Yep.. I am considering this more and more. Problem would be solved.

 

I have 3 credit cards,but they are with small limits,less than $300 each.If they rip me off, they won't get much.I just use them locally.They wouldn't get much if they stole my identity.Sorry to hear of your prediciment.Good luck.

 

You are really safe with credit cards, its the Debit cards that the real problem exists. If you have one from a bank, not supported by a major bank. If you have a debit card from a credit union, I'd suggest that you cancel it. You have very little footing when it comes to fraud.

 

heres a good tip, instead of signing the back of the credit card with your sig;write check ID instead, so if you lose your wallet, they don't have your sig.

 

That's a good idea.

I had mail stolen out of my mailbox a couple years ago. They took a check I was mailing, copied the account info, and produced new checks with a different name.

They went to Vegas and stole many thousands of dollars! Luckily we caught it and had the bank reverse the debits.

Now we don't mail anything from our house. All of our mail goes out via a blue box.

JK

 

I don't know how it is every where else.. but.. around here they don't even check your ID hardly anymore. They just take your credit card and use it without a second glance. sad.

 

I find that true also.I don't even have a readable signature on the back of my card,and I have no problems using it anywhere.They just swipe it without looking at it.

 

One thing you can do, it will not help to prevent it it will help to call.

Take all your credit cards ID anything in your wallet, place them on the copier and
copy both sides, store in safe place.

It will allow retrieving the phone numbers/account number on the front/back of cards if stolen or lost.

 

They are not supposed to ask for ID by law with a credit card unless it's not signed. I find it annoying that some 16 year old is comparing signatures and looking at my drivers license any way.

Do you really think a minimum wage cashier is an expert in handwritting and forged documents?

When they scan the card- the transaction is sent to a national computer that approves the transaction based on the current balance and will decline if the card is reported stolen. Usually, the cops are called at that point and the cashier gets a reward.

Best advice, keep track of you cards and report them if missing... fast.

 

My wife and I had a charge show up on a credit card that we hadn't even activated yet, Talk about odd.
Needless-to-say, the bank removed it pronto.

 

I found this article about having to fight banks to recover money stolen by Identity theives

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4264051/

 

ON our Capital One card they called us because they where seeing charges from acroos the country on our card and wanted to know what was up. Turned out we were on vacation. Thanks for the heads up Capital One. I'd recamend their card to anyone just for that reason. It's nice to see someone is trying to stop this horrible crime.

 

I know why this happens. I am sorry to bring an old thread back up but this is something that has been plauguing me at work. I work for a relay center for the deaf or hard of hearing. We are under strict confidentiality due to the fact that people call us and give all kinds of personal information over the phone thru us. Relay is really a safe service to use and we process so many calls per day that we rarely remember anything from any one call.

The people that work there are good people and they feel good about helping the deaf but there is a new verison of our service out. It's internet based. Anyone who has internet access can go to our website and connect to one of us relay operators and then they can call anywhere in the united states. What we're facing now, and it's not very widely known is that there are a group of scam artists and credit card theives that are connecting to us thru internet relay and they're calling bussinesses all over the united states ordering mass quantities of stuff you don't order en mass.

Now, as I said, I know how your card can be unactivated but have charges on it when you get it. Some people have been doing research into this and rumor has it... that these guys hacked into a database of unused cards numbers, they activate them with phone names and address, or even with names and addresses of their "resenders" here in the united states and people can have cards they don't even know they have and then, their identity is stolen. They also have said to be getting card numbers of the deceased and charging them up as quickly as possible before the death certificates are processed. Like I said, we can't talk about the details of any specific call but we get tons of these calls everyday. They're using the internet relay to steal cars off ebay in the typical "i'll send you a money order for 2 or 3 thousand more and you send it back thru western union" All I can say about this is it is an atrocity and the "big three" aka sprint, mci, at&t, are legally thru the fcc not able to do anything to stop those calls. They won't block calls coming from the area these guys are known to be located (coughs nigeria) It is also funny how the big three get reimbursed for everyone of these calls that are placed thru the internet becuz the service is free to the user.

So many of the operators have quit becuz we refuse to actually HELP these people perpetrate these scams. I used to go home feeling like I helped people but now at the end of the day I just want to crawl into a hole and hide my face becuz I know that I will get fired if I refuse to place these calls and I know I helped someone else either get fired becuz they got ripped off a coupla thousand dollars or I helped a small business get put out of business. Some people are reversing card nbrs or leaving digits out of them when they get one of these calls to ensure that they don't actually get processed but if the powers that be actually caught someone doing it, or if we were to warn someone that the person is using the internet service and that they are placing fraudulent orders, then kiss our job goodbye.

I don't have any tips to keeping your credit card safe and I don't have any ideas on how to stop people from using your information but I do want to tell everyone here on the forum one thing and I hope you all listen and spread the word. IF you work for a business, and you get a relay call and it is from the internet based service, you can tell them to call you thru the state based tty service. If it is someone that is truly disabled, they will more than likely be more than happy to comply becuz they have tty's. If they say theirs is broken, tell them you will be more than happy to do business with them in person or thru a state based tty service becuz the scammers don't have access to the state based tty services. You will still be complying with the ADA becuz you are not refusing to service them based solely on their disability. You're saying you will handle their disability in a different way. These guys hardly give a phone nbr and the nbr is rarely good. They don't know how to use the relay service correctly and most of the remaining operators are saying it's thru the internet in their call announcement. If you get one of these calls, you can call the relay service back (dial 711 in any state to connect to your state relay) and they can give you their customer service information and they might be able to tell you something more. Also, I know that the fbi is looking into the cases and local law enforcement agencies as well on a case by case basis. It's just that the businesses are starting to refuse all relay calls and the only kinds that are subject to being these scammers are the internet based calls.

Our local news network isn't reporting on it becuz we haven't had any businesses here scammed. Some small local networks are and there is a rumor of Dateline getting a hold of a story but nothing concrete. I hope this helps someone out. If anyone wants any more information, I can't give details but you can private message me and I'll tell you what I can. I'm not trying to scare anyone off the relay services for the deaf but I do want to at least try to get some awareness out there of another type of apparently little known scam.

 

One thing that has given me a small piece of mind, online banking. I use no credit card and only check cards. The online allows you to see all most "real time" of your account. If you buy gas or Home Depot, before I return home (4.1) miles it is already in the system.

Online is wonderful, may be a pain for some to turn on and look.........but........may save you some grief. I check mine frequently through out the day.

 

Don't be so sure about that. Identity theft comes in many forms. Only one of them is having a credit card number. What happened to me was someone stole all of my demographic info - including SSN - from the red cross form when I donated blood. It only took a few weeks of phone calls and a trip to the police station to get a case number for all the paperwork that I needed to fill out. All of the fraudulent accounts were closed, I was not responsible for any of it, and the accounts have since been removed from my credit report.

The first thing you need to do is make 4 phone calls. Call your bank, then call the 3 major credit bureaus and have fraud alerts placed on your (and your spouses) file. This means that anytime any store tries to open an account, they will have to call you first and verify that you are the person who is actually opening the account. I'll try and dig up the numbers for the credit bureaus and post it back here...

Matt


Just found them. They are in the msnbc story, but here they are again anyway...

Credit bureaus
Equifax
1-800-525-6285
www.equifax.com

Experian
1-888-397-3742
www.experian.com

TransUnion
1-800-680-7289
www.tuc.com