Identity Theft: Three Stories | Replay

Is your identity at risk? And what would you do if someone was using it to take out credit cards, steal your tax refund, or even raid your bank account? Enjoy this replay of interviews with Tiffany, Pete, and Astrid, three victims of identity theft. Even though this episode originally aired in 2022, the same lessons remain. Listen to hear about how each of the three discovered the fraud, what they did to reverse the damage, and what they do now to prevent it from happening again.

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome back to How Hacks Happen.

This week, I'm presenting one of my favorite episodes from season one, which showcases three true stories of identity theft and how the victims figured out what happened and how they came back from it.
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Even though this episode came out three years ago, the risks and the consequences are still the same today. Now, because this was interviews, some of them done over the phone, the audio quality is a little iffy on some parts. And back then, we were still experimenting with our musical identity. But hopefully you can still get something out of this. I think we all can. So, enjoy.

Once when I was at a conference out of town, I was sharing a hotel room with a friend. She had registered the room in her name. And we had only one key card between us. But that was okay as long as we stuck together. But then we got separated and I needed to get into the room. So I went to the front desk and gave my friend's name. I said, Hi, I'm Mary Jane Smith. Can I have my key card please? The hotel clerk didn't even ask for my ID she just handed over the card. Then Mary Jane herself when it was time for her to come back to the hotel, realize she left the key card in the room. So she stopped at the front desk and said, Hi, I'm Mary Jane Smith. Can I have my key card please? The hotel clerk looked at her funny and asked to see her ID before she gave her the card.

Welcome to How Hacks Happen, where we discuss interesting happenings in the world of hacking and cybersecurity. What you just heard was a story about identity theft, that didn't have any bad consequences. And actually, Mary Jane and I had a great laugh when she got up to the room. "Will the real Mary Jane Smith, please stand up!"

But most stories about identity theft aren't funny. In this episode, you're going to hear three stories about identity theft from the victims themselves. Identity theft happens when someone pretends to be you, usually to get something for free at your expense. Sometimes it's money. Sometimes it's something else like a credit card, or even utilities like electrical service. And of course, they don't pay the bill, leaving you with a black mark on your credit report. And even though you can usually figure it out and reverse it, the consequences of identity theft can last a very long time. And I don't just mean your credit score. After fighting to get their money back, or working their way up from a damaged credit score. One thing that every victim I talked to mentioned was how stressful it was to be the victim of identity theft. Between all the time they had to spend to fix it, and being frustrated by people in power, who wouldn't listen to them or believe them or take them seriously. And sometimes just being plain scared of it all. The people you'll hear today all agreed to tell their stories in the hopes that they could help others avoid the same fate. Our first story is from Tiffany, a good friend of both Carrie and myself here in New Orleans. So when did you first notice that this had happened?

Tiffany  
So it took me a while to notice. And it took me a while to figure it out. But it was about four years after it happened that I noticed it.

Michele  
How did you find out what were you looking at that you notice it?

Tiffany 
So I needed a car. And I went to go purchase the car. And they told me that my credit score was like I think if I remember it was like 523 It's freaky. Like, what in the world? How is that even possible? You know, and I couldn't get the car. And at that time I was a single mom. So yeah, it was bad. It was kind of scary, actually, because I really needed a car because I went to a bunch of different dealerships and they wouldn't even think you'll kind of like laughed at me and had a good job and everything. I worked in the banking industry, which is kind of and I needed a car to get to work.

Michele   
What do you think happened? Well,

Tiffany   
I actually know what happened. No, I never like locked my doors or anything. I was very free spirited and young and stupid. My ex husband actually broke into my house and took a bunch of things. So I started locking my door obviously them but then I also started getting a little scared. So I had people stay in with me a lot. I had one of my friends from high school I had her sister stay with me which by the way, she stole my saxophone. But I was also working in another place and there was a girl there and we kind of along pretty well at work. And she was pregnant and being a single mom, I really sympathize with her. The place that I lived in was like pretty big. I lived in a very bad area, scary area, but at the same time it happens A lot of space. And so I had an extra room and everything. And I said, you know, you can stay with me as a matter of fact, you know, I didn't want my daughter going to the daycare that she was going to. And my grandma wasn't always able to watch her. So, you know, I said, could you just like, watch my daughter every once in a while, and she seemed to be a pretty good babysitter, and I just left my stuff out in my house, because it's my house, right? I didn't think it would be a big deal. So I left my, you know, driver's license out and stuff like that. And at that time, your social security number was on driver's license. Oh, yeah. Basically, just having like that kind of private information laying around my house, she obviously looked into a lot of stuff and gave it to her family in West Virginia. And they had the address in West Virginia where they had gotten electric in my name, they got their gas in my name, they got their cable in my name, they got credit cards in my name.

