Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
I supervise a fraud investigation unit. ID theft is hard to harden yourself against because your vital personal info, of which here in the US your SSN is the key to the credit kingdom, your pvt info is in so many databases that are breachable or have already been breached that it's impossible to prevent. The percentage of businesses that have been targeted in a data breach is staggering. There is no way the individual can control what happens to his or her personal info, you can insist on providing your state driver license number in lieu of your SSN when a business or usually a medical administrative office demands your SSN, and that is a good practice but it's already out there in a thousand databases already.
I personally do NOT use a debit card. Sure the bank is bound by the terms of the fraud protection agreement to reimburse your account, but it will take several days or more to do and in the mean time your account can go negative and any auto debits coming out monthly will bounce causing headaches, etc. Plus you get to lose sleep about your money stolen and what if the bank doesn't make you whole again. Sure they will but when you wake up at 3am to pee that is what is going to come crashing into the forefront of thought as you try to go back to sleep.
I only do credit cards. You're fronting the bank's money, not yours. Think of it as a barrier between your money and the bad guys. Your credit card gets defrauded... you just dispute it and no worries about the money in your actual bank account.
ID theft and fraudulent credit accounts are a real pain though. But you just need to file dispute with the creditor or tell the collection agency it's ID Theft. A police report will be required and an ID Theft Affidavit propreitary to the collection agency or creditor to get the fraudulent debt flushed from your records. Then placing a fraud alert on your credit file with Experian, Trans Union, or Equifax is the additional step along with checking your credit report from each of them for accuracy. I say collection agency because we see a lot of cases where the victim only finds out after getting a collection letter or other form of communication about a bad debt they never made.
And for God's sake, don't write paper checks anymore if you can help it. Everything a bad guy or gal needs to hit your account is right there on the face of that check. When you hand off a check you're saying "Here, here's everything you need to raid my account..."
Next thing, don't ever leave outgoing mail with checks in it or any personal info in it, out in your street mailbox for the Letter Carrier to pickup. There are organized rings of thieves/fraudsters who go around harvesting checks from US Mail this way. They particularly like when you make their job even more easier and more efficient by raising that metal red flag on your mailbox. You're not just letting the post man know you've got letters to go out, you're literally flagging down a thief by advertising your outgoing mail in that way.
They don't use your actual check. They use the info off it to either do online debit or they produce counterfeit checks off it. Back in the day they might ahve washed the check with a chem solution to remove only the ink pen writing and then re-wrote it but no one does that anymore.
Narcotics traffickers and street gangs are getting into fraud and ID Theft because it is so lucrative and the penalties are often much lighter than drug crimes.
Very helpful information. Absolutely right about the checks and debit cards. I absolutely won't do business with anyone who won't take credit cards. The stolen check game has been around for a long time. And if you absolutely have to write a check, for God's sake drop it in a public secure mailbox.
