Identity Theft (Again?!?!)
I'm currently up in Canada, on a work trip through Wednesday up at the University. I have been enjoying the hospitality of my former school colleagues and my KW friends (Thanks Dan & Daniel! Hi R!).
Anyway, as I was wrapping up work today, I got a call on my cell phone from some unknown 800 number. I picked up, and it was an automated service from my credit card's fraud department. Huh.
It turns out that their automated systems had picked up odd usage patterns, and wanted to verify that I had made these purchases. United Airlines change fee, check. Airport shuttle from YYZ, check. $424 in purchases at a Wal-Mart in Corona, CA, uh...wait, what? (it's near Riverside--I didn't know, either).
Anyway, it turns out that there had been a few fraudulent purchases on my card today (in-person transactions--apparently, identity thieves like to eat at Jack in the Box), and the purchase was declined at the Wal-Mart. I'm surprised, but happy that they notified me this fast. It sounds like the credit card company is deleting the fraudulent purchases without a problem.
I'm surprised that they picked up these usage patterns so fast--it would not be surprising for me to pop up in random states and start buying things, given my work travel. However, I think the Wal-Mart purchase was pretty far outside of my normal patterns. Hey... scary data mining algorithms can sometimes work in our favor, right?
Anyway, I had a previous problem with identity theft in eary 2006--a compromised bank card in Canada; probably due to a large merchant with insecure servers sending PINs internally in the clear.
It makes me wonder if anything I did caused this breach... I have been nowhere near that part of California in years. I wonder if some online merchant I have purchased from has been compromised.
posted by Bats @ 5:48 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Dave has been through this three times, and twice in the past three months. Same pattern-- card showing up being used for in-person charges, mostly small stuff but running to a few hundred dollars, somewhere in California. Of course, his card has been replaced each time with a new number and so forth, but these last two were eerily close together. He's going to hold onto the replacement card without using it and see if more charges show up... That may help us figure out where the problem is.
Let me know if you get any leads on what's up yours.
Wow, that sucks. If there's a pattern (e.g., compromised vendor), I'm really surprised the credit card companies haven't picked up on it earlier.
I remember hearing stories that meth addicts are big into identity theft, due to the "high" patterns of the drug: intense periods of activity and concentration, which are ideal for, say, digging through piles of trash to find credit card receipts. However, I can't say that I've seen many of them in my neighborhood, and can't imagine them near you guys.
Also, these operations must have a bit more complexity than an average meth-head--they actually need a credit card embossing/mag stripe writing machine.
Ok, Dave talked to the fraud guy at the Credit Union, who said that the fake card is being made by someone who has the card in-person and out of our sight-- most likely someone in a restaurant. In this last two month period, Dave only used the card at 4 restaurants where they take the card out of sight. So the question is: when was the last time you used your card in an Ithaca restaurant, and where was it? It would be interesting to see if there is overlap...
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