Michele    
And of course, they weren't paying the bills.

Tiffany   
Yeah, they've been paying the bills, I had some like, I had, like, 800. And I had to trace it. So it took me four ever to trace it. And the thing is, is when I call the credit bureau to say, hey, this isn't me, this isn't my stuff that first off, they argue with me about it was bolts in your name, blah, blah, blah, and like, I've never lived in West Virginia in my entire life. Yeah. But the fact that I didn't ever I never lived in West Virginia, they couldn't deny that they can live in one state and be there full time and also be in another state at the same time.

Tiffany    
And some of it, they still wouldn't take off my credit. And I just had to wait years for it to disappear and fall off like a couple of small things. They just would not take off. The credit card companies were pretty good about it. But weirdly enough, the utility companies were they were sticklers. They're like, nope, or keep it on there for a while you must pay it. And I'm like, I'm not. It's not mine. I'm not doing that.

Michele   
You know, oh, you stole my identity. Let me reward you by paying for your utilities.

Tiffany 
It was crazy. When I found out she was still living with me. Yeah. So that was fun getting her out of the house, and then watching her blatantly lie to me and deny it the entire time. And I was just like, whoa. And I would say it would make a difference if I like had been very wealthy and well established. But I was a struggling single mom working three jobs and going to school and try and take care of a baby on my own. And that's just fruit.

Michele
Let's pick on somebody who's already like fighting and struggling already. Like

Tiffany  
oh my god. Yeah, that's just the low. That's low, low.

Michele  
Yeah, that's terrible. But it did get resolved eventually. And I believe it's seven years it takes to fall off your your credit report. Yes. Seven years ago, fortunately.

Tiffany  
Yes, it did say like I said, the utility companies, which is how I actually found out about it. I never opened up anything in West Virginia, my life. So the utility companies was kind of like that thing. That's like, Aha, that see, that's not me. And so it is kind of ironic that that was like the thing that wouldn't come off my credit.

Michele
The clue that solved the crime, and still they blame you

Tiffany 
like, Yeah, wow. It's like this constant slap in the face reminder of like, incident. Yeah, well,

Michele 
so have you changed the way you do things or changed any of your habits as a result of this?

Tiffany 
Yes. Big time. Obviously, I don't leave anything private, laying around the house. If I have guests over or whatever, that that should locked up? Definitely. And then also, it just kind of made me weird about a lot of things. I don't trust anything online. I'll look at my bank account online, but I don't pay any bills online. Because I know that that's a huge way that people's information gets stolen constantly. But like even on my phone, I didn't use the facial recognition for a while. I was completely paranoid about that, too. And I would only use the passcode I've loosened up a little bit with that. I don't know if I should have but I but yeah, I think about that all the time.

Michele 
Well, good. Good. Your cyber warrior. Oh, yay.

Michele 
Maybe it's good. If this happened to you, your your identity gets stolen, it all got resolved. I'm assuming you didn't have to pay any of those bills. Right? It didn't cost money. It was just a pain.

Tiffany  
Well, it's so funny because when it affects your credit, it does cost money. And the fact the freaking utility bills For all my credit for seven years, also, you know, affects me financially because it affects everything if credit score affects your car insurance, you know, if you go to get a job it, it affects everything. So when somebody does that it, it really messes you up big time.

Michele 
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I can see that I was trying to find a silver lining.

Tiffany  
The silver lining is I was younger, you know, and I try to tell my kids and stuff to be very careful about that. Because I feel like it's even easier to steal somebody's identity now.

Michele 
I think so I think you're right. With all these breaches. The Equifax breach, the hackers got a whole bunch of social security numbers. I just always assumed right now my social security numbers just out there. Somebody people can get it if they want to.

Tiffany  
Somebody has my information out there. Like you said, somebody has my information.

Michele   
I think it's all out there. And it's just a matter of keeping safe what you what you can, yeah, I own my own credit my

Michele   
own money. Yeah, it's all you can do.

Tiffany   
Yeah, I kind of miss the old fashioned identity thefts.

