Identity Theft

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

I've never been too concerned with identity theft, until today. I happened to notice that a letter FROM the state disability office had my ssn on it. I mean, why do they need to print my freaking SSN on a letter TO me? I KNOW my ssn, I don't need them putting it on some letter that could have been stolen (it was my disab. check) and now I can't just throw away the statement that came with the check.

So, we need to start putting some pressure on organizations like state governments and corporations to STOP putting OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION like SSN's and DOB's on THEIR CORRESPONDENCE TO US. There is NO NEED for that info to be on letters to us.

[kah]

It's funny, well, not really, that you bring this up. A girlfriend of mine had her identity stolen a little over a year ago. Why, you ask? Because people are *******s. She's a tenth-year art major and broke as a joke, so you wonder who would bother stealing her identity? The best we can figure, someone in the financial aid office at her college sold her SSN. Someone applied for financial aid in Virginia, I believe, and took out some credit cards in her name. As hard as she is fighting to get that stuff taken care of, it will probably be on her record for a long ass time.

PROTECTING PRIVACY AND PREVENTING THE
MISUSE OF SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy/socsec/107cong/5-22-01/107-31final.htm) This is from 2001. I doubt anything has been resolved since, but apparently this issue has at least been discussed. Just read a few of these stories. It made my skin crawl.

[omicron]

Reminds me of that old joke.

"My credit's so bad, after someone stole my identity, my credit rating went up!"

Omi

[Intelligent_Design]

I almost got caught by a FISHING email the other day. I Said to was from PAYPAL and it was asking me to verify a charge made to some website. It looked legit as hell. I was 2 seconds away from logging from that page when I decided to log in from paypal's real site and amazingly there was no activity in my account. Whoever sent me that email wanted my Login info. Bastards.

[Bokchoi Cowboy]

On those phishing e-mails, there is always a link you are supposed to click on to solve all your problems the email states you are having.

Always check the link to see if it is indeed going to the legit website or some bogus address. All you have to do is hover your mouse over the link or right click on it and click "Properties" to see where the link is going to go.

You can also check the URL against the WHOIS records and perhaps come up with some info on who the link belongs to. Most of the time the resulting info will be spoofed or incorrect, but you may get lucky. You can also check the headers on the e-mail and do the same thing with the IP addresses you find, but those are usually spoofed as well.

At the very least, if you receive any e-mail that looks questionable, go to the legit company website and find a phone number for customer service or security and call.

[kah]

Oh, and don't forget to check your credit report every year. AnnualCreditReport.com (https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp)lets you get your report from the big three credit reporting agencies once a year for free. It's a good idea to check up on it once in a while, to make sure your information is correct, and to see who's been checking up on you.

Oh, and legit emails from a company will usually have a message that says not to respond to the email, to go to their website instead.

[omicron]

ya know, if I get one of those phising ones, and I have the time, I like to respond and fill in all the fields with some of the most vile language I can think of. :lol: Immature, I know, but it's fun for me.

Omi

[Rowanberry]

I've got my share of phishing e-mails as well; fortunately, they've usually been about companies with which I've never had anything to do.

One prominent feature of phishing e-mails is that, they don't address you by your real name (like the real messages do), but just as "Dear XXXXX Customer", or they don't address you at all.