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Posted by Jarcat (Member # 95) on 04-11-2021, 09:57 AM:

I have had one of the worst experiences of my life. A few weeks ago I had my identity hacked. It started out when I checked my share draft account about a month ago and discovered there was a $1400 payment to PayPal. I don't even have a PayPal account. I immediately called PayPal and was connected to someone in India who couldn't speak English. I gave up on them and called my bank. They acknowledged that somehow my account password was given out to someone who had my Social Security number and birth date.

They admitted that a huge mistake was made and that should have never happened. The money was immediately put back into my account.

From there was a seemingly never ending series of fraudulent transactions in my name: credit card applications, cell phone applications, EBay purchases, an even a fraudulent claim to my insurance provider for $1800 from a phony doctor. The ironic thing about this was they sent the check to me.

This was quickly cleared up but they admitted this should have never been approved. I imagine some heads may roll in their claims office.

I took me almost 3 weeks to change all my account passwords, get new checking account #, new ATM cards, new email, notify all my contacts with my new numbers for auto debts and auto deposits, etc.

I have registered with three credit bureaus to notify me of any suspicious activity. I also filed a report with the local police fraud department. I gave them all the incidents of fraudulent activity I had. They investigated these but ran into dead ends everywhere.

It has been over 3 weeks since there has been any bogus claims made against my name. The police said that the perp has probably given up on me and gone to other prey.

I am not out any money but it has cost my wife and I lots of stress and anxiety for several weeks.

Posted by PaulCat (Member # 513) on 04-11-2021, 10:41 AM:

Wow! Glad you got that all straightened out, Jarcat. That's just crazy!

Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 04-11-2021, 11:33 AM:

Jarcat, that is a terrible story and both my wife and I wish you well and hope this is the end to this awfull expierience.......

Posted by rlt4uk (Member # 3194) on 04-11-2021, 12:41 PM:

That's scary

Posted by Jarcat (Member # 95) on 04-11-2021, 01:49 PM:

Thanks for the kind thoughts, guys. The real scary thing is I have no idea how they were able to obtain my information. I thought I was taking all the normal safe guards, but I guess not.

I was told by the experts that investigate these crimes that they have various devious ways to get this information without being detected. Very few of them are ever caught and prosecuted.

BUT WHY ME ?? I'm not a man of vast wealth, moderate and quite comfortable, but not rich by any means.

Posted by Tiptree (Member # 844) on 04-11-2021, 04:07 PM:

There have been so many breaches at big companies that by now, all of our ID data is available for sale on the "dark net". A crook can buy thousands of IDs and start doing what they did to Jarcat.

He probably got several thousand dollars worth of stuff, maybe some cash via the paypal hack, and moved on to another name.

None of us are safe. It really is a matter of time before each of us gets similarly attacked.

Posted by clydeh (Member # 7) on 04-11-2021, 07:03 PM:

Jarcat,

Thank you for the information and warning. My son works at a bank and he says many of their customers do get scam calls and give out information that is used for fraud transactions on their account.
He tells me that I should not answer the phone if I do not recognize the number calling or the caller. That is easy if I am awake, but harder if I am sleeping.

Posted by MEL (Member # 141) on 04-11-2021, 10:17 PM:

Just read today where millions of names, addresses etc from facebook were leaked.
So gald I never got into the fb world.

MEL

[ 04-11-2021, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: MEL ]