Identity theft

[JimNasium]

I woke up Fourth of July morning to about a dozen texts about loan applications that I needed to complete various processes on. That was followed up by roughly half-a-dozen calls from various personal loan providers. These were small shops that provide those $5000 personal loans, something that I’m not the target customer for. So, we’ve frozen credit, reactivated Lifelock, and are ensuring that we answer all calls, but also handle those calls with caution. I’m pretty sure one of the first salvo of calls was a scammer shop trying to take advantage of the credit chaos. Any other suggestions? I’ve tried antifreeze and it had no effect.

[Saulbadguy]

Identity theft is not a joke, Jim!


(Apologies)

[Bwana]

Yeah, I had it happen about 10 years ago. File here IdentityTheft.gov

I got it under control quickly. The biggest pain in the ass about the whole thing was getting back into the country. I never had an issue leaving, but several years ago when I was flying back into the US into Houston, all hell broke loose.

I got hauled back into "the room" and got the 3rd degree. I was surrounded by crack whores, border jumpers, suspected terrorists etc. I had to prove I wasn't the fake Greg, which took several hours. When I had filed at idenitytheft.com, I had set up a password and that had been several years before this incident. I had no fricken clue what the password was.

I was getting pissed off to the point where it was going to get a little western and the customs guy finely gave me a couple of hints about my password. I named it and he said, "you can go." I just looked at the guy like what the ****, we couldn't have gone this direction 6 hours ago? Bottom line, if you are going to leave the country, make sure you have your password on hand. I haven't had an issue for the last two years, but that's likely because I got my Global Entry card.

[JimNasium]

Originally Posted by Bwana

Yeah, I had it happen about 10 years ago. File here IdentityTheft.gov

I got it under control quickly. The biggest pain in the ass about the whole thing was getting back into the country. I never had an issue leaving, but several years ago when I was flying back into the US into Houston, all hell broke loose.

I got hauled back into "the room" and got the 3rd degree. I was surrounded by crack whores, border jumpers, suspected terrorists etc. I had to prove I wasn't the fake Greg, which took several hours. When I had filed at idenitytheft.com, I had set up a password and that had been several years before this incident. I had no fricken clue what the password was.

I was getting pissed off to the point where it was going to get a little western and the customs guy finely gave me a couple of hints about my password. I named it and he said, "you can go." I just looked at the guy like what the ****! Bottom line, if you are going to leave the country, make sure you have your password on hand. I haven't had an issue for the last two years, but that's likely because I got my Global Entry card.

Thanks for the info. I’m assuming they don’t spend as much time on us credit aware folks. Hope they’ll move on once they see the force fields have been activated. I hate thiefs.

[HemiEd]

What brand of antifreeze did you try Jim? Prestone is the best.


In all seriousness, this is getting out of hand with all the scams etc. going on. Hopefully you have it under control.


Yesterday I got a text message that said they were from the State of Illinois tollway and I had an unpaid toll of $6.72 and it was going to be a fine of 10 times that if I didn't respond by clicking the link. I reported it as spam and it was gone.

I got on the Illinois tollway site and registered to find out if there was any validity to it. They didn't show any toll due from me and it has been about 9 months since I drove through that state.

[JimNasium]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

What brand of antifreeze did you try Jim? Prestone is the best.


In all seriousness, this is getting out of hand with all the scams etc. going on. Hopefully you have it under control.


Yesterday I got a text message that said they were from the State of Illinois tollway and I had an unpaid toll of $6.72 and it was going to be a fine of 10 times that if I didn't respond by clicking the link. I reported it as spam and it was gone.

I got on the Illinois tollway site and registered to find out if there was any validity to it. They didn't show any toll due from me and it has been about 9 months since I drove through that state.

Another sound reason to stay out of Illinois!

[RedRaider56]

My wife has had to go through identity theft hell twice now. We didn't find out until we tried to file income tax returns and the IRS communicated that she had already filed one.
WTH?
She filed a report with the police, froze all her credit cards, etc..etc.
The last incident was almost 10 years ago and we are still required to use PIN #s when filing IRS returns.

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by RedRaider56

My wife has had to go through identity theft hell twice now. We didn't find out until we tried to file income tax returns and the IRS communicated that she had already filed one.
WTH?
She filed a report with the police, froze all her credit cards, etc..etc.
The last incident was almost 10 years ago and we are still required to use PIN #s when filing IRS returns.

Yep, that's another thing I did. You can get set up with the IRS (Uncle Sugar) and they send you a code in the mail every year, months before you have to file taxes. Without that code on the forms when you're filing, the tax returns won't get processed.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by JimNasium

Another sound reason to stay out of Illinois!

Yeah, that is a long list. But, in order to get to Indianapolis and some other destinations it is the shortest route to pass through Illinois.

[BlackHelicopters]

Originally Posted by Bwana

Yeah, I had it happen about 10 years ago. File here IdentityTheft.gov

I got it under control quickly. The biggest pain in the ass about the whole thing was getting back into the country. I never had an issue leaving, but several years ago when I was flying back into the US into Houston, all hell broke loose.

I got hauled back into "the room" and got the 3rd degree. I was surrounded by crack whores, border jumpers, suspected terrorists etc. I had to prove I wasn't the fake Greg, which took several hours. When I had filed at idenitytheft.com, I had set up a password and that had been several years before this incident. I had no fricken clue what the password was.

I was getting pissed off to the point where it was going to get a little western and the customs guy finely gave me a couple of hints about my password. I named it and he said, "you can go." I just looked at the guy like what the ****, we couldn't have gone this direction 6 hours ago? Bottom line, if you are going to leave the country, make sure you have your password on hand. I haven't had an issue for the last two years, but that's likely because I got my Global Entry card.

Body cavity search?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by JimNasium

Thanks for the info. I’m assuming they don’t spend as much time on us credit aware folks. Hope they’ll move on once they see the force fields have been activated. I hate thiefs.

I too hate these criminals. It's nothing to the extent that you've seen, but I just had to shut down a credit card a couple of days ago because someone in China made a large purchase on it. Fortunately the credit card company was right on it and notified me that a suspicious purchase had been made.

I really feel that something has to be done to protect us more. Between emails and calls and other stuff, I probably have six or eight people a day trying to steal money from me. 95% of them are morons, but at some point as I get older I'm worried I'm going to slip up.

[ptlyon]

Sorry about the Antifreeze not working.

But seriously, this shit is out of hand. There has to be a more secure way of keeping your identification safe. It a reason they don't.

[DanT]

I have had to get new credit card numbers four or five times these past few years, due to fraud. Fortunately, the credit card company is good at dealing with this. One good thing is that Apple Pay gets updated moments after the new number is issued, so I can use it while waiting for the new card to arrive by mail.

[BigRedChief]

What Bwana said, identitytheft.gov will get your hack alerted and routed the fastest to your financial institutions.

I spent a year of my life doing restores of possible compromised customers data to a clean environment. Not a single one of the companies reported the identity’s possibly compromised. Didn’t report it to public, media or even government regulator's. No laws were broken. When you are the big dogs in business, they get to write their own regulations.

So if you get a notice your personal info has been compromised, remember you only know because they were forced to by a government regulation.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

As the scammers call me they now know me as Don Kidix. I always make them repeat my name before telling them how stupid they're whole family is.