I have had three experiences with identity theft. The first and second was not near as serious as the third but all three left me feeling violated and vulnerable.
The first time it occurred was about 6 years ago. I was sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon watching football when the phone rang. The call was from one of my credit card companies. They were calling to inquire about whether I had made some large purchases at a local department store. Later I learned that a man had stolen my credit card number from my place of employment and was visiting local department stores posing as me and was making large purchases for all sorts of different types of merchandise. The call I received was in response to a large electronic purchase that he was trying to make at a local department store. Ultimately I didn’t have to pay for anything he purchased but he had charged over $3000 before my credit card company caught on and called me.
The second time it happened I didn’t even know that anything was wrong until I received a call from the police. They had raided a professional identity thief’s home and they found my credit card information on his computer. They called to ask me to testify in his court case that I had not given him my credit information. He got caught before he was able to use my information but had he been able to it would have been a pretty serious matter because he was a professional who stole large amounts of money using credit information.
The third time it happened was the most serious. Someone hacked into my bank and got enough personal information to use my ATM/credit card to make purchases on the Internet and to establish some preliminary accounts that confirmed that they had the right information to begin acquiring credit using my information. Their first Internet charges were international and I was tipped off because I saw the charges on my bank web site. The bank closed everything down but they said there was obvious evidence that the person was preparing to take on my identity and begin using my good credit history to make large credit purchases.
Fortunately in all three cases I was able to easily resolve everything. But now that I have had these experiences I am much more cautious with my information and much more diligent about checking and double checking my bank information so that I can catch it before it gets too big and causes me a major hassle.
Originally posted 2009-11-08 09:30:46.
