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Identity Theft Victim Gets Last Laugh
Ovid writes "Being a bit of a hypocrite, I sometimes whine about privacy in my blog. I do, however, try to be careful about not letting anyone get information about me they shouldn't and I rarely, if ever, use a credit card online. This is why I was surprised to find out one morning that identity thieves had racked up thousands of dollars one two of my credit cards. By early afternoon, I caught them and the police arrested them."
The canadian mounties have a new branch devoted to identity theft and they solved my case in a week. They are amazing.
I believe he is. At least, the picture on his blog matches the picture over at perlmonks.
Yup. I'm the same Ovid.
That's a fair question.
In this case, I happen to be "Curtis Poe", a grant manager for The Perl Foundation and in the small world of Perl, I'm moderately well-known. If I were caught making up stories like this, my reputation, and possibly my career, would be ruined.
Also, I hope to post the police report when I get it.
"I do, however, try to be careful about not letting anyone get information about me they shouldn't and I rarely, if ever, use a credit card online."
If you go to any store or use your credit card just about anywhere, it's on the Internet regardless of if you actually go to a Website to buy something.
When you swipe your card to get groceries, where is that data sent? How does it get there? Through the Internet. It stays on a company database like anywhere else.
I don't use my credit card on "shady" Websites, but I do realize when I use my card just about anywhere, that data is sent over the Internet and into a database somewhere where someone savvy enough could get access to it.
It's for this reason I try and not use my debit card often as if someone takes my credit info and buys things, I'm not responsible for it. they haven't taken any money form me. However, if I use a debit and they take money, then that is money I have lost and it is much harder to get back.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
People sure have been jumping on this identity theft band wagon for about the last year. This isn't identity theft, it is Credit Card Fraud.
Identity theft would be if I opened up a credit card using your social or if I obtained a loan using your social.
Credit Card Fraud is stealing your credit card information and using it.
Too bad the media just keeps misleading people to believe the two are one and the same.
And all I can say is ... "SHRED THOSE CHECKS, DUMMY!". I have a discover card and get those all the time. I *Do NOT* toss them out. They get shredded in about 1 million little pieces.
I shred just about anything that might have any information about me, my family, or my bills or creditors/debtors. This guy coulda saved himself some grief. The kid prolly saw him check his mail from a PO box and then shake his head and toss the checks in the trash, where he retrieved them.
In fact, it bugs me Discover sends me those checks all the time. I never use them, probably never will, and wish they wouldn't send them so frequently.
FLR
I spend a lot of time on the road, so she audits the hell out of my cards. Turns out there were a couple charges at a local hotel - weird, because it was not anything I would book! Weirder yet when she realized it was her card. My wife's credit card info got swiped at Target.
Anyhow, the way the scam worked is they booked the room with hotels.com using my bride's card info. They checked in, tried to pay with a card that was expired (or did not work - they were not clear on that). When the hotel attempted to charge for the room service and the time they were there, it defaults to the card used to make the reservation. Card canceled, new one issued, no cost to us - but dang, you really have to watch your statements.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Actully, Visa and Mastercard cover the expenses lost to fraud to both customer AND the business that got frauded. One of the other two or maybe both, refuses to give compensation to the business, so they eat it out of their own pocket. That's one of the biggest reasons why Visa and Mastercard are ALWAYS accepted, Discover and American Express are less so.
Learn something new.
Geez. Call Discover (or almost any other credit card company) and they will never send them again.
"""Well done man, but the syringe portion gave me a chill. The syringe part is more than just evidence...what the cop did was both illegal and insanely dangerous. "Sharps" are considered hazardous medical waste and in every state MUST be disposed of in a proper labeled container (NOT a Coke bottle.) They must be given to a company licensed to dispose of hazardous or medical waste and destroyed, usually in these massive incinerators. (I was a med student once...)""" At the bottom of the article, the guy says that it turned out that the hotel had the proper facility to dispose of the needles. However, even if they didn't, wouldn't it be ironic if: Some criminal roots through the hotels trash looking for information to steal someone's identity with and gets needled?
I'd rather not have an easy-to-get number [SSN] used as my very identification. It's too easy here; I don't know about where you are
According to this page, "unless an organization can demonstrate that your [Social Insurance Number]" (equivalent to the American SSN) "is required by law, or that no alternative identifier would suffice to complete the transaction, you cannot be denied a product or service on the grounds of your refusal to provide your SIN."
I've had no problems withholding the number from landlords and banks.