Michele   
Someone would put on a disguise, go down to the bank and be like, Hello, my name is not gonna say your name on here. And I'm here to withdraw the money out of my account.

Tiffany   
That is the old fashioned. Here's my ID, you know, I changed my hair color a few times and gained a few pounds. But you know, it's really me.

Michele 
Thank you very much, Tiffany, for telling me your story. No problem.

Tiffany  
Thank you for having me.

Michele  
It's funny that Tiffany should mention the old fashioned way of thieving of going into a bank in a disguise. Our next story comes from Pete podcaster in Australia who was at the wrong end of something very similar. I met Pete in one of the online podcasting groups I belong to Pete is one of the hosts of the pixels and pints podcast, where they talk about pop culture and craft beer. But today, he's going to talk about something else, a story of when someone else walked into a bank pretending to be him.

Michele  12:35  
What happened with you? How did you first notice that this had happened?

Pete  12:39  
I've always been pretty organized when it comes to money. So I've got several different bank accounts for various things. So you know, my living account and my savings account, etc. And if I want to go and splurge on something, being the sort of person I am, that happens pretty frequently, I'll move money from my savings account to my spendings account. And the difference is my savings account isn't attached to a card. So I can't actually just make an impulse purchase, I can't walk into a store and spend my savings, I have to make a conscious choice to log into the mobile app transfer money. So I went to do that one day. And I noticed there was no money in the account completely cleared out.

Michele  13:13  
So that's how I found out. do you mind saying how much was in there?

Pete  13:18  
was a little shy of $10,000? Wow, that's 10,000 Australian. So that's about $40 US. It was a significant amount of money for me at the time. And it also meant that I couldn't splurge which was also part of the disappointment. So yeah, that's how I found out initially, so I could see a transaction. It just said withdrawal with the amount. So I rang the bank, and the bank basically told me Well, we've got a cash withdrawal from a branch that you came in, withdraw your cash. I said, Well, what branch I haven't been into a bank branch in years, I'm a product to the digital Hey, John, I do in person banking. And they gave me the name of the branch for the bank I was with. It was in Sydney. So it was in the same region that I lived in. But it was in a suburb I've never been in. And I just said look that that wasn't me. That's a fraudulent withdrawal. They couldn't really tell me much beyond that. Just okay, well, Marcus is fraudulent will investigate it will have to freeze your accounts while we conduct our investigation. And all my other accounts too much, you. I basically had to beg, borrow and steal to survive. I mean, even if they hadn't frozen my other account, because the way my money was set up, most of my money was sitting in that account. Yeah, that was that was a fun experience while I sat there and waited for, you know, an unknown amount of time for the bank to get back to me and told me what the next steps were. That took a little over a week for them to come back to me. And I was chasing them in the meantime as well.

Michele  14:42  
How long had elapsed between when this person went in and took your money. And when you found out about it.

Pete  14:50  
It was about a day. Oh wow. That fast? Yeah, I one of the questions I did ask the bank was how does someone withdraw money? What's the minimum amount of money information required to withdraw cash in person at a branch? And the answer was a driver's license or a photo ID, you know, driver's licenses in Australia have you name, your address and your photograph and lots of security features like holograms and that sort of stuff to make it harder to clone them. But that was the minimum required to withdraw my cash.

Michele  15:20  
Just the driver's license? Yeah, yeah, I've gone in with just my driver's license and said, I don't remember my account number. They'll look it up. And I'll say, Okay, I want to take some money out, and then they'll give it

Pete  15:32  
to me. You're right. And sorry, that is, that is one other piece of information, you do need your account number, they didn't say that when I asked them about it. But I went into a branch subsequent to all of this unfolding, and check the little withdrawal slip, and all the information that you're required to provide. So yeah, it took a while for the bank to get back to me. And eventually, they said, look, we've checked our security feed at that branch. And we can see a person that has entered the branch and withdrawn your money. And we've forwarded that information to the police. Now, obviously, I soon as I knew it was fraudulent, or report it to police. To be honest, the police didn't really care. It's small time, I don't know what they're out there doing probably, you know, issuing tickets for people speeding and passing through stop sciences that are coming to a complete halt, because it generates revenue, as opposed to recovering other people's money that is already covered by insurance. And I guess, you know, probably a bit of a cynic as a result of this event as well. So that kind of factors into my my way of thinking about the whole event. But it took them another two or three weeks to return my money. So once they realized what had happened, they accepted or acknowledged that it was a fraudulent withdrawal. They basically unfroze my accounts, return my cash and cycled my account numbers. And that's where they left me, you know, this transaction is complete, thanks for playing. So I went into the branch now i in Australia, we've got four major banks, my bank was a subsidiary of one of the really big banks, one of the four big banks. And I expected a lot more from them in terms of security consciousness in terms of sensitivity to the event in terms of protection for their customers. And I just got a laissez faire kind of vibe from them the whole way through,

