Posts have been pretty slim lately as most of my time has been spent dealing with a problem I turned up last week. It has to do with a topic that is pretty common today. Identify Theft. This however, is what I thought was an unusual twist. It involved counterfit checks not my credit cards The Police tell me that it is increasingly common.
Here is what happened. I check my bank account several times a week and have used Quicken since version 1 to do so. Downloading my transactions and matching them against tickets. When I checked on this day there was an unusual transaction I did not recognize. It was a cleared check with a number that did not match with my account. So I then went into online banking where I see images of the checks. The check was made out to Kroger for about 200 dollars. There is only one problem I never write checks to Kroger. In fact our check usage has dropped to almost nothing paying on two places once per month with checks. So I called the local Kroger and had them look up where this Kroger was. I had the store number from the check. Turned out to be in Houston. It gets better. Apparently they had also counterfeited a Drivers license with my correct number and date of birth and expiration. Police assured me this is also increasingly common. If you have never looked there are sited that sell your information for 49 dollars you can get a background check on anyone. I am sure if they used this site they paid with a bogus credit card. That bit of irony is fitting and these sites deserve whatever they get.
Any way I went to my bank we looked at the info and my banker agreed fraud and not a bank error. We froze the account. Luckily all of my monthly bills had already cleared. I then went to the police and filed a report. Giving them the names of the two places who receive checks from us. One is the likely candidate where the information was taken from as it of the two is the only one that had my drivers license on file and the only check I write. Pam writes the others. The counterfeiters had used my signature not Pam's and they had signed it like I signed this check which is the only one I sign that way. Due problems with a stolen credit card number about six years ago I have a signature that I use for each card that is just a little different that allows me to identify that account. Now the problem is just their being able to prove it. The same people tried to buy an apple computer as well but that check did not come in until after I had frozen the account so that transaction did to hit.
We are very carefull and shred everthing that has our name on it. It never occured to me but should have that people could access your checking account with out actually stealing your checkbook. All the have to do is go to the nearest office supply store and they can buy checks that can be doctored on any printer. I now know from the police that drivers licenses can be easily forged. All the criminal needs is a scan or copy of real check to counterfit one. In these times there are a lot of people working for little better than minimum wage that would be willing to scan or copy those where they work and sell them to others that will actually do the counterfiting. It is a difficult thing to catch and or prove so they have little risk. Since most of the attention is focused on credit cards the counterfitters have little risk as well. It would be far different if they had passed the checks here in Murphy as the police would have easy access to survelance tapes and be able to interview the clerks who took the checks. Being in Houston the local department will not have the resources to do much unless there turns out to be a lot of people affected. Even then the lickelyhood will be that the checks will be passed in large geograhic area. The one that made it through on my account was in Houston the second that was caught was in Sugarland. While you would expect the bank would have cought the forgery when it was presented checks make up such a small part of their business these days that there is not enough oversight. Since the crooks used a fair approximation of my signature the checks went through. All of the errors in the counterfit are things the bank does not look at. It had the right routing and account number and it had a resonable signature and the amounts matched so on it went.
I have since spent quite a bit of time getting everything untangled. The account in question had been open for twenty one years so I have to touch each of my online bill accounts and update them. I also have to check through all of them to make sure they were not hit. I said a word to the wise in the title so here is what I learned from this.
1. Even if you use a product like Quicken you need to check daily.
2. Use your online bankiing and set up the alerts. I used online banking but had not set up my alerts.
3. Set up the alerts on your credit card.
4. Thieves don't just target credit cards.
5. Sign up for online banking.
6. Most banks offer online bill pay - use it. Pay all bills with online banking.
7. Do not use your debit card to pay for daily transactions.
8. Have two credit cards and only two that you use for daily transaction. Make all of your purchases on them. The fraud protection is much greater.
9. Set up the alerts on your credit card.
10 Rotate the two credit cards. Three month off and three months on. When off do not use the second account for any reason.
The reason to have two cards is that if one is compromised you can switch to the other will you are dealing with the problem and while your provider gets you new cards.
11. Subscribe to a credit watch service that will notify you when inquires are made on your credit with any of the credit companies. (I use credit watch and have for over 10 years) Make sure they send alerts daily.
12. Pay for small purchases with cash.
13 If the cashier looks suspicsous consider making your purchase somewhere else or use cash.
14. Only deal with large online services and pass on buying items online from small unknown businesses.
15. Do not give anyone a check and if you must do not let them write your drivers license number date of birth etc. on them.
16. Keep all receipts and check them against your account often. I aslo log each ticket into a spreadsheet. It is far quicker when i need to refer to them to see the basic info on a spread sheet and not have to find the ticket in a pile of tickets.
While this has not been fun we were lucky to be able to shut it down quickly and that it happened after all the monthly bills had cleared, which brings me to the final bit of advice.
Know your banker. If you don't or they are not helpful find a new bank. Mine put in a lot of effort to get things handled promptly. And although everything did not work as we expected she did not stop until all awas correct.
Hopefully your life is less eventful
More Later
Bruce and Pam
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