Wrong answer. Thank you for playing. We have wonderful consolation prizes for you (or not.)
For what it's worth, and as I noted earlier in this thread, I'm actually fairly well-known in the Perl community. I'm a grant manager for the Perl Foundation, a scheduled speaker at the next OSCON, and an occasional technical book reviewer for O'Reilly. If I dared to create a lie this huge, my reputation would be ruined. I generally get job offers because of who I am. That would go away. Regardless of what you may think of my story, I'm not so stupid as to make this up.
They did have a photocopy of ID of one of the thieves. However, the registration (made through hotels.com) was still billed to me. And as for your info about the credit card companies, I know nothing about your experience, but it is vastly different from mine. If you have any credit cards, call and ask to speak to their fraud department (or, more likely, navigate through all of the damned menus they have.) I'm sure they'll be happy to set you straight.
I really have no idea. The fact that one of them had a credit card check in his pocket suggests they went through my recycling and found something I forgot to tear up. However, maybe they found something some other way? I just don't know.
I'm looking forward to the police report. One of them (the guy who first walked into the lobby, not the blond kid) swore that he didn't do anything. The blond one seemed rather calm. The police separated them into different cruisers, perhaps so they couldn't get their stories straight. If one of them confesses, I'm sure that will be in the report and then I'll know. Of course, everyone will know, too, as I intend to post the reports as soon as I can.
I think his point was the attempted crimes is a crime in it self even if no one got hurt. Or crimes in the planning stages can be considered conspiracy. Robbery is taking of something by the use of force. Fraud is taking of something by misrepresentation. Thus in this case it's fraud, not robbery.
Since losing a credit card number in an online purchase to a dbase hacker, I now use MBNA for all of my online shopping. It gives me a new credit card number everytime I use it, for which I can set an arbitrary $ amount before that number is consumed and also any expiration date for out to a year.
I generate new numbers using my browser, and even Safari works on OS X. I rest easy knowing that the particular number is set at just over the amount of my purchase, so even if the cc number was compromised it would have no more value attached.
--
$tar -xvf
There are private transactions where the government mandates that an individual provide a business with their SSN, primarily anything taxable, like hiring somebody, or opening a bank account that pays interest, and by now they mandate it for most bank accounts even if they don't pay interest, and they mandate it for any medical transaction involving Medicare or most other government-funded health care.
For transactions where the government does not mandate that a business collect an SSN, they almost never place any restrictions on the business's activities with it, and they don't say that the business can't refuse to deal with you if you don't provide it - you're on your own.
There are a very small number of cases where some government, mostly state, places limits on private use of SSNs, or otherwise insists on some kinds of privacy protection. But in practice, those are usually not effective.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No offense, but you sound like someone that has never actually been mugged before. And it's no surprise the slashdot community found your misguided words to be insightful.
I have been mugged. Several times. And if the person mugging you has a gun don't - I repeat, DON'T - do anything sudden. You are not in the movies and you aren't going to be a hero. Any sudden movements could easily scare someone who probably isn't very stable at the moment. And believe me, you don't want to add any stress to that unstable persons life when they have a gun in your back.
At least, not in my neighborhood.
All his web-sites have not come down.
www.bootsix.net informs the reader that he's busy on a video project. Most likely he gave persmission to distribute the story and then really didn't care to talk to random fanboys on the net about it.
It's like writting a fan mail to someone famous, getting a response out of them and then pretending they're dead because they won't continue responding to your letters.
I've done that many times as the reciever of e-mails from random people. I will typically respond to someone once if they contact me through my web-site's form. After that the chance of a response from me drop quickly to zero. Initial response, and then never heard from again. That's the typical MO of people when talking to people they don't know and don't care to know. He answer'd the ZUG guy's question and that's all be felt compelled to be obliged to.
The big mistake that Bobby Johnny made was registering the power book site (which is his own site BTW so another one that isn't shut down) under his own name and home address.
So if the guy wanted to fly across the ocean and whack him, he could. But most likely Bobby just didn't care to continue some long conversation with the ZUG guy and has better things to do as mentioned on his main site; the video project.
But I have to say, assuming he's dead leads to a more interesting ending.
I'd say he's just tired of the fanboys and has moved on with his life.
Work Safe Porn
And just to add a little more credit, I'm his roomate. Yes its true. You can check my rep if you like. Have fun.
Also the local news boys, KOIN Channel 6, just left. Ovid will be on the news at 11 tonite.