Michele  17:13  
you kind of expect that at that point. They might say, hey, maybe it's time to tighten our security. And what can we do to do that? Maybe we need to put some of those new policies in place that we've been talking about, because what's to keep this from happening again?

Pete  17:26  
Absolutely nothing is the answer to that question. And the other thing I was trying to do in my mind is paste together, how somebody had my driver's license, but with their photo on it. Because obviously, if you hand someone a driver's license, and it's a different person, you either need to look considerably like that person. And I felt it was fairly unlikely that a random thief looked significantly enough like me to pass and then the second question was, how would they get a copy of my driver's license? Anyway, I've got it in my wallet. So what I had basically pieced together is the thief had used a fake driver's license with my name, my address on it, probably a random date of birth, because the bank doesn't care about my date of birth, and their photograph. So for a bank teller working in a bank, it all would have checked out, they are me, if they say they're me. So then I thought about, well, how would they obtain the minimum amount of information they would need? That would be my account number that was the other thing and, and the weirdest part? The thing that took me the longest time was how do they know which bank I'm with, like, obviously didn't just walk into some random bank, because there's, you know, 30 or 40 different brands of bank in in Sydney. So, you know, kind of pointed me towards my mailbox,

Michele  18:39  
a bank statement in your mailbox. Yeah,

Pete  18:43  
because it has my name. It has my full name, has my address, and it has my account number. And that's all you need, along with somebody who can give you a fake driver's license. That's all you need to come up with a fake driver's license with the thief's photograph on it sufficient to to withdraw my money. And I look at the time I didn't live in a very nice part of Sydney, I lived in a suburb that was pretty crime heavy. And I lived on a main road. So there was a lot of foot traffic. And it was a large apartment building. And all of the apartment buildings mailboxes were in a central location. And whilst each mailbox is locked, the locks they use in those kinds of apartment buildings are cheap and cheerful. I reckon anyone with a paperclip could open them. So very easy in terms of opportunistic theft.

Michele  19:28  
I wonder if they stole lots of mail or just rifled through stuff until I mean, that was another thing that was attractive, I'm sure as they saw your bank statement and saw that you had, you know, $9,000 in there, and that's, that's worth going through some stuff. Maybe you only had $250 in there, and maybe not probably

Pete  19:46  
not worth the risk of walking into a branch and being filmed. Yeah, I agree. So that's kind of the event from the actual theft perspective. But of course, I didn't know what was next. And that's the part that bugged me the most that was what was worried me the most is okay. This has happened, the money's been returned. It's I've been living off, you know, friends and family for three weeks. It's crap event, but it's not closed. From my perspective, the police haven't gotten back to me. And by the way they never did. I chased them a couple of times. And they just said, we've got no leads. Cool story. I mean, you've got them on film, I mean, your population of 20 to 25 million, something like that. In Australia, I mean, finding a person from random footage, okay, granted, unless you pick him up again, because it's like thieves have a tendency to just steal one thing one time ever, and then never do it again. But I never heard back from the police. And I felt that it was a dead end and continue chasing. That's kind of where it stopped for the the theft, but I was concerned about what might happen next.

Pete  20:51  
So I took some steps that I probably should have taken before the event to protect myself moving forward, particularly knowing somebody had a driver's license with my details on their face. Presumably, they didn't have my date of birth, because that is a key piece of information for taking out loans. And those sorts of things in name, address, date of birth is the three minimum pieces of information that anyone will ask you for an Australian to do anything officially.

