Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up..Identity Theft Sucks!

The morning of June 6, 2011 was a regular morning for me.  Seth woke up at his typical 4:56 am (gives us a 4 minute snooze and then he gets out of bed at 5:00 am) and I woke up to walk him to the door to give him a kiss and lock the door.  I then got back into bed and woke up at a more humane hour of 5:30 am to go to the gym.  At the gym, I was listening to my pop music and had a great workout.  Afterwards, I walked to my mail box and got my mail.  Flipping through, I had some junk mail, some ads, and then a piece of mail from Chase, saying "Immediate Attention Required".  I am always weary of credit card mailings since I just assume that it's another ploy wanting me to open up another card.  However, when I opened the letter, it stated, "We have attempted to contact you by phone, but have been unsuccessful.  There are potential fraudulent charges on your card.  Please contact us immediately."  It was brief, but sounded serious!

My first thought was that I never got a phone call.  So, I jogged home, logged onto my Chase credit card site and realized that my phone number never updated properly in their system so that's probably why I never got a phone call.  Then, I looked at the number provided on the letter and realized that it didn't match the number on the back of my card so that made me a little suspicious thinking that it may not have even been Chase that contacted me in the first place.  But, just to be sure, I called the number on the back of my credit card for 24 hour customer service.  Immediately, the first automated message that came up was, "Please verify the following charges. $606.21 from Home Depot Warehouse.  If these charges are not correct, please press 1."  My first thought was "Holy F***! I did not go to Home Depot and spend that amount of money."  So, Chase transferred me to a representative who read off the last 5 transactions that were made on my card.  There were two charges for a Home Depot store in New Jersey and when I told her that they were not my charges and that I never left Tucson over the weekend, she was incredibly nice and said that they would be removed and that they would close this account.  She then said that she would send new cards immediately and that I should get them the next day and I would have to sign for them.

In the end, everything turned out just fine.  I got my new cards the next day and life resumed to normal.  However, this experience made me feel incredibly violated and taken advantage of.  I kept telling myself- I am a good person! Why did this happen to me? I don't lie, cheat, or steal, and I help old ladies cross the street!  But of course, credit card thieves aren't Robin Hood..they don't just target the extremely rich to give to the poor.  They target anyone and everyone they can.  I also had to wonder how my card number got stolen in the first place.  I rarely use my credit card online and I still had the physical card with me so the card number had gotten stolen somewhere during my physical use.  Credit card skimming is the term used to describe how thieves steal credit card numbers and information with a piece of equipment called a skimmer.  I google'd an image of credit card skimmer and there are lots of pictures that come up.  Skimmers can come in all shapes & sizes and can also be tacked on ATMs, but no matter what they look like, it's really hard to detect with the naked eye.  Here is an image that I pulled of a skimmer on an ATM- nothing is really obvious, which makes it so scary! (no copyright infringement intended)

The place that I use my credit card most often is restaurants when dining out.  After this experience, it made me think about how when your server leaves with your card to run it, you never really see them again and they can just be in the back writing down all the information on your card: name, expiration date, security code, etc.  Then, they have all the information they need to go online and buy anything they want.  Of course, not all servers in the world are going to do that and I truly believe that there are more ethical people than not in this world.  This experience also made me realize that identity theft occurs everyday and everywhere.  The 2009 Federal Trade Commission Report provides the amount of $1.7 billion dollars paid in fraudulent charges paid in 2009 alone.  No doubt that number has increased as credit card use is more prevalent than ever before.  In my case, I only had a credit card number stolen, but in the case of identity theft, you have someone opening up credit cards and setting up accounts using your name and all your personal information.  When this happens, you have to place a fraud alert on your account for SEVEN years.  In those 7 years, you have to jump through many more hoops in order to open any sort of account because companies have to verify you really are who you say you are.

So, based on this experience, these are my tips to protect yourself:

1) Make sure all your contact information on your credit cards are up-to-date-  I have moved multiple times and also changed phone numbers.  Each time, I try to update my information, but as it happened in this case, my old phone number was on file.  If anything does happen to your account, you want to make sure that the credit card company or bank can reach you as soon as possible.

2) Set alerts on your debit/credit cards- Most debit/credit cards allow you to set alerts on the usage of your card.  I currently have mine set to notify me via email everytime a purchase of greater than $200 is made, any purchase made at a gas station, and any online purchases.  My card also allows me the option of receiving text messages.

3) Check credit card activity consistently- In addition to the alerts, it helps to check your credit card transactions consistently because the amounts that may get charged through may not always be the large amounts.  I personally have the Chase app on my phone so that I can check activity consistently and make sure that there are not any shady charges.  The sooner you report fraudulent activity, the easier it is to deal with.  If you are reporting fraud on a debit card, the general rule of thumb is that you have to report fraud within 30 days to recover your funds.  This is not true at all banks, but it is much riskier when fraud occurs on your debit card since you actually are losing cold hard cash.  Under federal law, your maximum liability for credit card fraud is $50 if reported at the right time (source: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre04.shtm)

4) Don't give credit card numbers over the phone, if possible- Often times, it's convenient to give a credit card number over the phone when you are ordering items.  However, in order to protect yourself from having your card number stolen, try not to give credit card numbers over the phone if possible.  You don't know who is on the other end and if they really are putting your information into the system or if they are also writing it down on a piece of paper for later use.

5) Choose to Opt-Out-  I get tons of junk mail asking me to sign up for credit card companies.  Everything from airline & hotel credit cards to grocery store credit cards.  The three credit bureaus make money by selling lists that have your name on them if you meet certain criteria.  These pre-approved offers clutter my mail box and make me weary of what would happen if someone stole my mail and tried to open a card in my name.  In order to prevent this, you can put your name on an opt-out list.   You can do so by going to optoutprescreen.com or calling 1-888-5-OPT-OUT.  (Source: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt063.shtm).  It takes about 60 days or so for it to go into effect.  I opted out and I can say that I receive significantly less mail than I did before.

6) Request credit reports regularly- Continuing on the theme of my previous post, it's important to request credit reports to make sure that information is correct.  Chase told me that it takes them about 30 days to report to the credit agencies the closed account and new account number.  I waited about 3 months just to be sure that all the information would migrate and I pulled a free credit report just to make sure that I didn't have any negative issues on my credit report.

Prevention and detection is the best tool in dealing with fraud so be vigilant and happy spending!