Surviving identity theft
Posted by Sappho on May 18th, 2006 filed in Pointers
We once got hit with identity theft (someone got two credit cards with Joel’s name and social security number, and absolutely no other correct information about him), and once with credit card fraud (someone stole my credit card number and managed to buy a ton of stuff with a signature that wasn’t even close to my name). I remember an acquaintance insisting, when the credit card fraud happened, that I must have been careless with my receipts; in fact, I shred them all diligently, and suspect it was a case of employee fraud in a town where we had once spent the night (since all the charges happened there). People want it to be something careless that they won’t have done.
Anyway, this is just to lead into a pointer to this page on how to get through having your identity stolen, which is very detailed in its advice and comes recommended by Bruce Schneier.
May 19th, 2006 at 6:14 am
I think identity theft is just a scary new name for the same old fraud. We got hit last summer (or was it the one before?) when someone cloned one of our cards. We were lucky in that the someone used Lenny’s Visa in Queens at almost the same time he used it in Philly, so the bank caught it right away. We had to have all our cards cancelled and reissued, and order copies of our credit reports, but it was really nothing more than a hassle for us. (The bank was probably out a lot of money. )
In our case, we suspect someone at the Post Office was the culprit – we’ve had money orders and their replacement checks go missing. So it was hardly anything we did wrong – we use a PO Box for all our financial mail precisely because it should be more secure.
I think it is mostly random and mostly luck. Years ago I read an article by some woman about how even though she was very careful, she’d had her wallet stolen something like 11 times. I’m not especially careful, and I’ve lost mine twice, once in a mall, and once at a midtown newsstand – and the latter time it was returned intact, including the cash.
And yet here are still many people who think that using a credit card online is much riskier than handing it to a waiter. Go figure.
Jean