Oh, it has not been a good day chez Linda... Other Brits may have seen a news item today about a Deloitte employee getting a laptop nicked that had lots of details of rail employees. Well, it also had all the details of daughter's employer's pension fund, and daughter got a letter today informing her that the thief now has her full name, her date of birth and her national insurance number (that's like the US social security number). She's been online to most of the credit reference agencies this evening, trying to spot any attempts at identity theft. But that's not all! OH got a phone call this evening from his car insurer. Apparently, some bloke in a town a couple of hundred miles away is claiming he was hit by OH at the beginning of June. OH has checked what he was doing on the day in question, and luckily he can prove that he never left Colchester, but it's still going to mean hassle... Bastards, the lot of them.
I received some spam emails today from HBSC bank that said I needed to send them my Social Security number, date of birth, etc., in order to verify my account. Yeah, right!!! But what was worse was that I got an email from Capital One (who I do have an account with), stating that my online statement was ready. I don't have an outstanding balance with them, so it made me a bit paranoid. I went and checked my balance online, and there is nothing out there. I guess it was just a screw up in their system. But it got my heart to pumping a bit faster. I do hope nobody gets a card under your daughter's name. What kind of protection do you have for that kind of thing over there??
I honestly don't know, that's one of the reasons she's been getting on to the credit reference agencies. She doesn't have any credit cards - doesn't believe in them - so any fraudulent applications will be easy to spot.
Welcome to my world! I've had three bank accounts in the past six months because my account was compromised/bogus companies acted like legitimate companies to gain access to my account. The "information age" is upon us.....and now it's biting us in the ass.
IIRC Max Headroom had an interesting take in that stealing someones credit and identity was worse then murdering them. Personally I think we should do that. Identity theft should at minimum be met with at least 20 years hard labor. A second time at identity theft should be life.
Has OH contacted the DVLA? He should inform them of the car cloning. That way if there are any speeding or parking tickets in the future from the other car it'll make it easier to stop the courts pursuing him.
Negative.....my bank automatically froze my account and told me to get a new one because they picked up on somebody (possibly) trying to compromise my account. Much as Wachovia are pricks, they are very good about security.
Well, the woman in my office who holds the departmental charge card for supplies just had it defrauded online.
The exact same thing happened to me in March this year. It took me ages to sort out and was a real hassle (because Norwich Union were rubbish). It was the case of the claimant's insurers misrecording the vehicle reg. It would be worth checking out what type of car was involved in the accident and see if you can speak to the claimant's insurers. In my case, they were really helpful and once had verified that my registered car at the time of the accident was a Fiesta and not a Scenic, closed the case with Norwich Union. But it was a big pile of stress I didn't need.
Identiy theft laws are bullshit in the United States. Why should people have to pay more for account fees in order to protect themselves from Identity Theft? This is taxation without representation. Also, why is it that they never have enough tellars on payday Friday any more? Annoying when you have fucking line and some dumb blonde is the tellar.
Someone got my SS #, address, and BD. Suspect it was the lab phlebotomist from nigeria. Got calls from Sony Electronics asking if I ordered a big screen TV shipped to someone else's address using my new Sony credit card. I paid equifax to lock MY data against unauthorized access and got another call a week later asking if I still wanted a mastercard (they were unable to access my credit history). Be glad you don't live here. Our lives are an open book.
I've never had personal identity theft problems, but I've seen some pretty shocking security holes. When I was in my third year of law school I found, sitting on an unsecured network drive, a list of all second years with name, social security number, and some other miscellaneous info. The law review network drive was set up very sloppily as a virtual drive where you were able to gain access to everything on the entire school's network just by "cd .."