Michele  21:17  
And don't you have a like a social insurance number,

Pete  21:20  
we do, it's which is Medicare. So we have a Medicare card. And typically, if it's a decent size transaction, if it's something significant, like taking out a contracted mobile phone, you would need to meet a 100 point Id check, which requires, at minimum, a driver's license or Medicare card. And usually something like an F cost card or a bank card or something like that, or a utility bill, there's lots of alternatives, you can bring a birth certificate in. But typically your date of birth is a piece of information that's fairly crucial for a thief to know in order to clone your identity. And I didn't know if they knew that or not. So I took a lot of measures to protect myself probably got a little bit paranoid, I think that's kind of a typical reaction after the fact. So first of all, I redirected all of my mail to a post office box near my work. So basically my mailbox out the front of my apartment block in the not so nice part of town received zero surface mount other than junk. And, you know, a post office box is typically situated inside a post office, it's behind lock and key, but it's also typically behind a secure door that you know, is being filmed. You know, it's designed to prevent just opportunistic theft,

Michele  22:29  
those keys have a little bit of meat to them,

Pete  22:31  
they do, they certainly, certainly the locks are better quality than the crappy ones at the front of the apartment building. So you know, you do what you can,

Michele  22:39  
somebody would notice somebody with a, you know, a paperclip or that would get noticed.

Pete  22:44  
And in some post offices that's behind a secure door, where you've actually your key unlocks the door as well as your mailbox. So after hours, when there are post office workers coming and going constantly, which is pretty common during business hours, at least, you know, it's behind lock and key. And the second thing I did, I was concerned, someone's going to take out a mortgage with my name. And of course, I don't know exactly what these people have. So I set up a credit reporting alert. There's a few companies, I think worldwide, certainly in Australia, companies like Equifax, where you can pay them an annual subscription, at any time an organization checks your credit record for any reason, just checks the record, they don't have to make a transaction against it, you get an email or an SMS alert to let you know. And then you've given an opportunity to prevent that transaction. So if someone's doing it credit check, if you find out that, you know, Commonwealth Bank's doing a credit check against your account, and you know that it's not you, you have an opportunity to call both the credit rating company and Commonwealth Bank, and try and dissolve the situation before it goes any further. So I set that up. And then I had a conversation with my bank about what additional security they could offer me. And let me just say that the result was less than I you know, less than expected and less than I certainly desired. And they basically said, Look, we can set up an alert in our system that anytime you walk into the branch and ask to withdraw money or perform any over the counter transaction, you can set up an alert that asks us to cite something specific. So your driver's license, for example, because that was the thing, I couldn't figure out how you guys have my driver's license on record, you've literally got a copy somewhere. Because you take photocopies of ID when you open an account, right? How do they have my driver's license number, or the card number, which are two different things. The card number is obviously reissued every time they give you a new card. And in Australia that could be anywhere from 12 months to 10 years for the driver's license never changes. It's like your Medicare number. So it follows you for life. And they said well, we don't actually check against the numbers. We just check that your name and your photograph and everything lines up. I said okay, so can you set up an alert that every time I walk into the branch to perform an over the counter transaction, you actually check the number of the driver's license that it matches my actual driver's license and they said yes Yes, we can set it up. So literally, you can't open any of your accounts without a popup on the terminal window saying do not perform a transaction unless you received this information site driver's license number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said as an additional layer of security, because at this stage, I'm paranoid, can you please ask them to also check my firearms license. There's a few extra protections with firearms licenses in Australia that aren't afforded to driver's licenses, for obvious reasons when I explained them, first of all, it is a photo ID, but it does not have your address on it. So if you lose your firearms license, no one's going to come to your house and take your guns, it's not going to be the next step. So there's extra security precautions around it. It has a license number, it has your full name. It doesn't contain your date of birth. So I felt that that was more secure than a driver's license, because the firearms registry in New South Wales only communicates via surface mount which already redirected.

Michele  25:57  
When you apply for your firearms license. They do a pretty thorough check of view at that point, don't

Pete  26:03  
they? Do they do a police check and those sorts of things. But if you can clone a driver's license, you can probably clone a firearms license. But

Michele  26:11  
it's also something that's unexpected. Like if that if this had been in place when that guy went in, he might have gone in and they said, Oh, we have to see your firearms license. And he would have been like, Oh, I didn't plan on that.

Pete  26:24  
Yeah, it's it's exactly right. It's not uncommon. It's not like a thief is going to predict it. So unless they find evidence that I own a firearms license in my mailbox at the time, which would never happen. They only getting contact via surface mount once every five years. And obviously, I was in the middle of a cycle. So you know, someone who would clone a driver's license and say, I'm going to get this guy's money, he's not going to have a fake firearms license as well. So I requested the bank asked me challenged me essentially a security challenge for both my driver's license and my firearms license. So when I went into the branch after the event the branch manager happened to be in so that's who I was talking to. He said, Yes, absolutely. I can set all these alerts up, it'll every time you walk into the branch and we open your account, it'll will pop up and ask you for these two things.

Michele  27:09  
So that happened the next time you went in, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Pete  27:13  
So I thought, you know, being Paranoid Android as it was at the time, I did go into the branch a couple of weeks later, and I filled in a little slip, and I asked to withdraw my money. And I held up my driver's license, and I held it up for two or three seconds, so that they could see my photograph, my name, checked up, put it back down, and they handed me the $2,000, I'd requested to take any account. So all of this efforts, all of the drama, I'd already gone through to get to a point where I made the effort to set up the security challenges was all for naught. They just handed me my money.

Michele  27:53  
So are you still with

Pete  27:55  
that bank? No, no. So the literally the next day, I walked into a competing bank, opened an account, and then transferred all of my money out of my old bank and into my new bank. Now, I had a mortgage with that old bank. So that's quite a significant thing to do. I, my plan was and ended up being I transferred all my cash across first closed on my old accounts. And then at a later date, I moved my mortgage across because that's more significant refinancing. A home is not something you just do lightly. But I was hell bent on if, if this bank didn't take security seriously, after the fact, let alone before the fact because you know, Joe, average citizen is going to expect security is there to protect you from an event occurring in the first place. But if it has occurred, you think they would at least take it seriously after the fact. So I just said, You know what I'm done with this. I don't know if this other banks any better, but it can't be any worse, other than handing my money out on the street. So I switched banks, and that bank manager, I'll never forget this conversation, that bank manager rang me a week after I transferred all my money. He rang me and he said, Hi, I've I noticed that you've, you've taken all your money out and close your accounts. And I was just wondering, did something happen? Did you have another problem? And I said, Well, yes. After sending up all of the security challenges with you in the branch in person, I walked into the same branch that you run two weeks later, and took money out. And I was never asked for any of those details. He said, Oh, I'm sorry, that shouldn't have happened. I said, No, no, what shouldn't have happened is you allowing someone to take money out of my account in the first place? It's inexcusable, that you allowed somebody to take money out of my account and the second time now the fact that that person was me as irrelevant because they your bank tellers didn't follow your security protocols. So that tells me you don't take security seriously enough for me to want to bank with you. Because that is the minimum requirement of the definition of a bank. It's an organization that keeps your money safe. You don't take that seriously enough for me. I mean, you know, he was apology In one sense, and he, you know, he asked me if there was anything that he could do to encourage me to come back and I said, flat out No. On the other hand, he was quite blase about it. He said, Well, look, I understand that this is a bad thing that's happened to you. But at the same time your money was returned, it's all insured. That's not really got upset with him at that stage. And I said, then that my problem with that attitude is who pays your insurance premium. It's us the customers in our bank fees and our credit card interest in you know, day to day transaction fees. We the customers pay for your insurance policy to protect against our money going missing. And essentially, it's a refund that money. And the more people in your bank, that call on that insurance policy, the higher your premium is, the higher my Phaser. So if you take zero steps to protect your customers, apart from the hell that they have to go through for the period of time it takes to refund that money as a result of insurance. You're also driving up premiums up due to your Lex security, so I'm out.

Michele  31:01  
Yeah, that attitude of well, the insurance covered it. It's like, nevermind, the three weeks of you having to beg from your friends to eat ramen noodles. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure there were some bills that were due during that time and tried to figure out how to pay them

Pete  31:15  
there was and that was Yeah, so it was quite a challenging time. And it led to me changing banks. It also led to me maintaining those those credit check alerts for a couple of years.

Michele  31:44  
Wow, that was some story. And some interesting lessons learned. Are next story is from an old family friend, someone I've known since she was a little kid. But who is now a grown up working in a professional field. This is one of the most harrowing stories I've heard, especially for a young person just starting out in life. By her request, we're not going to use her real name here. So what name would you like to use today?

Astrid  32:11  
Today, you can call me Astrid. Alright, Astrid,

Michele  32:15  
so you've been a victim of identity theft. How many times

Astrid  32:19  
14 separate times,

Michele  32:22  
boy. So tell me a little bit about how you think this all started?

