I was having a lovely day (Identity Theft)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Then, I found out somebody has been using my credit card.

A box containing Vonnage modems had showed up, unordered by me.

I immediately contacted my credit card company, & canceled my card. New one by next week Friday.

I went to my bank, & they gave me the help they could.

Then, I tried contacting the credit agencies.

Foolishly, I believed they wanted to help me. Ha-ha. They are little other than hand-in-glove partners with the swindlers, doing everything they can to keep me from getting the problem fixed, unless I sign up for their so-called “insurance”, which neither guarantees me my money, nor any assistance in fixing the problem. It just guarantees they won’t withhold evidence of possible crimes committed against me.

I got frustrated with their voice mail system, & started shouting the banging my fists on the table.

Then Dad & I had loud words.

Now, he’s talking about throwing me out of the house, right in the middle of a possible personal financial disaster.

No credit card. Anger. No dinner. Family stifle Sick to my stomach & shaking.

And tomorrow is my birthday. :frowning:

I do not deserve this. I never overspend, and have never taken out a bank loan in my life.

Now, I might be facing financial ruin, being thrown out of my home, & losing my father’s affection over hard & unfair words. All in the course of 3 hours.

2

You are not liable for charged made fraudulently.

3

My credit cards limit my loss/responsibility to $50. Check your agreement. The most important thing is to report it immediately so they can decline any further charges.

Also, notice the stuff was shipped to your home. I’ve ordered things for as gifts to be shipped (but billed to me) and never had a problem but usually, I’m sending to a relative with the same last name. I guess those who were using it planned to nab the stuff off your front porch or whatever. Any strangers been lurking around your house lately?

The ex and I had our credit cards stolen right from our mailbox. Were you recently due for new credit cards as the others expired? In our case, the thiefs ran up $3K worth about 500 miles away, but again we weren’t responsible. The credit card people told us the Secret Service gets involved in this stuff, btw.

I had a bounced check once and found out that there are people with some electronic gizmo that can stand behind you, wait till you leave, and capture your information. When the statement came, it said $60 at 11:02 AM…$60 at 11:04 AM…etc. The advice the bank gave me was to set my daily limit lower. Oh yeah, and use the ATM at the BANK, not convenience stores etc. because the security is much greater there.

So one thing you can consider is lowering your limit to make sure that if you fall victim again, they can’t run up TOO much.

Hope you patch it up with your dad and salvage a decent birthday!

4

My Dad’s hired girl. But in thre mood he is in, he won’t listen to me. Not that he ever does, mind you.

No.

I never use ATMs. I never have.

I hope he doesn’t kick me out of the house.

5

Hmm, that’s interesting. You might ask your card issuer what other charges were made. Supposing they were delivered UPS/FedEx/DHL (I’m guessing you’re in the US), they might have been signed for. If so, the delivery person saw who took receipt and could ID the person(s).

6

PS I’d want to know how the items were ordered—internet or phone. I do a lot of bills etc. with both and there are safeguards in place. Caller ID, ISP identification, that sort of thing, can narrow down where the orders came from. If the calls came from your phone/ISP, that would narrow it down quite a bit, wouldn’t it?

Is your dad’s hired girl still showing up for work?

7

No one has ever wound up in trouble due to a “hired girl”.

8

I’m sure you already know, but this is where you went wrong.

Don’t get carried away; this is by no means a personal financial disaster. You’ve called the card company and gotten things squared away, now all you have to do is wait. This situation could be a lot worse, believe me. Yeah, it sucks, but you took the right steps to fix it, and getting bent out of shape over it isn’t gonna help. It’s really not worth it.

Best of luck, and try to enjoy your birthday!

:dubious: Eh? I worked for the largest issuer of credit cards in the US for a while, pulling a few shifts in the fraud department. I never saw the Secret Service get involved in any of the cases we handled.

People stealing stuff out of your mailbox is an entirely different crime, mind you, that I’m not as familiar with.

9

Ah, you’re probably right, atomic. We never had possession of the card. It wasn’t until we were at Wal Mart, getting our card refused, that we found out they were missing. “Oh yeah…this expires in two days…” That kind of thing.

Had they not stolen it from our mailbox (a federal crime) it might have been a different story. At the time it happened, I was living in El Paso. I heard thieves were targeting mailboxes—just drive down a street on a weekday, when everybody was at work—and take whatever looked interesting from the mail. About a week before the first of the month, when “renewed” credit cards would be in the mail, would be the ideal time.

So ours probably wasn’t an isolated incident…catch the person(s) who stole ours and you might have the same person who raided mailboxes throughout the neighborhood. It’s probably worth calling out the big guns if that were the case.

10

No, the only other incidents of odd charges are 2 from last month, reported & credited to my account.

And my experience with the credit report agencies was so confusing & contradictory that I can’t even tell if they are sending me a report or not.

BTW–Dad may or may not be getting over his anger with me.

11

I hope things work out with your father, Bosda.

It sounds like you’ve done all the right things to take care of the credit card. Now, you just need to sit back and wait. You may have to fill out some forms and send them in too. This is what happened to us when my husband’s debit/credit card was stolen. Make sure you do fill out the forms pronto and send them back so they don’t take the money again.

12

The forms will probably require notarizing.

13

Dad is a Notary.

14

Also, chances are, there’s nothing you need to do about your credit. Generally the charges are recognized as fraudulent and you are not responsible for them nor does it usually affect your credit. Just get a free credit report online and see if there is anything amiss, no need to get frustrated trying to talk to the credit agencies on the phone. In fact they might not even know what you want them to do if you aren’t disputing any particular item on your credit report.

(You’ve really never used an ATM?)

15

Coming out of lurker mode to say - you can calm down a little.

If all you’ve had happen is some bogus charges on your credit card, then you’re a victim of credit card fraud. This is really no big deal except for the nuisance of having to notify the bank and get a new card number, since you’re no doubt protected by the terms of your credit agreement (beyond the first $50, likely) for having reported the problem right away.

You’re NOT a victim of identity theft unless someone acquired your social security number and applied for credit in your name. You would be able to discover this by looking at your credit report and spotting any new accounts that you have no knowledge of. Do you know this to be true?

Or were you assuming (incorrectly) that bogus charges = identity theft?

The credit bureaus could honestly give a rat’s ass about a credit card fraud issue. That’s between you and the bank that issued the card.

16

My ex-wife is an ex-Notary. It may vary by State but as I recall, she wasn’t allowed to Notarize for family members. Your bank or insurance agent may offer free notary services to customers. You might want to check that out.

17

Heh, a few years back, I was logging onto my credit card account to set up an online payment when my balance showed that I had made $2000 worth of $50 iTunes purchases on my card (I didn’t even have an iTunes account at the time), I remember being so angry, that I was literally shaking and desiring to hit someone with a baseball bat.

I called the credit card company, they forwarded me to their fraud department, and they got everything squared away, but that’s the angriest I’ve ever been in my entire life, I think.

I feel for ya, and good luck on everything working out.

18

So far, nothing new, beyond several “problem with your card” emails from Amazon.

19

You should be ok as you’re not liable. I had my credit card’s number stolen by staff at a Denny’s in California recently… then they bought a few hundred dollars worth of gasoline… after I had already left the US. I was quite a hassle to have to keep calling in with new charges listed that I did not make. “No sir, I did not buy $99 in gas in Texas yesterday as I spent the whole day in my apartment in Europe.” :slight_smile: