Identity theft!?? How would you approach this?

[jdeity]

Alright, long story short!!

Moved to FL early last year from MA. Bought a house, and have been renovating it since. A real mess, I seldom leave the place - thank god it's almost over! But, I don't know anybody here, I mean like I've met probably 3 people - so it's definitely not like there's people at my place with any regularity, or that people could know this. Furthermore, it's unlikely anyone back in MA would have a grudge w/ me, especially one bad enough to wait so long (almost a year) before doing anything!


So, the story:
Call this morning from a (201) phone number, figure it's a telemarketer calling me (I have a verizon business/extra line that forwards to my cell phone) and don't answer. Check voicemails in the afternoon - it's SONY calling me to verify the notebook pc order I put in on friday!?!?



Now, the sony rep was cool and gave me everything they entered, and here's where I'd LOVE some help trying to figure this out, because I'm dead serious that it's rare someone would have access to TWO of the pieces of crucial info on me, let alone the 3 that sony had!

They (sony) got an order friday for a laptop, and the person ordering (ordered online at 'sony style' or something like that) had my proper:

- email address, only it was wrong - for instance, instead of jdeity@yahoo.com, they had jdeity@<insert random, unregistered domain name here>.com.

- My first and last name

- my personal cell phone number, not the forwarding verizon number





Anyways, the credit card number was WRONG, at least I'm damn sure lol - I've checked all cards and accts and cannot find a last 4-digit code to match what sony has. Also, the address that the person gave was in FL, but it's an address and a town that I do NOT recognize (but will likely be checking out in the near future...).

Any thoughts on this? I feel like I'm pretty tight with my info, so this is really creepy, I mean my last name + personal # + email handle (but not proper domain) is really, really weird and it'd almost certainly have to be someone with a company I deal with (looks at verizon...). For example, I don't give out my personal line - I give out my business line, I just prefer that way, so someone having my personal line almost positively NEEDS to be someone who lives in MA (who I wouldn't have even seen for a year), or someone with access to accounts of mine somewhere!!

(to be honest, I think the part that scares me the most, by far, is that I cannot see the angle of the con - the cc number sony has seems 100% bunk, I looked at my accounts and they look just fine, so I just can't fathom how someone would go through that trouble and enter a bad card #, and the idea that they'd try to bill someone else's cc and then try to make me look like the conman just seems really far fetched given how easy it'd be to take someone's cc #'s and just buy something..)

Any tips appreciated!! Got no idea if I should cut all my cards off asap, if this is a personal vendetta (insanely unlikely), a crooked sales rep at maybe a credit card or phone company, I dunno - all I know is that my cc's are all okay right now, and that I have no idea what the angle of this con is!!!

[jdeity]

(uhh, sorry that was so long. Also, spambots, if you can hear me - I made up that email that's hyperlink'd and I don't use jdeity as a handle for emails!!)

[Hatred]

Call your financial companies and put them on a fraud alert.

Do you shred your mail? Sounds like somone went through your garbage and passed info along to someone elsewhere.

[Runty]

Do what Hatred said and put your accounts on alert. Other than that I wouldn't be too worried. They didn't have your social or credit card numbers. Your real name, a fake email address, and your phone number probably aren't that hard to come by if your really looking for it. If they had actually used one of your credit cards or had your social security number, that would be a bit more serious. A friend of mine had some guy buy a PS3 on his credit card (he's in WI, it was purchased in KY). That kind of thing is a bit more dangerous because he has to go prove he wasn't there, get the charge dropped, reimbursed, etc. Shredding your mail might not be a bad idea either at this point.

[lakeripple]

So...what info did you provide the "Sony" rep that called you?

Also, if this person has all your information, he could have just ordered himself a new credit card based on your identity, and that's why the numbers made no sense to you. By this time he could have a couple new credit cards all based on your information, so he doesn't really need the cards in your wallet.

Contact your financial reps, find out the proper channels you need to go through in the case of identity theft.

And FYI for everyone, you don't need a SS # to sign up for a credit card. No institute except gov. or gov. related can ask you for it. You can actually contact the CC company or any company for that matter in person or let them know on the CC form that you don't want to provide them with your SS for security reasons.

[jdeity]

Thanks for the tips guys!! I just heard from a local that sweetbay, the local grocer, had a major hack recently and a lot of people had info taken.. It seems like it 'relates' very closely, but again, I just don't see the paths they could take from cc# used at a register to do all that!! Ahhh!!!


So...what info did you provide the "Sony" rep that called you?
haha NOTHING!! I ran the phone #'s of the original that called me and it was a sony hq, so I felt proper with them, but I did not give anything. The guy had actually helped me, he was the one who told me the @kadlfjdkfjd.com was an invalid domain name so it was clear someone was messing around, and gave me the address they had registered and cancelled the order.




Also, if this person has all your information, he could have just ordered himself a new credit card based on your identity, and that's why the numbers made no sense to you. By this time he could have a couple new credit cards all based on your information, so he doesn't really need the cards in your wallet.
I dunno that they have all my info though - could they get enough through me having *just* made a credit payment at the grocer, to go ahead and have all they need for this? Meh, the security leak could've given them my real/legal name, but then - how could they have figured out 'jdeity'!?!? I mean, you'd have to be physically googling around enough to figure all that out, if it's even possible, I know some people are really good at social engineering and can run that info fast, but just seems kinda pointless. Especially just shipping a laptop somewhere in my own state..



Contact your financial reps, find out the proper channels you need to go through in the case of identity theft.[QUOTE=lakeripple;1897321]
By financial reps, do you mean like the customer service # on the back of my cards? Haha sorry just unsure what you mean, think I got it ;).


[QUOTE=lakeripple;1897321]
And FYI for everyone, you don't need a SS # to sign up for a credit card. No institute except gov. or gov. related can ask you for it. You can actually contact the CC company or any company for that matter in person or let them know on the CC form that you don't want to provide them with your SS for security reasons.
THERE IT IS!!!! Okay, that's what scared me - I couldn't even figure out what their angle was, as they didn't have accurate credit card #'s to work off of, so it seemed pointless!!
(lake - the part I'm still not grasping is why on earth they would have told sony my email was jdeity @ <random, invalid domain name> . com, I mean if you have my name, my license info, and you set up a credit card - why social engineer your way back to my internet handle, but not to the actual email client, just to put that in there?
(and further, how would that even work? Wouldn't the new credit cards get sent to my address? I mean, are you saying that with someone's name and dob anyone can just call a new credit card in, even sent to a completely new area, and use it? I cannot fathom any financial institution being able to even have a CHANCE at asking me for those funds, as it was THEY who were conned, I had no role - if someone did do this, bought like 10 computers, how on earth could sony/chase/bank of america even look to me for reimbursement of the bill? As soon as I declare I did not setup the acct, isn't the burden of proof on them?

[jdeity]

Oh!

Lake - if they DID do that, can I be held responsible? Like, if they set up, say, 20 credit cards on my name, rang up $50k worth of stuff, and then all of a sudden 6mo later I get a call from a collections agent - am I liable? How on earth could I be held for that?

[Runty]

There are ways you can go about disproving the purchases and showing that you had nothing to do with any of it. However, from what I've heard/read it is a MAJOR pain in the ass and can take months/years to eventually get your credit back on track.

[ProLogic]

Life Lock!!!!

[Nik00117]

Runty is right, i've seen it happen.

[jdeity]

so at this point, if they have that info, I'm essentially just in a position where I get new cc#'s for my current cards, and wait to see if a collection company calls me to say I owe a $40k credit card bill I never heard of?

Can I put my social/name on freeze from new cc's or something, like something when they run the credit check on me it will show a fraud warning or something? Is there nothing to do besides just calling my banks, and sitting back to see if a bunch of stuff ends up getting purchased under my name?

[jdeity]

FOUND THE LEAK!!

Partly anyways - just going through emails, opened one I'd normally delete, figuring it was a payment confirmation, and sure enough it was a credit card company verifying I had changed my address!!!

Now to get to the bottom of how this started in the first place!!

[Jacob]

life lock ftw!

[jdeity]

wow, twice mentioned in this thread - must be the id theft protection thing ($5/mo right?) my dad was telling me to do..

To those two who've recommended life lock, could you answer some questions I need answered by customers, and not that company? Specifically:
- are there a ton of loopholes, or is it 100%, no effort, no risk, etc, I'm 100% golden no matter what in ANY instance of fraud or identity theft?
- do I still need to spend a ton of time working the issues out, or do they handle them?

[cphafner]

get a credit report and see what accounts have been opened. I believe you can have your credit frozen also, which wouldn't be a bad idea right now.

That grocery store id theft story was big news last week.

[jdeity]

the bureaus all have me on a 7y 'id theft' status, basically all my cc companies have a new password I made up in case anyone calls trying to fake to be me to get my password (must be what happened as they actually logged into an acct to change the address). Also any time someone tries for a loan/cc app/mortgage/cell phone/etc, they need my password and I'll need to verify through a call before credit will be granted! For 7 years!! New cards are coming in the mail and all that, gotta file affidavits because they got some computers through, etc.


BUT!!! Get this - I'm 99% sure I found the mother, ahem, nm don't want to dodge the swear filter. Anyways almost positive I know the exact idiot who ordered it and, yeah, seems he's ordering it directly to his own house (well, the house he and his mother are renting from acquaintances). Aren't public records + google cool?

[mrelwooddowd]

Beware of Life Lock and their "guarantee."

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-05-31/news/what-happened-in-vegas/1

Read the entire article. It's really good.

Then, decide if you believe that guy would actually back up anything.

There's another company offering the same service as Lifelock. I can't find the name of it at the moment. There are others as well. Or, you can just call the credit bureaus and do what they do, on your own.



Oh....and....since they put the 7 year watch on you, take a card out somewhere and TEST it. I'd be impressed if it works. I've read it's not a real reliable service, which pretty much makes it worthless.

[jdeity]

You'd be impressed if my credit card worked at a store, or if the bureaus called me if I signed up for a new one?

About that company, that's what I was afraid of. It's too easy to just say "we'll protect you", when the average person has no idea of how many loopholes there may be in the contract that make the service virtually useless, which is why I was, and still am, hoping that the 2 people who have supported and recommended it so far in this thread, explain their reasoning or answer the questions I posted about the service.

Thanks for the link, I'm unsure if my dad had mentioned the same one as that, but he was mentioning some service like that as well. I really don't think it'd be worth a penny unless you were positive they'd be taking 100% burden for anything w/ no waste of time or money on your end.

[mrelwooddowd]

Well..one of the people who mentioned Life Lock is 17, so your chances of them having even used the service is minimal.

And, if I remember correctly from the article...Life Lock has never had to pay the guarantee. Read the article, though.

[jdeity]

Well..one of the people who mentioned Life Lock is 17, so your chances of them having even used the service is minimal.

And, if I remember correctly from the article...Life Lock has never had to pay the guarantee. Read the article, though.

lol that's kinda what I started to assume when nobody who was supporting it came back to explain just why they were so fond of it :hello:

off to read that article ;)

[jdeity]

good read! So I guess... it's *not* likelock ftw?! ;)

[jdeity]

The annoying part is the article seems to say they're (credit bureaus) gonna remove my fraud alert after 3 months, while the credit bureau lady told me explicitly it would be a 7 year term...