<p>Had a notification from my credit card company this morning about fraudulant charges on my credit card. I took care of it, but it makes me mad that after resigning myself to not shopping and wearing the same pair of shoes for the next 5 years, someone is having a party on my amex :p</p>
<p>I pay $12.95 per month for credit monitoring. Every time there is an inquiry or someone (including me) tries to get credit or buy a car, they have to contact me and verify it through a series of questions ( e.g. who holds the mortgage no your house and what is the monthly payment). It’s worth it for the peace of mind, having had a minor case of identity theft a few years ago…Any of the three credit reporting bureaus offer it. In addition, it’s a good idea to check your own credit file every year or so…</p>
<p>^My BF does both of the above after a pretty serious identity theft incident that took almost a year to resolve, though it is fully resolved now. It almost kept us from being able to buy our house.</p>
<p>Another safety net to consider is that a lot of homeowners insurance has coverage for these things in the event that you can’t resolve it through other means, which was nearly where we were at. BF’s SS was taken and someone opened a ton of credit cards all over the place in his name, including some crappy bank in ND that refused to acknowledge that the card was fake even though they didn’t even bother to verify the date of birth before handing it over. They sent us a statement from a rental car place where the card was used to rent a car in GA, with the wrong DOB and his name spelled wrong, and we had to send all kinds of documentation to prove there was no way the card or drivers license provided were valid and that BF wasn’t in GA at the time nor residing in TN. It was a mess. Any steps you can take to protect yourself from these kinds of things is a really good idea.</p>
<p>A funny story, though… several years ago when my sisters and I were younger, my dad got a call letting him know that there was possible fraudulent activity on his credit card-- a lot more money was getting spent than usual. My dad pulled his statements in a panic, frantic to see what was going on… turns out it was just my mother doing the Christmas shopping. ;)</p>
<p>Beware of Macy’s - opening a credit card with them at point of sale - no paperwork signed - somehow gave them the right to open an AMEX card for me. I didn’t approve or know about this AMEX and I paid the Macy’s balance and cancelled the card within a month b/c I only opened it for the discount on that purchase (never again). When Macy’s data entry clerk “cancelled” my account, instead of hitting “at customer’s request” they hit “bankruptcy”. </p>
<p>Discovered this last week when trying to take advantage of the low interest rates and refi my house. Still waiting for Macy’s to correct this mess with the credit reporting agencies - ugh!</p>
<p>Maiden,
I never 'take advantage " of the instore cards. The more cards you have, the more credit available and the lower your credit score overall. And also the greater the hassle factor. I have two cards, one for business and one for personal…
Off topic but one good piece of advice I received years ago, when you give your date of birth online for registering for something, (unless it is official- i.e. banking or gov’t forms) I ALWAYS change the month and year. Why make it easier for the people datamining to have the correct info. That way if it is stolen from that site,. they have the wrong DOB…</p>
<p>We are in the process of getting rid of most of our credit cards. I agree about the store cards, and they always seem to be the ones who have the security breaches. One of the companies we deal with had a security problem a while back, so we put an alert on our credit for six months. It is amazing the peace of mind it provides, so I will look into a monthly service. Plus the amount of junk mail you get goes way down, since you don’t get any preapproved credit offers. We already get our credit reports every year, since the first time we got a mortgage and there was something odd on there we had to deal with.</p>
<p>janjdad: my W and I luckily caught a identity theft in progress on one of our credit cards about 4 years ago and were able to stop it. What we did though was contact our bank and the credit bureau to notify them (after the police). The credit bureau put a permanent request for approval on both of our credits so that should I or my W apply for a card or increased credit we get a call to confirm that we actually made the request. Our credit cards call us whitin minutes if we try to charge above $500 without first notifying them.The credit bureau gave us a special password that we are to use when they call so that they know it is us. It happened back in June when we were buying a new car and applied for financing and completely forgot about the security check. About 2 hours after the application went in we both got a phone call asking us our password, did we just apply for a car loan and if so what was the make, model, color and year of the car. They have this for no charge to us and they say it is on our file forever unless we remove it. Had we not been on our toes the ID theft had the potentail to wipe us out completely including our house.</p>
<p>My bank keeps pretty close tabs on my acct and asks me if they see something suspicious, before they let it go through.
