BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!!


 
russ olin

russ olin

TVWBB Platinum Member
Recently this story happened to me & the wife. This spring my wife applied for her social security. This was done over the phone by one of their agents. I had filed 3 or 4 years earlier. Never no problems. In April she did her phone call interview, I also had to give out my info again because she drew off of me. No problems everything seems to be going fine. The wife noticed our monthly bank statement didn't show up in the mail. She calls the bank, they tell her that we are set up electronically. It was a BIG RED FLAG that we did not catch right away. She goes to the bank & they print out a statement for her. Long story short somebody got my information set up online banking in our checking acct. A month & half after the wife set up her SS. Sometime later we learned the bank says there in another email with our checking acct. Bingo! $25,000 gone. Just like that. They did leave us a little money... LOL Lucky for us if you catch this within 60 days your money is replaced by the bank. If you don't catch it within the 60 days you get hosed for however much money that they steal. We didn't know this but we sure do now. Best thing you can do is watch all your accts regularly. And if it does happen you put a fraud alert on your accts & SS#. People have been known to buy a house, car ect with someone elses SS#.
If anyone else has been through with this I would love to hear your story & what you did. And the best ways to combat this in the future.
p.s. stay sharp some one wants everything that you have.
 
That....ummmm...... <BEEEEEEEEP>s. Glad you caught it in time.

Unfortunately, the cynical side of me says that this is going to continue, until heads are on pikes at the gates. There's a huge incentive for identity theft, and practically no chance of getting caught.
 
It also doesn't help at all that all of our governments want us to move more digital.....like as in currency and ID's ect.
 
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JKalchik said:
That....ummmm...... <BEEEEEEEEP>s. Glad you caught it in time.

Unfortunately, the cynical side of me says that this is going to continue, until heads are on pikes at the gates. There's a huge incentive for identity theft, and practically no chance of getting caught.
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Actually you are right on the money. We asked the bank why they didn't slip us a notice that says our acct had been updated. and we would have known instantly that someone was messing with our bank acct. And since they waited several days to draw the money we could have shut down the acct before they took the money out. The bank tellers told us they do not have the time to notify everyone that there has been a change to the acct-password ect. Seems to me that a simple way to stop a whole lot of it. But what do I know about these things? They also told us it is a very common occurrence at the bank. Somehow in the future we are going to have to do better.
 
Barb is our finance minister/war dept. About a year ago she noticed some activity on our checking account that was suspicious. She contacted the bank and they said our account had been hacked. Fortunately nothing had been stolen yet and we changed passwords and the bank gave us a new account number. No problems since.
 
I agree with @Jay D in Jersey . Our bank notifies us of any suspicious activity and sends an email any time we make a change, asking us to respond if we didn't make the change. If they didn't, we'd definitely be hunting for another bank.
 
Yep, look for a new bank. Ours as well if you do the slightest change to an account, alarm bells are sent out, with texts and email to make sure it was you who did it
 
I have credit monitoring set up so everything that happens to my ssn is reported to me usually within 24 hours or less.

Just two weeks ago someone tried to open a credit card in my name.

I called and asked the credit issuing company which info was used and they told me.

I then called Experian and filed a fraud report. Doing this puts a red flag on your account for any new account that someone tries to open in that the creditor will take many extra steps before issuing credit on an application.

I also locked my credit file with a PIN. Ya need the PIN to unlock my credit to open any new trade lines.

of note, the people who applied for credit in my name weren’t able to answer the challenge questions. Thus they failed to establish a new line of credit.

Bottom line, you need multiple layers of monitoring of your SSN and credit file as that’s the first line of defense.

Side note, I was contacted by CHP a few weeks back as they took down a ring of bad actors. My dad’s bank accounts info was seized in that raid.

They had very, very recent account numbers and balances. I had just closed those accounts three weeks prior so the data was unactionable. But still. It was a cash account.

If you’re not vigilant, you’re doomed. Fraud and identity theft are on the rise and have been for many years.

Fail to plan and you’ll plan to fail.
 
Rich Dahl said:
Barb is our finance minister/war dept. About a year ago she noticed some activity on our checking account that was suspicious. She contacted the bank and they said our account had been hacked. Fortunately nothing had been stolen yet and we changed passwords and the bank gave us a new account number. No problems since.
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Hey man, glad you guys didn't loose any money. And Barb caught it quick. These guys once they got in they just watched the account for 3 weeks before they took what they took. And then continued till we caught on. Hope life finds both of you doing real well.
 
Brett-EDH said:
I have credit monitoring set up so everything that happens to my ssn is reported to me usually within 24 hours or less.