Astrid  32:26  
Well, like most individuals, I do enjoy online shopping. Unfortunately, when I was younger, I wasn't always conscious of the sites I was visiting, and the potentials security breaches that could have been happening. So I think that probably led to my demise.

Michele  32:49  
Okay. So you mean, you were putting your credit card number into these websites?

Astrid  32:54  
Yes, exactly. inputting my debit card information, visiting different sites, you know, even if I was just creating a login for some place, and security questions may have been tracked or kind of just given to prying eyes that I wasn't aware of, unfortunately.

Michele  33:17  
Okay, so there were security questions that maybe were on your social media, too.

Astrid  33:22  
Yeah, perhaps putting information out there and just not being conscious of everyone that could have had the potential of seeing those things that are used to standard security questions.

Michele  33:34  
So you've told me a bit about some of the times when your identity was stolen. So tell me now again, about the unemployment one that happened.

Astrid  33:44  
So in particular, I had been working at a smaller store for quite some time. And all of a sudden, the owner of the store was contacted by the unemployment department of our state. And the representative was asking the owner if I was an employee there, my length of employment and just trying to figure out if I was eligible for unemployment. So of course, the owner called my manager at the time and said, you know, this is very strange. I received a phone call about Astrid and that she's applying for unemployment. And my manager said, that's really odd, because I just spoke to her and as far as I know, she's still employed here, ploy. So yeah, it turns out that someone had gotten a hold of my information and was trying to file for unemployment with my name and social security number falsely. Wow,

Michele  34:46  
how long ago is that?

Astrid  34:48  
Um, I believe that would be about seven years ago now.

Michele  34:53  
Wow. So they definitely had your social security number, your full name. Mm hmm. You mentioned that you got laid off And then you went to apply for unemployment and it was not fun.

Astrid  35:05  
It basically turned into a logistical nightmare, because unfortunately, the company went under as all the employees were then applying for unemployment. An account had already been set up with all my information, of course. So the Employment Department had actually kind of frozen it when they had heard about this fraud. So I needed to not only go through the standard procedure of filing a police report contacting all three credit bureaus. But now I needed to deal with the state government as well for the unemployment department and verify my identity that I was in fact unemployed at this time, and that I rightly deserved the unemployment benefits. Well, and

Michele  35:53  
I imagine that was complicated by the fact that the company had gone under. So there was, was there anyone to contact or was that part of the problem, too.

Astrid  36:00  
Thankfully, I was referred to someone higher up in the organization who was able to assist me and verifying my identity. Of course, it did take about a month's time, so I wasn't receiving any compensation in that time, which again, was extremely frustrating. Thankfully, I was able to get it sorted out and received the benefits that I sorely needed at that time. Because I'm

Michele  36:27  
sure sounds awful. Now, you had also mentioned that one time you went in to get a new phone, and something happened.

Astrid  36:35  
Correct. I was prepared to go through the standard security questions. However, I hadn't realized that due to all the fraud, the answers had actually been changed. So when I gave, in fact, my mother's true maiden name, they were saying, well, that's not what we have on file.

Michele  36:57  
It's like, No, I I know my mother's maiden name. That's not it.

Astrid  37:04  
Exactly. It hasn't changed. Right.

Michele  37:07  
Okay. But you you eventually get that all sorted out?

Astrid  37:10  
Yeah. So thankfully straightened it out. And it's not as big of a problem as it once was.

Michele  37:17  
It just sounds like it's a pain to clean all this stuff up. If nothing else, it's, it's a pain. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. So then there were

Astrid  37:36  
the credit cards. Yes, it happened again a couple years ago. And I was trying to be proactive and diligent and making sure to monitor not only my bank accounts, but debit as well as credit card purchases transactions. However, one day and using one of these applications, it stated that I had several credit cards under my name, which was false. So then at that point, I needed to try and track down the agencies holding these credit cards, contacting them, and proving again, that these were not opened by myself, but were opened by identity thieves, and that they were all fraud and negatively impacting me.

Michele  38:25  
Well, now, how did you find that out? Was it by looking at your credit report? Because that might be the only way I know of unless they send you a bill to find out if there are new credit cards in your name.

Astrid  38:36  
Yeah, so one of them, I did see it through a website that is able to assist you with maintaining your credit score and credit history. And then I also started receiving invoices from companies that I was not associated with and saying that I had overdue bills and high balances. And so that was a really a tipping point.

