Here's Your Post-ID Theft Checklist
Personal finance blogger Carrie... On the Cheap put together a checklist of things you should do once you've found out your identity has been stolen.
Step one, of course, is to cancel any credit card that's been swiped. It's the second step that too many people forget, she writes:
Most people forget this step until it's too late. After I had cancelled my card, it quickly dawned on me how many automatic bill payments I had filtering through that very credit card on a monthly basis.
After you've cancelled your card, you'll have to go through and switch every automatic payment from that credit card to another card or bank account.
This is the catch-22 with those handy-dandy automatic bill payments – they can always come back to haunt you if your credit card changes or expires (or gets hijacked by some scammer halfway across the globe forcing you to cancel your card).
The tongue-in-cheek step 3 is my favorite — track down the jerks who stole your credit to exact sweet revenge.
What You May Be Forgetting When You're The Victim Of Identity Theft [Carrie... On the Cheap]
(Photo: scenemissingmagazine)
Post a comment
Comments:
I had the same problem last year; two days before Christmas Visa cancelled my check card from ING Direct checking because I used it at a "suspicious merchant". They told me a new card would be issued in two business days, but thanks to the holiday weekend it would be a week before it got to me.
Now I have my automatic payments coming out of a separate account that I only use for automatic payments.
@jaydez: We went through the movie and counted how many people he killed and most likely maimed. Insane.
Wait, what? This is not identity theft, it's a compromised credit card. The two are very different and must be handled differently. For actually identity theft you need to be in contact with the credit bureaus, law enforcement, and the FTC.
Googlefu:
If after you cancel your card, you have a hard time remembering which accounts were linked to directly charge that card, maybe the first thing to do is list all the accounts you have and assign code names to each card you have. That way, if one of your cards is compromised, you know which companies to call or access online to change the billing information.
Being the husband of an identity theft victim.. and in my case, a particularly vengeful individual, I would love to have gotten the information on the douchebag that stole my wifes identity.
But our case was different, they did not steal it for credit cards, they used her name and social, and signed up for Prepaid Legal, and earned $10k in commissions, which Prepaid Legal reported to the IRS as commission earned. The IRS then came after my wife for the taxes owed on that.
Let me tell you, that is 1000000000000 times worse then having to deal with banks to get CC's and accounts canceled and switching your automatic bill pay.
She had to deal with the police, Social Security Services, Federal Trade Commission and the IRS. That was almost 4 months of hell, and the Social Security Services administration are absolutely horrible people who made my wife cry on a number of occasions, and since it was her identity, they refused to deal with me on her behalf.
Trust me when I say I wanted to exact sweet revenge.
Prepaid legal of course being a barely legal pyramid scheme refused to release any information to my wife without a court order, even though it was my wifes SSN, name, but they had a baltimore address. My wife sent proof of her identity to them and they still refused. All I wanted was to know the address they sent the check in my wifes name to, and the bank where it was cashed...
Ugg... now I am rambling.. and in a foul mood.. I want to hurt someone... or (obscure movie quote) "I aim to misbehave"
This was such a nightmare when my wallet was stolen. I could look back at my credit card statements online to see monthly charges, but I forgot a few things of the "replenish when your account falls below $XX" type: CTA, IPASS, company cafeteria. You would be wise to keep track of these things.
This is why I avoid as many of these automatic payments as possible. I tell the vendors that I change credit cards every 3 months "for security reasons". If they can't handle it, I tell them "maybe your competitor can do better".
The credit card company mantra: I never really was on your side...
@Mr_D: What's the credit card company's fault here? They declined the charge and she's on the hook for nothing.
@floraposte: After reading the article I realized this isn't even a card compromise. Somebody just mistyped their card number when entering it. The system worked fine and denied the charge since the other checks weren't matched (exp date, cvv probably).
There was no attempted fraud or crime so there is no identity theft. It's blog posts like this that confuse the masses.
@FatLynn: My credit card numbers were used to make a fraudulent card recently. I fortunately didn't have any of those or any autopayments that weren't subscriptions (would have been a useful out if I was trying to get rid of those, in fact). What I did forget was an advance order--in gardening, some places will charge you when you order, but others will charge you when they ship, months after you order because of course they ship seasonally. Same thing could happen with a backorder for something. It's hard to remember what you haven't been charged for.
Ahh yes, step 2, of course, it can be difficult when you can't easily make the payment change, but that's when a company being a human can make things work.
Last February I discovered someone had stolen my credit card number and was using it to buy porn (thank you Heartland data breach). I of course cancelled the card immediately, and when I got the new card, I did switch over all of the automatic bill payments.
However, back in December, I had bought my season pass to Kings Dominion, and their offer was that they would not charge my credit card until March (it's their way of getting people to buy them as gifts over the holidays). Well now I basically had bought my pass with an invalid card. I ended up E-mailing them about the situation and they gave me a phone call with two options. 1) Wait until March for them to try to run the charge, and when it failed they would call and I could give them the new number or 2) Cancel the current order and place it again under the new card.
#2 sounds like the best option, right? Well not exactly, prices had gone up since my purchase, and they couldn't make a price adjustment. They also said that #1 is a situation that has happened in the past so it was no big deal to them. I opted for option 1, and three weeks later when the charge failed, they called up, were aware that I had called about this because they had made notes in the account, and got the new number, and my pass was processed.
Just a suggestion - we made a machine copy of every credit card, front and back, so that if we ever lost a card or had a problem, we would have all the information including the phone number, readily available. Haven't needed it yet, fortunately.
There's a spy zapping my sentry!
@Skaperen: Absolutely. A few years back, after dealing repeatedly with DirecTV and their insane billing errors over quite a few months, and having them pull on our account whenever they wanted to, we learned our lesson! It's one thing if you set up your online bill-pay at your BANK for automatic payments, that's still in YOUR control, but we will NEVER let any company have direct access to our accounts/cards ever again.
@jaydez: I prefer Count of Monte Cristo myself (the movie). Bankrupt your enemies, steal their wives, make them paranoid, make them think they can commit suicide as an outlet, and then throw them into jail for the rest of their life.
That, and Man On Fire, with the C4 lodged up that guy's butt cheeks, are, undoubtedly, the best revenge movies.
The last person who stole my ID and credit cards was tracked down less and arrested than 24 hours after I discovered the breach. It isn't wise to steal from a data analyst working as a skip-tracer.
I picture sweet revenge as being like what Liam Neeson did in Taken.
Now THAT is revenge.
I think I'll watch that movie tonight. It was a really good movie.