Just two weeks ago someone tried to open a credit card in my name.

I called and asked the credit issuing company which info was used and they told me.

I then called Experian and filed a fraud report. Doing this puts a red flag on your account for any new account that someone tries to open in that the creditor will take many extra steps before issuing credit on an application.

I also locked my credit file with a PIN. Ya need the PIN to unlock my credit to open any new trade lines.

of note, the people who applied for credit in my name weren’t able to answer the challenge questions. Thus they failed to establish a new line of credit.

Bottom line, you need multiple layers of monitoring of your SSN and credit file as that’s the first line of defense.

Side note, I was contacted by CHP a few weeks back as they took down a ring of bad actors. My dad’s bank accounts info was seized in that raid.

They had very, very recent account numbers and balances. I had just closed those accounts three weeks prior so the data was unactionable. But still. It was a cash account.

If you’re not vigilant, you’re doomed. Fraud and identity theft are on the rise and have been for many years.

Fail to plan and you’ll plan to fail.
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Yep, we are all on this now. The banks fraud dept advised us on the best things that we were to do.
Hopefully this will be the end of it. Time will tell. Not only do some want our money, some want our cars & vehicles. Some want our houses. Here we stay locked & loaded 24/7.
 
Bob Bailey said:
I agree with @Jay D in Jersey . Our bank notifies us of any suspicious activity and sends an email any time we make a change, asking us to respond if we didn't make the change. If they didn't, we'd definitely be hunting for another bank.
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Precisely. And any email will state, Dear Mr. Jones....NOT Dear Customer... and they will require two stage authentication for access in those situations. Any added email to any bank account and the bank must contact the account holder in a secure process to verify. Any bank that does not is third rate, bush league.
Been with Wells Fargo for decades and their security and online banking systems are top notch.
The OP should start shopping for a new bank. If they screwed that up, rest assured there are more problems ahead.
 
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I check out our bank, investments, and credit cards every morning just in case. Some of them have two tier verification direct to your cellphone. Another place that we have found fraud is in Medicare claims. Lastest gimmick is for Covid at home tests. We've had 3 claims for 8 tests per charge this year which only Medicare pays in full. About $97 a claim. We got ours free tests from the federal program and always expire before we use them.
 
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Well, after getting back with our bank we found out you have to be signed up with them to be notified for any changes to your account. We were not. I guess some of this is on us then. But we just didn't know you had to be signed up. I guess that we are just too old school. Anyway we are all signed up now, any changes that are made to our acct we will be notified via email or text as everyone else suggested. You are never too old to live & learn. As the new modern world gets more challenging every day for the older people & everyone. And the scum bags know it.
Imagine going on a 4-5 month vacation you think everything is alright & come back & everything you had is gone. Because you weren't at home watching your assets. That would really suck man. Stay sharp out there.
 
Dan Leighton said:
I check out our bank, investments, and credit cards every morning just in case. Some of them have two tier verification direct to your cellphone. Another place that we have found fraud is in Medicare claims. Lastest gimmick is for Covid at home tests. We've had 3 claims for 8 tests per charge this year which only Medicare pays in full. About $97 a claim. We got ours free tests from the federal program and always expire before we use them.
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That scam is hitting Medicare for millions... for you...nothing. It's frustrating to see but near impossible to effect.
 
russ olin said:
Well, after getting back with our bank we found out you have to be signed up with them to be notified for any changes to your account. We were not. I guess some of this is on us then. But we just didn't know you had to be signed up. I guess that we are just too old school. Anyway we are all signed up now, any changes that are made to our acct we will be notified via email or text as everyone else suggested. You are never too old to live & learn. As the new modern world gets more challenging every day for the older people & everyone. And the scum bags know it.
Imagine going on a 4-5 month vacation you think everything is alright & come back & everything you had is gone. Because you weren't at home watching your assets. That would really suck man. Stay sharp out there.
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How more "signed up" do you need to be with a bank that's receiving, holding and investing money you have placed in an account(s) you have with them? In order to do so you've already provided a lot of personal and contact information to them.
 
That's crazy!
A couple years ago, I went to pay for breakfast and my debit card was declined. I just used my credit card to pay for breakfast.
I called our bank after a bit and it seems that someone tried to use my debit card in Madrid, Spain!! It seemed suspiscious to the bank, so they blocked it's use.
I asked them to send me a new one, which they did, but for the next week, I had to call the bank any time I wanted to use my card so that they could unblock it!
 
My debit card got hacked 3 times. Twice at Home Depot and once at Schmuks. Bank had to change my account numbers and send a new debit card which then got stolen out of the mail box!
 
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