Identity Theft
Yes, identity theft. And I’m not talking about this petty nonsense either. I’m talking big time, purchases made in my name with my debit card number—which is tied directly to my checking account. Shady purchases like a telephone forwarding service. This thief wasn’t planning on having the best prom ever.
I was balancing my checkbook last night and came across two charges from within the last two weeks that, after a little head scratching, I determined I did not make. Neither were especially significant in dollar amount but I lost almost an entire business day to cleaning up the mess and talking to authorities. The card was cancelled and another issued, fraud alerts were placed on my credit reports with the Big Three (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax), and a police report was filed. I can’t imagine how someone acquired my card number. Being a web designer/developer I’m savvy enough to sniff out a phishing hole and I keep all of my receipts. Thankfully, I don’t think my Social Security number is out there but we’ll see what my credit reports turn up.
I did receive some small consolation—actually, I’m stoked!—when I found out that ShaunInman.com was today’s pick over at Web Standards Awards. The site is in excellent company (The League needs to stick together, right?) so it will be interesting to see which one walks away with the first Site of the Month.
Fingers are crossed that it’s me—and not just somebody claiming to be me.
005 Comments
That’s the kind of thing which happens to everybody but yourself. Except the day it happens to you. Hope you weren’t ripped off too bad.
And congrats on the award. I think it’s well deserved.
That’s nothing, it happened to me once. But really awkward it was , the theif somehow charged my credit card with $200 dollars worth of hosting from Media Temple.net (mt). Which when I checked was a whole complete paid year of hosting!
Anywho I did the same that you did and the theif only did that transaction (thank god!).
i bet you just gave it to someone!!! im only joking!!
eh! i’ve been throught the same problem, somebody cloned my credit card (never used it any “shady” place, just regular, real life shops and apple.com and amazon.com) and they managed to buy 1200$ (which is the usual maximum with that kind of cards, i had raised it to 2400) in clothes before i was able to find out. i had to fill a report with the police and my credit card issuer (and i didn’t even had my receit at hand), but everything went fine and i got every cent back in 2/3 weeks :) so good luck!
cheers Marcello
He he - I once left my debit card at a store and oly noticed it two days later… after which I phoned the manager of the store and told him that the cashier never returned my card to me and that I demand to be compensated for the inconvinience caused.
Needless to say - when I went to pick up my card I got gift vouchers as compensation ;-) yay!
Ps. this is such an awesome site - it deserves to win the web standards awards