Now a days you know there is a big problem when a guy named Chris Hansen dedicates a whole show on prime time television to computer hackers called To Catch An I.D. Thief. According to the Federal Trade Commissions Identity Theft Report, approximately 10 million American consumers discovered that their personal information had been used to open fraudulent bank, credit card, or utility accounts, or used to commit other crimes.
But you don't have to go to the other side of the globe to do something about it. Unfortunately I know all about having your privacy taken away and your identity stolen. Just recently I received a statement from my bank as I do every month. This time though a purchase was on there that i hadn't made. It had said that there was a purchase made in Washington for $10.99 at some place called 3 guppies inc. and of course I had not made this purchase. I rarely use my checking account because I have a tenancy to spend more money then I actually have in there, and since I was sick of paying the $38.00 over draft fee I decided to only use it to pay for my car insurance online. So after calling the bank they informed me that a detective would be assigned to my case and in the mean time I would be sent a new card and to cut up the old one. Lucky for me it didn't take forever to get this mess cleared up and the stolen money was returned to my account. If I use my credit card online for two purchases a year and get my identity stolen I can only imagine how much more at risk other people are that use it for every single bill they have.
Remember a while ago when hackers stole data from at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards of shoppers at off-price retailers T.J. Maxx and Marshalls in a case said to be the largest such breach of consumer information. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. The average victim spends 175 hours and $1000.000 repairing the damage.
After going through what I did I couldn't imagine someone that had a lot of money in their account or if it had happening to them for a long period of time. I believe that I reacted to this situation the only way I could, although I would have liked to have kicked this person in the shins, since that was not a viable option, I informed HSBC immediately and they took proper actions quickly. I cut up my old card and was sent a new one with a new pin number in a separate envelope.
To sum it up, you just have to be smart about what you do these days because nothing is safe anymore. You have to keep an eye out at the ATM to make sure no on is looking over your shoulder, make your online passwords a little more difficult to guess than the ever popular "qwerty" (the first six letter of the keyboard) and maybe even have to lock up your car over night even if its sitting right in your driveway.