Astrid  39:07  
It was just extremely frustrating. And, you know, we all have enough going on in our daily lives between work and personal life. And so now to have my identity stolen and being used for a whole smorgasbord of things that I was unaware of was happening. It takes a pretty heavy toll on your sanity, not to only mention your emotional state, because you have to exert so much more energy and time to try and contact the necessary authorities to write these wrongs. And so it just was that point where you're kind of saying, Well, what makes me so special in which everyone has to pretend to be me? Just that feeling of hopelessness. Mainly because You need to send certified letters make everything in triplicate, contacting necessary authorities, it just seemed endless.

Michele  40:09  
Yeah, I can imagine life is hard. It is to keep up with everything, you know, even just keeping my house clean challenge and having to go through all this as well. But it's not happening anymore. It sounds like, no. Well,

Astrid  40:26  
the last instance I had was maybe about two years ago, someone was trying to claim my tax returns.

Michele  40:35  
Yeah, I'd heard about that, were they able to do it. Um,

Astrid  40:40  
so they did succeed, however, I was able to contact my tax associate who helps me prepare my taxes every year, and they had put in, I'm not even sure what you would call it with the IRS to kind of stop that payment. So now I actually need to receive a special pin number from the IRS to even process my taxes. So without that PIN number, my IRS funds cannot go anywhere.

Michele  41:13  
So tell me some of the things that you do now to protect yourself.

Astrid  41:18  
Yeah, so not only did I freeze my credit reports with the three major agencies. However, when I do indulge my passion of online shopping, I just make sure that my purchases are made with a credit card as opposed to a debit card, mainly because disputing a credit card purchase is a lot easier. And not only are the funds not automatically transferred from your account, you know, there's usually a pending hold pattern in which hopefully, you have enough time to stop the transaction by contacting your financial agency and disputing it with them. Or one of the other options I do is just making sure that there is an encryption between myself and the website I am visiting. So just having that assurance that my personal information isn't necessarily being straight through, but it's routed through a third party system. Now, of course, also, I am highly vigilant of security questions. And I found it's actually just better to sometimes give false answers to the security questions. And if you can make something up all the better. And that way, there is less of a chance that you're at risk with those four my passwords especially I try and make sure that they are long complex, using special characters, as well as numerals. If you can use a space in places, that's all the better. One of my kind of low tech methods of keeping everything organized, because of course we all have many passwords we juggle is I actually write them down in a physical notebook. It's not something that save to any smart device or laptop or computer, but it is physical and kept hidden away safe in a locked drawer. So by having my passwords written down physically, I know at least that they cannot be compromised from a technological standpoint. Well, that makes sense. I also make sure to check my bank accounts and credit card statements daily. It is a bit of a routine, I've essentially worked into my everyday life of getting up drinking my coffee, and going through that to make sure that there is no suspicious activity that I do not recognize.

Michele  44:02  
Yeah, I noticed that you don't even use your real name on social media. Correct.

Astrid  44:07  
Also on social media, I tried to make sure to not list any of my personal information such as not using my real name in any of my social media accounts or tagging my locations and places. I try and just keep all of that to a minimum.

Michele  44:28  
And has this worked. I mean, how long has it been since the last time somebody tried to steal your identity?

Astrid  44:35  
Last time my identity was compromised was that particular instance of someone trying to claim my tax return money, but thankfully since then, I have not had any other instances of fraud.

Michele  44:50  
Well, that is a lot to do. It's kind of the price of convenience, I suppose. All our ability to do all our shopping online now.

Astrid  45:00  
It is a price of convenience for online shopping and, you know just going about in our very tuned in technological world. However, it's something that unfortunately so many people have to deal with. And it's just something we need to be more vigilant of in our daily lives as well.

Michele  45:26  
Well, Astrid, that is a heck of a story. Thank you so much for telling us about it today. And I hope it will help other people avoid the same fate.

Astrid  45:36  
Thank you for taking time to talk to me today. And I hope that my stories can assist others in dealing with identity fraud, and maybe give them a couple tips of how to conduct themselves better online. And hopefully, one day identity fraud will not be such a big issue.

Michele  46:06  
I want to thank my three guests for sharing their stories. If we've learned anything today, it's that identity theft is a serious problem, one that won't go away until we all take action to safeguard our information. If you've gotten a lot from this episode, I hope you share it with your friends in the hopes that we'll all avoid such a fate in the future. This is Michele Bousquet, from How Hacks Happen, signing off.