New identity theft scenarios
This one got forwarded to me by a co-worker.
Just wanted to let in all of my friends and family on a secret a learned while attending an Identity Theft class put on at the Ontario Convention Center on March 22, 2005.
While in the class we did a little experiment…we took a blank check and wrote on it with just a regular pen and then for the signature we used a “gel” pen. When you soak the check in some acetone (aka: nail polish remover) the regular ink disappears but not the “gel” pen ink. (If you don’t believe me, try it yourself) This is one of the easiest ways a “crook” can get money from your account. Beware that they don’t always soak the entire check, they leave your signature, and dab out the amount or just the amount area.
Another thing, if you drop your mail off into the designated “blue” U.S. Postal mailboxes, you are making a mistake. Crooks will take “rat trap paper” and fish it into the mailboxes and are able to get your bills with your checks in them out. “They” don’t always want to erase your checks, they just want your checking account number. I hope by now you have figured out not to use the “red” flags on your regular roadside mailboxes, instead drop off all of your mail inside the actual post office or do online banking.
This goes for incoming mail too. Don’t leave your mail for too long after mail has been delivered, especially at a curb mailbox or a community mailbox. A community mailbox, just one pull on the back and the crook has everyone’s mail on the block. Yahoo for crooks. The best thing to have is a locking mailbox, a mail slot that goes into a house, or a postal mailbox at the post office.
One other important tip. Please get a cross-cut shredders, not one of those long one way strip shredders. Believe it or not, Crack heads (aka: meth users, crank users) do not sleep!! They stay up all night and piece those papers together just hoping to find a social security number, account number, or anything to find out an identity. “They” don’t want it necessarily, because they are addicts, but a “profile” on the streets will give them more of what they live for…Methamphetamine.
I tell you all this not to scare you, but to make you think twice about everything that you do. Protect yourself, no one else is going to do it. Never think that you will never be the “victim”. If this does happen to you, it takes at least 400 hours to correct this. This is time that none of us have nor want to spend on fixing something, like credit, especially when you might possibly been able to prevent it from happening.