{"id":1436,"date":"2008-11-01T17:10:32","date_gmt":"2008-11-01T21:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2008-11-01T17:10:32","modified_gmt":"2008-11-01T21:10:32","slug":"identity-theft-it-can-happento-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/identity-theft-it-can-happento-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity Theft. It Can Happen….To Me."},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago I went online to check my bank account balance and found that I was locked out. The online service said it was because of “too many login attempts”. I thought that was strange at the time, since I hadn’t been trying to log in. <\/p>\n

Occasionally though, my husband jokes with me about not knowing my password, so I thought he might have done it. When I called him, he didn’t know anything about it. I just wrote it off as a weird experience. <\/p>\n

Yesterday, I logged on to again to transfer some money to my savings account, and I found a $3 charge to my account that I did not make. Apparently, someone had visited McDonald’s with my credit card number. <\/p>\n

Now, the strange thing about this is that I still have my debit card – it’s not missing! It was in my wallet the entire time. <\/p>\n

I called immediately to cancel my debit card and have a new one issued. Right after I said a very thankful prayer that the thief only purchased a hamburger!<\/p>\n

I’ve been trying to puzzle out exactly how this happened, and really, I may never know. I do know a few things though:<\/p>\n

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  1. The unauthorized charge was made in my own home town.<\/li>\n
  2. They have the card number, but not the card.<\/li>\n
  3. They do not have my social security number or they would have been able to reset my bank account password instead of getting locked out. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, The best that I can come up with is that someone, at some point, copied my card information when I used it locally. <\/p>\n

    I have always read that some people can be so “secure” with their information – shredding all personal info, not ing things online, etc. Yet they will hand their credit card to a 17 year old at a drive through, or a restaurant and let them walk off with it to run the charge. Yup. I was one of those people! I guess I will be paying with cash a lot more often in the future! <\/p>\n

    I also have a second layer of security. I monitor my credit reports. I don’t think this person has any more information about me than my debit card number. However, I will be able to tell immediately if they open up any new accounts in my name because it will show up on my credit reports. <\/p>\n

    Suddenly, that $15 a month monitoring service is actually being put to good use \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    So, all in all this was just an excellent reminder that I need to be more careful with my debit and credit cards. Sometimes there really is nothing you can do to prevent identity theft. From now on though, I think using cash a little more often is a good policy. <\/p>\n

    Have you ever had an experience like this? Do you know someone who has? What did you do to combat it? Tell us about it in the comments section!<\/p>\n

    So, that’s it for the scary news today. I ran into some much happier articles in my feed reader this week. I’d love to share them with you. <\/p>\n

    Cherry Pickin’:<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

    This was my favorite article of the week!<\/p>\n