Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Ongoing Suspected Identity Theft?
njnnja writes: My wife receives periodic emails (about once every other month) from a cable company that is not in our service area that purport to confirm that she has made changes to her account, such as re-setting her password. Her email address is not a common one so we do not believe that it is someone accidentally using it; rather, we believe that an identity thief is subscribing to cable services intentionally using her name and email address.
Whenever we have gotten an email we have called the cable company, been forwarded to their security department, and we are assured that her social security number is not being used and that they will clear her name and email address out of their system. Yet a few weeks later we get another email. Our concern is that when the cable company goes after my wife for the unpaid balance on the account I am sure that neither they nor a collection agency will care much that it's not her social security number — it's her name and they will demand she pays.
We have a very strong password (long, completely random string of chars, nums, and symbols) and 2-factor authentication on the email account so we are fairly certain that no one is currently hacking into her email (at least, it's not worth it for however many thousands of dollars they can actually steal off this scam), But we think that the cable company should be doing more to not be complicit in an attempted identity theft. We have made it clear that we don't live in the area they cover so we should not have an account, but the fact that they keep setting up an account in her name means that they just don't care. Which is fine; I don't expect a cable company to care that they inconvenience us, but I would like to know if there is any way that we can make them care about it (liability, regulations, etc). I know YANAL but does anyone have any ideas about how to handle this? Thanks. Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
Whenever we have gotten an email we have called the cable company, been forwarded to their security department, and we are assured that her social security number is not being used and that they will clear her name and email address out of their system. Yet a few weeks later we get another email. Our concern is that when the cable company goes after my wife for the unpaid balance on the account I am sure that neither they nor a collection agency will care much that it's not her social security number — it's her name and they will demand she pays.
We have a very strong password (long, completely random string of chars, nums, and symbols) and 2-factor authentication on the email account so we are fairly certain that no one is currently hacking into her email (at least, it's not worth it for however many thousands of dollars they can actually steal off this scam), But we think that the cable company should be doing more to not be complicit in an attempted identity theft. We have made it clear that we don't live in the area they cover so we should not have an account, but the fact that they keep setting up an account in her name means that they just don't care. Which is fine; I don't expect a cable company to care that they inconvenience us, but I would like to know if there is any way that we can make them care about it (liability, regulations, etc). I know YANAL but does anyone have any ideas about how to handle this? Thanks. Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
I've had some or multiple asshats do this several times.
I'm not sure why he can't get his email address right, but it's pretty clear this would stop if the offending organizations used a validation scheme.
Regardless, an incorrectly used email address doesn't quite quantify as identity theft. Hell, I'm not sure why you would think the cable bill would be remotely in your name. You see, utilities are tied to a physical address and it would fairly straight forward to rule out foul play.
Last person that decided they would use my email address for their xbox account found out why that was a really bad idea. At least, I hope by now they have called msft to have their account password reset and their email address set to something more tangible then 'stopusingmyemail.' I have to assume they wanted me to manage their account since they gave me unrestricted access to it and supplied my email address for said management. I might have been wrong, but the notifications have stopped.
A Hotmail account I signed up for in 1996 or 1997 is often used as a throw-away e-mail by idiots all the time.
Often, I will log in to the service they used my address for, and reset the password and take it over, just to let it sit.
If morons are dumb enough to use my e-mail, then they should not have access to whatever service they signed up for.
One time, a "sugardaddy.com" account used my e-mail, and I took it over, changing the profile pics to some handy images from "faces of meth" and spicing up the profile. Sadly, a drug-addicted, STD carrying woman still sparks a lot of interest, apparently, among "sugar daddies"
I solved a situation like that by setting up an automated reply to send the bad comcast email to the email addresses of every single comcast executive. with the top line changed to "Why cant your people fix this?"
It stopped within 2 weeks of the 4th email.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's a good idea to contact the credit reporting agencies and place a security freeze on your accounts. That prevents anyone from taking out loans etc using your personal information. You can temporarily lift the freeze for a particular company if you need to allow a credit check for your own purposes.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Bingo
Wasn't it just yesterday TWC was fined over $200k for not taking a person off their call list when they said they were (mistaken identity)? Including over 70 calls AFTER the lawsuit was filed.
Cable companies are the scum of the earth. Just because they say they've changed the wife's details in the system doesn't mean jack shit.
I agree - This seems like mistaken identity from a noob. Years ago somebody signed me up for something - but had actually gotten their own email address confused with mine. Rather than Bob@email.com.au --- they used Bob@email.com (or something like that). I figured out via Google that there was another ISP with the same name using .au --- so I logged in using the Reset Password, and updated "my" email address to what I thought was the intended one.
And after doing that --- I again pressed the Reset Password button which (hopefully) sent notice to the real user.