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MALICIOUS IDENTITY THEFT

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Anonymous
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ID THEFT VICTIM STORY

On 3-10-03 my bank's loss prevention dept. contacted me to question some charges they found to be out of my ordinary spending habits. Someone stole my debit card number. I denied making these charges because I had not. In the few days to follow, I learned $3000+ had been charged and these were pending. Meaning, they had not psoted to my account. I was not given an option to make things simple on myself, the bank and the merchants by rejecting the posting of these charges. I was told to wait till these charges were posted to my account and then an investigation would begin. The bank is issuing a provisional credit and putting the money back into my account. I have a brief description of the merchants on my bank account statement. This does not tell me much. Three charges were of the same amount of $912 for a French gambling location. I found a site online that matched the name on my bank statement. One charge for long distance was thru a French telecommunications merchant. This charge was $132. The other charge of $187 from what I have learned is another French gambling location. I am sure once the bank does their investigation, they will find what I found. I rarely use my debit card. I do not throw away any receipts. I began looking at them and found that a few merchants I shopped at had my complete card number on the receipt. This leaves me wide open for a staff member to be a thief. I will turn over all my investigation materials and suspicions to the bank and legal officials. I have read many online web pages about how so many others have suffered the same. It is sad so many people have to go thru so much to clear their name. I know I am paying cash from now on. It appears it is easy for a thief to connect their own devices to ATM machines and card machines and get numbers. Also, I cannot believe how easy it is to use card nubers online and over the phone. There is no way to identify the person making the charges is who he/she says they are. I think merchants should go the extra mile and use whatever means possible to protect card holders. I learned the merchant is getting charged back because of the fraudulent charges. It is their loss. I hope the culprits are caught and punished to the extreme.

Story submitted on: 2003-03-13 00:00:00.0.

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