I haven’t had to use a monthly outside service.</p>
<p>Citibank has single use credit card numbers. Great for buying things online, and not having to worry about the merchant charging your card again and again. You can also set a spending limit so they can’t charge more than the amount you specify.</p>
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<p>I believe one of the factors in a FICO score is the ratio of a persons balance to available credit. So, the more available credit you have and as long as you pay off your credit card balance before or at their due date then the higher your credit score. For example, all other factors being equal, I think a person who has a number of credit cards with a total available credit of $50,000 and her current balance is only $500 will most likely have a higher FICO score than one who has a $100 balance but with only $1,000 available credit.</p>
<p>Our credit card(s) have been the source of many a party and shopping sprees. My favorite stories: Husband received a call from the west los angeles fraud/bunco squad. </p>
<p>Your son is here…he just told us to call you to verify that you ok’d him to purchase $20,000 electronics… </p>
<p>Husband turned around and saw our son., then 14 years olf. "no, my son is here…and I don’t have two sons.</p>
<p>Police officer: We thought that this might be the case. </p>
<p>From the background, “Man you tole me to go and buy the stuff!”</p>
<p>Thank you Mr. Ellebud…we have a wallet full of receipts…seems the gentleman is outfitting a hotel…Good bye and please check with your credit card company.</p>
<p>Seriously, $20,000 of electronic stuff? No…</p>
<p>And there was that time when a woman went to Neimans and tried to purchase $6500 worth of stuff. Problem? She went to my salesperson…who looked at the card and called security. Again…Mrs. Ellebud said I could use it.</p>
<p>My credit card companies have always called me when something looks suspicious. One time an online site called, wanting to know if I ordered over $1,000 in athletic footwear. It was to be shipped to the city where I was moving. They gave the correct billing address, which was unusual. The only place that could have known my home address and credit card number was the Hilton, where I had stayed on a house-hunting trip. I called the hotel and they admitted they had a previous employee who made off with several credit card numbers and addresses.</p>
<p>DH’s card # was stolen at the point of sale at Circuit City several years ago while buying a TV. Sales clerk apparently had his own card reader. We only found out when Toshiba called to verify that the billing address for "our computer’ purchase was different than the shipping address. Long story short was that it was a ring which the Secret Service had been tracking and since we could confidently prove where it happened (was a never before used cc) they were able to bust the ring and arrest everyone involved.</p>
<p>DW got hit a few years back when someone at the Boston Globe printed out all the credit card subscribers and their info, and the Globe “recycled” the paper by using it to wrap bundles of newspapers.</p>
<p>Oops.</p>
<p>After a few charges at various Walmarts in FL (we live in MA) the credit card company stopped it pretty quickly.</p>
<p>I’ve had to change all of my auto-bill accounts multiple times because the CC company decided to issue me a new number because the old one had been compromised in some way that I didn’t know about. So even though it is a pain, it is good to see that they are on the ball.</p>
<p>Our credit is locked. We got hit a few years back (account # stolen at a restaurant, they ordered international cellphones to be delivered across country-- the carrier KNEW it was fraudulent and still let the sale go through!! Grrrr…)
Anyway its a pain but it provides security. And since we were victims of identity theft there is no charege to freeze/thaw (unfeeze) the credit.</p>
<p>I only have one card and pay off in full every month - the Macy’s thing was an uncharacteristic thing for me to do - very large ticket and an additional 20% off - and closed the account right after I paid the bill when it came in. That’s what I get for deviating - just trying to warn people that Macy’s is opening additional cards to the one from them you think you are opening - without your consent or knowledge.</p>