email at a later point? If so, that could have been a phishing scheme and you gave them all your new info without realizing it was a fraudulent website. They're pretty clever and they can make those things look absolutely authentic.
 
#8
Tat2dHeart said:
That's my thought also. Did you sign up for an "identity theft protection" that came through email at a later point? If so, that could have been a phishing scheme and you gave them all your new info without realizing it was a fraudulent website. They're pretty clever and they can make those things look absolutely authentic.
Click to expand...

No...We do have LifeLock, but that had been in place for years.
Also, to answer the qustion about house keys being stolen, we did change all the door locks. That was expensive.
 
#9
Look at the dates that the fraudulent charges happened, and see if there are any factors that coincide with them, even a week before. A colleague of mine went to a restaurant, gave his credit card to the waitress, and 2 days later had charges on his card for $400 worth of girls clothes from Abercombie and Fitch's website. It could be someone you're handing your card to is running some kind of scheme with an associate in Florida.

That's about the only other thing I can think of other than someone getting your wife's credit card information via some sort of internet identity theft. May want to run a virus scan on your computer just to make sure.
 
#11
Stewie26 said:
Certain. My wife and I shredded our SS# cards many years ago. We both just memorize the numbers.
Click to expand...

I wasn't necessarily referring to the physical cards. If the number has ever been written down or used on-line (e-mails, applications, purchases, etc.) it still might be floating around somewhere in the phone or the purse.

Just trying to be thorough here, it's a bitch and I sincerely hope you get to the bottom of it.
 
#12
sloasdaylight said:
Look at the dates that the fraudulent charges happened, and see if there are any factors that coincide with them, even a week before. A colleague of mine went to a restaurant, gave his credit card to the waitress, and 2 days later had charges on his card for $400 worth of girls clothes from Abercombie and Fitch's website. It could be someone you're handing your card to is running some kind of scheme with an associate in Florida.

That's about the only other thing I can think of other than someone getting your wife's credit card information via some sort of internet identity theft. May want to run a virus scan on your computer just to make sure.
Click to expand...

While as I was in Orlando about 4 years ago on a business trip the same thing happened to me. I handed the waiter my company credit card and he was gone for a few minutes. He must have written down the numbers and put in his pocket. The next billing there were charges for like $1300 worth of computor stuff he ordered on the internet.

Since the purse stolen incident, the new American Express card has not been used by either my wife or myself. We keep it hidden at home and have not put any charges on it.
The only charges that have come up were bogus charges in Florida. When I talked to the American Express rep, I was told that my stolen credit card numbers were sold to a credit card fraud ring. She also said that quite a few of these rings are based in Florida. But she could not explain how they got my new revised number.
 
#14
The newly compromised credit cards may have nothing to do
with the original purse theft. There are many ways to get your
credit card information.

You may have some malware on your computer that is logging
your keystrokes and/or capturing your online purchases. That is
one way that they can repeatedly get your credit card information.

If you have a Windows PC, do a complete scan with Microsoft
Security Essentials (free), Malwarebytes (free) and Spybot
Search and Destroy (free). All of these! Seriously! Each of these
captures problems that the others don't.

If you purchase items over the Internet with a credit card, try
restricting all Internet purchases to only one credit card.
That way, if it gets compromised, it is easier to fix.

Stick to reputable sites (like amazon.com).

Never, ever use a debit card on the Internet.
 
#16
warnergt said:
The newly compromised credit cards may have nothing to do
with the original purse theft. There are many ways to get your
credit card information.

You may have some malware on your computer that is logging
your keystrokes and/or capturing your online purchases. That is
one way that they can repeatedly get your credit card information.

If you have a Windows PC, do a complete scan with Microsoft
Security Essentials (free), Malwarebytes (free) and Spybot
Search and Destroy (free). All of these! Seriously! Each of these
captures problems that the others don't.

If you purchase items over the Internet with a credit card, try
restricting all Internet purchases to only one credit card.
That way, if it gets compromised, it is easier to fix.

Stick to reputable sites (like amazon.com).

Never, ever use a debit card on the Internet.
Click to expand...

Fully agree. When I buy online I only use PayPal. So far never had a problem with that,
 
#17
I had a credit card compromised a few years back. One of the purchases made by whoever did it was flight tickets! So, the bank had details of what had been purchased from whom and presumably the airline have details of who was sitting in those seats on the flight, and still nobody got caught as far as I was made aware at the time. This was something to do with the police being unable to require information from the airline about who flew where. Privacy regulations and other legal aspects often operate in a way that protects fraudsters and makes their schemes easier to pull off.
 
#18
sloasdaylight said:
This sounds more like a case of Internet Identity fraud than the type that would have resulted from her purse being stolen.
Click to expand...

+1

Last month I tried getting fuel on my way to work only to find out that my card had been frozen/locked.
I got a call about an hour later from my bank asking if I charged a little over $1000 to my card. I had not. The charges originated in Paris, France. The bank was great about getting me a new card the next day. My suspicion was that someone had gotten ahold of my info after I charged $5 to my card over the PlayStation Network. That or someone got it from one of the various internet purchases I made. Being that I had made plenty of purchases from Amazon without incident, and that I had made my first PSN charge about a week before the fraudulent charges, that made more sense to me.
 

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