ID Theft/Fraud
 

I kept reading in newspapers how they were rife and all and I honestly thought it was exaggerated. Until last Sunday.

This guy at work (bit of a supervisor) deals with customers who come in with stolen proofs (stolen as in they are not the person on the credit card/driving licence). The only reason I know this is because he confided to me about it. He tells me a crack head comes in with the cards and sells it for £25. He (the supervisor) then gives it to whoever he knows who'd go out and get a contract mobile phone/45" LCD HD TV/whatever on some sort of Finance. They obviously don't pay anything, walk away with the item and the person who lost the cards get their credit rating/future credit history ****ed.

I don't think there's a way of preventing such things. They do all this by direct debit. It won't indicate that the card is cancelled. So what use is just cancelling the card? And driving licences have your address on it. Take out a contract under that address, you've got a brand new phone and you're not gonna use the sim card anyway. The bill goes to that address and the person living there will go a long way to say that he/she didn't take such contract out.

It now worries me that if I lose such things, I'd be ****ed for a long time.





Just felt like sharing what I'm thinking at the moment.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

I was the victim of ID theft. Someone said up a phone line in my name and with my social security number and never paid the bill. It was for $380 dollars. I didn't find out about it until I was denied credit and got my credit report saying I had collections against me. I've never even been a thousand miles of Michigan in my life. I fought it and won.

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Anyone is free to steal my identity, if they want my overdraft they can have it.

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I had a pretty much rock bottom credit rating at the age of 18 for some reason (probably the flat I was using at university or something). I was told I had to put a deposit of 1000GBP down for a mobile phone contract :o

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This is why I leave my passport, driving license, bank cards etc. in a safe and secure place when I go out. If I do, I have a secret wallet I leave on the inside of my boxers so even if someone tried to mug me, they're not going to search down there unless they're kinky muggers.

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Most good banks offer protection against this. So their credit rating as long as they can prove it wasnt them who bought the item wouldnt suffer at all.

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I got a VISA-card. VISA covers all abuse, so the owner of the card won't really be harmed.

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Doesn't this come at a cost?

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Its a pretty worrying idea, I value my reputation highly and the thought of someone being able to do things in my name is scary.

- JonnyBGood

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I've systematically ruined my credit rating so I'm immune to this sort of crime.

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Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

quoted for accuracy.

Dante, did you miss "****ed" or something out of your post?

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Edited. I blame the drugs.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

same difference :( I guessed what you meant.

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Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

you know the episode of the simpsons, where Homer tries to buy The Ultimate Behemoth on credit, and the alarm and flashing light goes off, and the sales assistant says "that was the computer telling me, sell the vehicle to this fellow and you're out of business"


that was modelled on Dante.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

yes, poor scmucks like you and me are paying for the idiots who don't keep their cards in secure places.

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Every bank does this though. :confused:

Your bank won't notice that you've taken out a contract/finance service until you start receiving letters saying that you've signed up to this & that. Even then there's a long way to sort out the mess.


O-k. You can have your cards stolen/cloned you know...

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

My family are just about all with Barclays.
My dad didn't use one of his (apparently many :() cards for a while, then was on holiday in istanbul and tried to use it and it got refused. Embarassing for him, but nice to know.

When paying my tuition fees this year, I used an old cheque book - I seem to have about 3 on the go, and the last time I used this one was for tuition fees last year.
They phoned me up to check that the cheque was legit (they did the same to my brother, I think).
So yes, most banks do it.

I did hear of a problem with someone who went to france and had her card cloned, and then they took the card down the west coast of france and into spain, all with transactions of £20-30. As it looked legit, it was only when she got her statement she realised what had happened.
Clever thieves still win.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

indeed

---------------------------------------------------------- < the right end
^
your end of the stick

The card was fine.
They didn't accept the transaction because it turned up in a foreign (dodgey) country after not being used in a few months.

It wasn't a friend, but it did look like a logical sequence for travelling.
What did they find suspicious? Do your bank phone you up every time you change location within a "realistically reasonable" time, in what looks like a travelling pattern?
Having said that, Barclays have phoned up one of my parents when we booked our one of our many holidays to Scotland recently. We literally go at least once a year, on one of two different ferry companies, within a month window at easter // summer / autumn usually 2 times per year.
They phoned up and asked if the "cruise" we'd booked was legitimate.
Obviously they haven't been on either of those boats :/ cruise my ass.

Ok, maybe it's just Barclays :p

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Most of their fraud detection techniques are automated, so there's certain things that will often be picked up. I've had quite a few false positives on my cards - it's usually where I try and take out a reasonable amount of cash followed quickly by attempts to buy more than one item.

Curiously, when I went £10,000 over my overdraft they failed to think that was fraudulent. :confused:

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

I regularly get automated phone calls from the bank after I have made large purchases with my Visa asking me to confirm them. My other card would just stop working and I had to call them if I travelled and was using the card along the way.

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I know that the bank watches my dads account quite closely and will flag unusual purchases or a series of large purchases. He has had his card cloned 3 or 4 times and the bank has lost a great deal of cash as a result.

I think it depends on what kind of customer you are and what kind of card you carry.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Its all about unusual spending patterns. If youre a high wealth customer, you cant get direct debits setup on your account without proper verification, if youre a low wealth customer, any spending thats deemed to be outwith your usual spending pattern *hint : this is why your bank asks you to let them know when youre going on holiday* flags and can result in temporary blockage.

JJ is right in that fraudsters, once they have ID details , go after your account again and again. Most banks recognise serious cases and shutdown / reopen your account in the space of a week. Some very crap banks, and card retailers with high interest rates / low customer service quality, will rabbit on about customer protection, and then make you prove your blood type before even considering a claim about ID theft *Capital One*.

All they need is your full name, postal code, and date of birth. After that, almost everything they need is on the internet.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

someone i work withs parents just got their statement from barclays, and suddenly realised that in the space of a weekend someone had taken 9 grand from their account, but they phoned barclays and managed to get it sorted within a day, which was kind of nice for them.

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Im absoloutely ****ing astonished that Barclays Card Services didnt pick up £9k worth of purchases in a 24 hour period on a card like that.

Barclays deserve to lose the money if thats how shit their Card Monitoring System is.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

bear in mind that:

a) like all numbers which go from 'mouth to mouth' among humans the actual sum will have started off being much smaller and then have been gradually exagerated
b) you don't know the spending pattern of this couple.

I've certainly spent a few grand without being rung up.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Ive spent a few grand myself without question buying stuff online. No questions were asked.

However its the exception, not the rule.

For the most part, any single high value transfer gets flagged on the system and has to be manually overridden. And any series of transactions outwith the normal spending pattern (and no, £9k in 24 hours in a series of small transactions is not normal spending for anyone except a shopaholic on £60k a week) should be blocked immediately.

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i see you didn't bother to try to understand point (a)

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Then lets consider what was said theoretical.

I appreciate you consider all the working class to be total charlatans when it comes to discussing money, but for the most part, I tend to find when people get cash stolen, they dont exaggerate the amount they had stolen unless they plan on announcing their entire financial structure to the world.

Thats just personal experience.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

What makes you think yahwe knows anything about working class people, Kura?

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Give Steven the credit on this one, he does associate with the working classes during GD meets.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

we don't know that this couple are working class.

nor can you presume such biggotry from me.

we do know that we are not recieving first hand information.

to quote "someone i work withs parents"


Attack the validity of my proposition kura (if you can understand it: if you can't then ask me to help). don't attack me.

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

As I said earlier, on my account (which is Barclays) I spent £10k in a few minutes without it getting flagged.

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And dante's so poor he doesn't even qualify as working class :(

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someone i work with, came into work last monday (his name is chris just in case you are wondering( and said, 'my parents have just got their barclays statement this morning, someone has taken 9 grand off them this month'

to you its second hand info, as its come through another agent, but to me, it was first hand, as it came through someone who was technically invloved, and certainly an eyewitness when they opened the statement.

and no, i have not exaggerated the amount involved, although i must admit i do not know the spending patterns of the people involved, i would make a pretty safe guess that they are fairly careful spenders



EDIT: just to shoot yahwe down some more, a couple of points:

1. although the couple are technically middle class, they certainly dont have the kind of money where 9k could go missing without them noticing.

2. my mother in law is substantially more well off than me, and is renowned for spending silly amounts, yet still gets phone calls from barclaycard on a regular basis about her spending patterns

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Well needless to say it wasn't my money.

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I would actually question how much of the information we "Debate" on here is first hand information to begin with.

However, ill take onboard your non-assumption of the class of said individuals. And I will apologise for my presumption.

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Alas , i know that feeling.

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I managed to spend £850 in one day and I didn't get a call. Two purchases


The next month, I spent around £500 in one day and got a call. About 5 purchases.


Makes no sense to be honest. (Barclays)

Re: ID Theft/Fraud
 

Had it happen to me when my card was 'skimmed' a couple of years back, lost about £1200 and it took those faggots at Natwest about 3 months to sort it out. Highlights of the whole saga involved them losing the forms twice, meaning I filled them out a grand total of 3 times, telling me that they were going to revert me to just a cash card so this didnt happen in future, and trying to charge me overdraft fees for when the italien prick cleaned me out.