<div class="IPBDescription">For preventing identity theft</div> Has anyone here had their identity stolen? What are the best, and worst, credit card companies as far as preventing, and dealing with identity theft.
ByekaName changed from Freak83TorontoJoin Date: 2003-03-13Member: 14484Members, Constellation
My mom had her's stolen twice. No idea on a good credit card vs. a bad one though. Any respectable one will put a flag on your account meaning that you're a victim of identify theft though.
For the most part, any respectable bank should provide plenty of security.
Sometimes security breaches cause ID theft, but not usually. Be careful with sensitive documents, like shredding and keeping them locked up, goes a LONG way for better security.
They can monitor any uses or your name in legal documents, purchases, and whatnot, and there is sometimes evidence into who did it in the first place. But from what I understand, they basically lockdown everything in your name, if anything gets used, they've found your man, if not, the world may never know.
Marik_SteeleTo rule in hell...Join Date: 2002-11-20Member: 9466Members
edited June 2005
The best credit cards to prevent physical identity theft [read: prevent someone who picked up a lost card from using it] are ones that have a picture of your face on them. My hypersensitive ad-blocking hostfile is preventing me from getting to some sites to link to an example, but a PDF I found in a google search claims that Citibank was the one to introduce this idea with their Photocards. I imagine various Visa and Mastercard credit cards have this option.
Well even if they have your picture on them what's to stop someone from buying something on the internet? And if they did catch someone using your credit card what would be the punishment for that person?.. I know it'd depend on how much they spent. And could you get your money back?
I think Captial One is pretty big on the "not liable for fraudulent charges" thing, but then again by now I would think almost all of them are.
Best thing to do is be as paranoid as you can about your personal data and hope you don't get vicitimized. You know, shred things, etc. After all if someone steals your identity, credit cards are probably going to be the least of your worries. You gotta worry about social security and all that stuff, and that's not as easy as simply calling the credit card companies (who are suprisingly willing to write-off fraud things)
All cards are equivalent, but you must check with your bank for side services. For example, mine does a special "i-net" card that allows unparallelled protection on online services (I can't give details, I don't know exactly) while allowing either equivalent services for everyday use, or you can even deactivate the offline part to be sure no-one will use it if they find the card.
<!--QuoteBegin-SillyGoose+Jun 27 2005, 03:45 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SillyGoose @ Jun 27 2005, 03:45 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> as far as particular credit cards go, I dunno, but I do know that when buying stuff online paypal is pretty secure. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I had my old paypal account hacked into not so long ago. I was also realy careful too, i never gave out any of my details, nothing. But it still was hacked, luckly i had the details of an old expired credit card on there, so the person who hacked it got nothing.
Paypal customer services where very helpful though!
I had my Capital One MasterCard numbers stolen(?) and used to charge thousands of dollars worth of ... stuff.
I got a call from Capital One (it was right after I charged a new Dell, 'returned' it (before it shipped to me) and then charged a newer one) - they were calling to inform me of 'questionable charges' - I figured it was just me and my crazy computer buying antics. Anyways it was with my other CapitalOne credit card (one I hadn't used in over a year). They listed a few of the places that had the largest charges to - after I denyed authorizing them, they said this happens sometimes - and that my cc number was 'guessed' - somehow these people pull credit card numbers out of a hat and try to use them until it works --- it seemed odd to me, but thats the explination Capital One gave me.
At any rate... they sent me some paperwork (three simple pages) - cancelled that card and reissued me one. And 'removed' the charges from my statement. I'm not sure, I think the company who accepted the credit card is liable for the charges unless they can provide my signature (in person charges) or proper billing address (online charges) - and the companies couldn't provide either.
Comments
Sometimes security breaches cause ID theft, but not usually. Be careful with sensitive documents, like shredding and keeping them locked up, goes a LONG way for better security.
Best thing to do is be as paranoid as you can about your personal data and hope you don't get vicitimized. You know, shred things, etc. After all if someone steals your identity, credit cards are probably going to be the least of your worries. You gotta worry about social security and all that stuff, and that's not as easy as simply calling the credit card companies (who are suprisingly willing to write-off fraud things)
I had my old paypal account hacked into not so long ago. I was also realy careful too, i never gave out any of my details, nothing. But it still was hacked, luckly i had the details of an old expired credit card on there, so the person who hacked it got nothing.
Paypal customer services where very helpful though!
nuff said.
You can get a photocard.
If some one does sometihng fradulent, AmEx treats their customers WELL!
then again you pay for ussing an AmEx, and any where you use it pays also (yah, AmEx sucks everyone dry), thus why they are not as common.
And if you see any one with a Black AmEx, ph33r them, those cards = AmEx loves you (you can't actualy aply for it, it is purly invitation only)
Oh, and no company actualy hunts down people that steal identeties as it is rarely worth the effort.
I got a call from Capital One (it was right after I charged a new Dell, 'returned' it (before it shipped to me) and then charged a newer one) - they were calling to inform me of 'questionable charges' - I figured it was just me and my crazy computer buying antics. Anyways it was with my other CapitalOne credit card (one I hadn't used in over a year). They listed a few of the places that had the largest charges to - after I denyed authorizing them, they said this happens sometimes - and that my cc number was 'guessed' - somehow these people pull credit card numbers out of a hat and try to use them until it works --- it seemed odd to me, but thats the explination Capital One gave me.
At any rate... they sent me some paperwork (three simple pages) - cancelled that card and reissued me one. And 'removed' the charges from my statement. I'm not sure, I think the company who accepted the credit card is liable for the charges unless they can provide my signature (in person charges) or proper billing address (online charges) - and the companies couldn't provide either.
I fully trust Capital One with fraud protection.