I woke up Fourth of July morning to about a dozen texts about loan applications that I needed to complete various processes on. That was followed up by roughly half-a-dozen calls from various personal loan providers. These were small shops that provide those $5000 personal loans, something that I’m not the target customer for. So, we’ve frozen credit, reactivated Lifelock, and are ensuring that we answer all calls, but also handle those calls with caution. I’m pretty sure one of the first salvo of calls was a scammer shop trying to take advantage of the credit chaos. Any other suggestions? I’ve tried antifreeze and it had no effect. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lewdog:
I keep my credit frozen at all times. When I bought a new car 3 years ago I unlocked it for a few days and then froze it after.
I froze my son’s credit the day he was born. Child identity theft for loans is even more common.
Originally Posted by lewdog:
I keep my credit frozen at all times. When I bought a new car 3 years ago I unlocked it for a few days and then froze it after.
I froze my son’s credit the day he was born. Child identity theft for loans is even more common.
I froze my credit over 10 years ago since it seems to be the only way to protect yourself completely, from what I heard at the time it was going to become easier and more common but still seems to be about the same process.
Big 3 credit- Experian, Equifax, TransUnion. Thieves can have all your info but will never get approved for shit so they give up. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lewdog:
I keep my credit frozen at all times. When I bought a new car 3 years ago I unlocked it for a few days and then froze it after.
I froze my son’s credit the day he was born. Child identity theft for loans is even more common.
Originally Posted by RedRaider56:
My wife has had to go through identity theft hell twice now. We didn't find out until we tried to file income tax returns and the IRS communicated that she had already filed one.
WTH?
She filed a report with the police, froze all her credit cards, etc..etc.
The last incident was almost 10 years ago and we are still required to use PIN #s when filing IRS returns.
Same thing happened to us. Also, the pieces of human shit who filed the return used Turbo Tax. They got it for free since Turbo Tax would deduct the cost of the software from the return. When we fixed the mess, we got a call from Turbo Tax wanting us to pay them $49.95. They kept calling even after I explained that fucking scum had filed a fraudulent return. I had to sick our lawyer on them. This was after I told several people from Turbo Tax India to suck on my balls and that I hoped their families died of diphtheria.
I've been quite careless over the years and have been lucky so far and never been scammed. But I do worry about using debit cards with those card readers assholes be putting in the machines at the stores or at the gas station.
I get a lot of scam phone calls but I don't answer if I don't recognize the number. [Reply]
Several years ago I saw a Capital One credit card that had not yet been used was opened under my name, but with an address that was in my city but in the meth-head part of town. Somewhere I've never been and never would go. But the fact it was in my city led me to believe someone locally had gotten hold of my info or someone I had crossed paths with.
I reported this fraud to Capital One and froze my credit for a while. Flash forward to now. I started getting calls from a debt collection agency. I had $450 of Capital One debt that was sold to a collection agency. With the same address in the shitty part of town. A small amount thankfully. They eventually concluded it was fraud and ceased their collection efforts.
So yes I know how you feel. You have to be vigilant and check your credit report often. Something I did not do. It's apparently really easy for someone to get enough of your information to open lines of credit and rack shit up on it. [Reply]
