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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."
They closed that account and notified me immediately without authorizing any sales. I called the credit card company and found that in fact there had been three or four transactions on my card which I hadn't made. They weren't for a lot: there was one for a tank of gas, and the total was for less than a thousand dollars. The credit card company took care of the charges but seemed totally uninterested in pursuing the matter, even after I provided them contact information at Amazon. Amazon could not give me the information directly, but were anxious to provide it to the issuing bank. and urged me to contact my local law enforcement agencies.
Stupidly, I didn't contact local law, but kept badgering the issuing bank. Finally I gave up and cancelled the account. The original card had of course been cancelled immediately when I reported the problem, but I no longer had any confidence in the bank.
It's pretty bad when Amazon does a better job of tracking my credit card than the issuing bank does. Of course, I still do business with Amazon and I don't do business with that bank so maybe there's a moral there somewhere.
Except they don't really walk off with your hard earned money. I worked at XYZ credit card bank in their inward fraud department and it was usually something as simple as saying "These charges aren't mine." I say, "OK", tag them as such, and the merchant needs to come up with proof otherwise they pay. Usually, if we suspected it is a family member (say, calls to 900#s originating from their home), we ask them if they are willing to prosecute. That's the tough choice usually, if they know their $relative has been using their card.
But usually the maximum you are responsible under federal law is $50 for any fraud (not per charge, for all the fraud). A lot of places will waive that and pay it themselves so you don't get pissed off.
One time, I got a call in from someone who suspected this person was using a stolen card. They were at an electronics store buying a big screen TV and the teller said the guy looked suspicious. Well, we get the card info while the manager acts like he's "processing the order", we call the number associated with the account, and I ask, "Sir, are you in a store right now buying a big screen TV?"
He says, "No, I am not."
"Do you have your XYS Visa on you?"
"Yeah, it's right her--- where'd it go?"
We called the cops while the guy was waiting around for his TV to get prepared.
Anyway, long story short,the article is not about "identity theft" since the guy just stole the guy's credit card number / mail somehow, just regular fraud. It is an interesting article though. And what he described is pretty common. Figure we havd a group of about 50 people working full-time just talking on the phone with people who suspected fraud. This was not counting the people who called customers who may have fraud, nor the people investigating the fraud either.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
1) I have stayed at that Red Lion in Portland.
;-)
2) I have eaten at that Denny's as well.
3) I have checked my email on the computer in the lobby.
4) A PuTTY icon on the desktop should have clued me in that I should not have checked my email there.
5) Over the next 3 days, my ISP account was used to spam strangers like crazy, before I finally changed my password.
6) This was almost 2 years ago.
Nice to see the Red Lion is still such a hotbed of criminal activity
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins