Have you ever had your identity stolen or personal accounts hacked?

[Quixote1818]

Poll question: Have you ever had your identity stolen or personal accounts hacked?

My Dad had a fake Pay Pal web page pop up and he gave them his info. They took $5,000. Please list your experiences. Also, how "secure" are on line accounts?

[On the Road]

1. Does Having a Credit Card Counterfeited Count?

In the last month, I had over$7,000 charged on a counterfeited VISA card (meaning I still have the card) and two phony charges on a lost ATM card.

[Quixote1818]

2. Ouch! nt

[Wheezy]

3. Yes.

Let me tell you, it is the biggest pain in the ass ever to cover all the bases. We don't know how they got our debit card numbers, but they got both mine and my husband's -- we did not lose the cards, we had them in our possession. And we did not have both the cards plugged on any same account, i.e. paypal or amazon or what have you.

Get this -- over $7500 worth -- our thief bought $2500 worth of textbooks, $1300 worth of *something* from an online card store, and made a $4000 tuition payment to an Ivy League school. Oh, and a $185 computer accessory. Interesting, no?

It's not just folks buying electronics and reselling them on E-bay.

There are many, many important steps you should be sure your dad takes. He should file a report with the FTC, close the affected account(s), make calls to other credit card companies where he has an account to alert them to keep a closer eye on his account because of fraud, contact one of the three credit bureaus to report fraud and put a 90 day fraud alert on his credit report (the one you call will alert the other two credit bureaus automatically), and file a police report, no matter how reluctant the police are to make a formal report (I've heard some departments won't or can't do it, but try).

You want to appear as proactive as possible and get paperwork to prove that it was fraud in case the SSN was somehow stolen too. A police report and a report with the FTC will help tremendously in the long run if the thief has managed to open up new credit cards using your dad's name.

(I'm so sorry. It's really horrible. I wouldn't wish this frustration and oogy feeling on anyone)

By the way, this did NOT happen through our online banking -- our actual checking account was not touched -- just the two debit card numbers that draw from the checking account were stolen (the actual checking account number is different from the debit card numbers, for anyone who is wondering.)


ON EDIT: We will be reimbursed by the bank, eventually, once the dispute charges are all settled. But this takes longer than I thought, and it's very time consuming -- not to mention some misinformation from the bank halted everything for a week before we discovered what the problem was.

[shenmue]

4. Yes

Somebody got my credit card number with one of those "skimmer" gizmos they use at the gas station. The card company called us when he tried to get plane tickets to Nigeria. You best believe they didn't make us pay for it, they nabbed his ass. I hate jerks.

[AZBlue]

5. Other: someone tried to use my card but didn't get away with it so no money lost (thankfully!)

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad's situation!! There are lots of things you can do - contact the police and they will give you a whole bunch of info on it (unfortunately they are well-versed on it these days).

Someone tried to use my PayPal Mastercard/ATM card number to spend over $5K on toys.com - since it's a Paypal card and there's never much in my account, it obviously didn't go through. The card company called me and had immediately suspended my account until they could verify whether or not it was my transaction. So, they caught it, not me. I got a new card and number and have never had another problem since.

I think most online accounts are as safe as non-online accounts - the one rule-of-thumb to remember is never give out information to anyone if they approach you. If you approach them, it's different, but if anyone calls or e-mails you, don't give them info. If you believe it may be a real inquiry, they say it's better to hang up or log offline and then call back/log back and verify that they did indeed contact you in the first place.

Good luck and I hope your dad gets his money back!

[Critters2]

6. I got that same Paypal pop-up, and realized what I'd done.

I ran to the bank and changed my account and debit card numbers. That was in January. I seem to have protected myself! This happened just after a parishioner had his account cleaned out the same way, and had told me about it at church. So, I figured out what had happened. I felt like an idiot, because I should know better.

[Forkboy]

7. Anybody who wants my identity can have it.

:)

[Balbus]

8. The price of illegal immigration and methaphetamines.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/03/hidden_cost_of_.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6814673/
http://www.cis.org/articles/2002/back302.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1214/p01s01-ussc.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/12/AR2006121200525.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-13-immigration_x.htm
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50D1FF63E550C778DDDAB0994DE404482
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases/articles/061213dc.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6620721
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/us/22raids.html?ex=1332216000&en=15a9de588a18ba79&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4460349/
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2005-12-14-meth-online-theft_x.htm
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/02/meth_id_theft.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FinancialSecurity/story?id=793760&page=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/us/11meth.html?ex=1310270400&en=6df49385bf828429&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.identitytheft911.org/articles/article.ext?sp=81
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/12/18/news/californian/21_23_4412_17_05.txt

[FloridaJudy]

9. My card was cancelled due to "potential" fraud.

A local store threw all the receipts in a dumpster without shredding them first. My credit union canceled all the cards whose owners had shopped there. I only discovered it when my card was declined.

I didn't lose anything, but it was embarrassing as hell. I'm just glad it didn't happen a month before, when I was on vacation, since I don't generally carry big wads of cash with me. I used to get "phished" at work all the time: "Hi! This is Pay-Pal. Give us your password". I'd mumble "Yeah, right" and forward the missive on to law enforcement, along with all those letters from Nigerian Millionaires and Sweepstakes Winning Notices.

Speaking of which, I've gotten a spate of those puppies recently. They probably work better on some one who actually buys lottery tickets.

[Mamacrat]

10. Other...

I once had two charges to a 900 number to my credit card. I'm pretty sure it was my then roommate. The company removed the charges based on my history (i.e. I did not have to pay for them) and issued me a new card.

A relative had a $10,000 computer charged to his business account. This fact was discovered in time to stop the transaction when the charging company called his company to confirm the delivery address, as it was an abandoned home. Of course, his secretary had not heard of this purchase and stopped the transaction. I do not know how the information required for the purchase was acquired.

Currently, I am concerned about information I've found "on myself" after using "Zabasearch." The actual background search is done by Intellus. After a friend told me about doing hers and all the information she found (e.g. relatives, neighbors) I thought I'd check mine. They gave me no relatives or neighbors or any correct information other than the address under which I requested the search. However, the search lists 7 civil actions of a financial nature that are not related to me at all! I have not followed up on this information, yet, but am not sure if someone stole my identity or if the information provided is done so in an extremely ambiguous and/or misleading way. While I certainly will be relieved to find that the actions are regarding another person in my state with my name, I am still concerned that this background search "report" will show this information in a manner that looks like I incurred these debts and civil actions. My own husband said if he'd done a check on me like this when we were dating he would have asked me about them, but not everyone would do so. I guess whenever I apply for employment again I'll have to address this issue.

Regarding the Paypal issue: I recently watched a show devoted to this issue. The president of E-bay said even he's received the same Paypal E-mail. I've accidentally clicked on the link, but did not provide any information. And, we then immediately closed our account anyway.

[donco6]

11. Both.

My ID was stolen (they left the credit cards). Later the guy was stopped by police for wreckless driving and he gave them MY ID. I had to go in and basically prove I was me, and he wasn't. Later, I found out he set up a telephone in my name and wracked up $700 in calls. That took me two weeks to clear up with Qwest.

Then a few years later, my credit card number was taken somehow (still don't know how), and they used it to buy two computers. Had them shipped to some fake address in Florida. My credit card company actually caught those two - guy and a girl.

[Patiod]

12. Card used online, no money lost (thanks, Discover)

Got a call from Discover, which I hadn't used for years. "Call us immediately, this is a security call, not a sales call"

"Did you buy $1,500 worth of electronic equipment? We didn't think so. We're cancelling your card, and you won't be charged." Weird, because I hadn't used the card at all for years.

Also, eBay shut down my account, which I had since 1997, because someone had used it fraudulently. Now, I can't get my ratings back!!! I've emailed them a few times, but all I get back is cryptic incomprehensible emails from someone whose first language obviously isn't English. So no more eBay, which sucks.

[uppityperson]

13. Never, and am continually forwarding spoofs to PayPal/ebay

the ones that get me laughing are the ones that don't even bother to copy/paste the logos, just write text. "send me all your info", right. The ones that get me cursing are the ones that say I have paid some random amount for something I haven't, and go to "web page" to check. I like to enter names like fuckyou and iamreportingyou and youcantstealmymoney or simply asshole. I hate spoofers, phishers.