Protect Yourself from Personal Fraud, Credit Card Fraud, and Identity Theft

When I was 19 years old I had two credit cards. One for personal use, and one for business use. I often subscribed to newsletters and Internet services with my business card so I didn't think anything of it when I first noticed a charge for $48 on my card. The next month, it seemed odd because while I remembered paying for a one-year subscription to something, I didn't remember it being a recurring charge.

I called my credit card company which promptly blew me off and told me to call the number listed by the company name on my credit card bill. After calling this number I was asked to provide information in order for the man who answered the phone to access the account.

As soon as I gave him my name he told me that wasn't the information on the account and he wouldn't be able to help me. I asked what company this was and explained that I was calling because there was a charge on my bill that I did not recall authorizing. He gave me the business name, and must have recognized the confusion in my lack of response, because he then sighed and announced, "We sell porn online."

I was absolutely appalled. I told him I most definitely did not purchase this and asked what I had to do to get the charge reversed. He told me that since my name didn't match the name on the account he couldn't do anything. Pretty ridiculous, I thought.

I went to the Sheriff's Department and spoke to one of the local officers. I explained that my credit card company blew me off, the company that put the charge on my account refused to help me, and asked what I needed to do to file a legal complaint. The officer took the information he needed to contact both companies and said he would look into it.

A few days later I returned to find out what he had discovered. The porn company had, in a disgusting lack of judgement, authorized some creep from Australia to use my credit card even though he had no matching information except the number. The name, billing zip code, and phone number didn't even match. (Pretty pathetic for 2001 technology!) Since the guy wasn't in the US, there was little I could do, but for my trouble I was treated to a half-hour lecture on why I shouldn't use my credit card online.

I immediately got new cards and numbers for both my accounts. I was credited for the most recent month but since I failed to notice the first charge, ended up paying for it.

After hearing more and more information in the media about credit card fraud and identity theft, I signed up for an online service that gives you a free look at your credit report. In order to get the free report, you have to sign up for the $9.95 monthly service, which you can cancel after a 14-day trial if you don't wish to pay for it. I got my report, cancelled the service a few days later, and went on my merry way.

Being the slick company they are, this agency decided to ignore my cancellation request and billed me $9.95 through my bank account. I emailed the agency and reminded them that I had cancelled my service. This happened twice. The third month I was livid.

I tracked down the phone number for the company, which was well hidden on their website. Unfortunately for a friend of mine, he arrived in my office just as I was tearing into one of the service reps. (Unfortunately for me, I didn't tape record the conversation.)

The woman who answered the phone told me that they didn't accept cancellation requests online. I asked why they had a cancellation form online that they directed people to use if they weren't going to honor it. She didn't give me an answer.

I told her that I wanted a refund for the last three months that my bank account had been charged for the service that I had cancelled. She told me that they did not give refunds.

I asked for her name, which she refused to give me. I asked for her supervisor's name, which she also refused to give me. After getting nowhere arguing about those two points, I asked for their company headquarter's phone number. She told me that she wasn't going to give it to me. Being particularly dumbfounded that this person, who supposedly worked for a credit monitoring agency - an agency which we trust with our most private information, was repeatedly denying me information, I launched into a very loud and unfriendly arguement. (At this point, my friend Matt was making himself small in the corner, and I was afraid he was going to start rocking or sucking his thumb!)

After over twenty minutes on the phone I had gotten nowhere. I had been refused names, so I couldn't even legally record who I had spoken to. I had been refused contact information for the company headquarters, so I couldn't even write a proper complaint. I felt small, helpless, and VERY very angry.

I ended up closing my bank account. Fortunately it was not the account my debit card was through, so it wasn't a total loss.

Just a few months ago, I received a letter in the mail sporting a company logo I didn't recognize. Usually I throw this kind of stuff out, but this I opened. It was from a collections company I had never heard of, claiming to represent a company I'd never heard of, claiming I owed them an amount of money I didn't recognize. At that point I just about threw it out again, but seeing the official looking copy about "an attempt to collect a debt" I called the number listed on the letterhead.

My first clue should have been that after listening to the phone ring 17 times, the woman answered, "Hello?" No name, no company name, nothing telling me who I was calling. Just "Hello?"

I told her I was calling about the letter I had received. She put me on hold for 3-4 minutes while she "accessed my account." She came back online to tell me that her collections company had been put in charge of collection this money by XYZ company, which owned ABC company, a business I had not dealt with in at least six years. But the good news was that if I gave them 50% of the amount due within 40 days, they were willing to write off the debt and wouldn't contact the credit reporting agency.

I told her I had not done business with ABC company in at least six years. She responded by saying it was a "very old debt." I told her that they had never contacted me about it and she replied with "it's a very old debt." This angered me that she had nothing else to say about it, and I told her, "You know, to be honest, my first reaction was to file a complain with my Sheriff's Department for a fraudulent attempt to collect a debt, because I have never heard of you, XYZ company, or this amount due. She repeated that it was an old debt, and without skipping a beat asked if I would like to make my payment via Visa or MasterCard.

I nearly lost it. I yelled that No, I will NOT be making a payment until I receive a confirmation in writing from ABC company that this IS a valid debt. Furthermore, at that point if they can prove that it IS a valid debt, I will gladly make a check out to them, but not to this mystery collections agency, nor to XYZ mystery company. She said she would put a note in my account but wasn't sure if they would do that.

I told her that if they didn't and I received any more correspondence from the collections agency, they could deal with it through a police officer and/or a lawyer, but I would not be harrassed by a debt collector, and I hung up.

After a few weeks of putting it off, I finally sat down to write a letter to the collections company, XYZ company, ABC company, the Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin, and the Attorney General of the State of Ohio, where the collections company PO Box was. The letter I wrote explained what I had received, my phone communication with the collections company, and a strong statement that until I received writen notification from the ABC company that yes, this is a valid (very old) debt, I would not be making any payment.

After finishing the letter I did a search on Google to find the mailing address for the XYZ company, as it was not in the collections letter. What to my wondering eyes did appear, but search results FULL of websites such as Scam Busters, Fraud Alert, Bad Business Bureau, etc. Evidently, both the collections company and XYZ company are on several people's (and lawyers) fraud alert lists. I even found one lawyer who specialized in prosecuting such companies and both these companies' names were emblazoned on his website. Forums and discussion boards were full of complaints from people who had been harrassed by phone, email, and postal mail from these companies. Not only was this harrassment taking place, each person mentioned a different ABC company, besides the one that I had been told about. Some had paid hundreds or thousands of dollars, just to find out they wanted more, or were this time representing a new company.

Full of this new information, I printed out 22 pages of my findings, rewrote my letter to state that I was flat out refusing to pay the bill because I believed the companies to be fraudulent, and mailed it to the collections agency, ABC company, and two attorney generals.

A few weeks later I received another letter from the collections company, notifying me that my 40 days was up (it had actually been only 20ish), and if I did not pay my bill they would report me to a credit company.

Shortly after that I received an email from the Attorney General of the State of Ohio. They had sent a letter to the collections company requesting a written reply to my allegations, and had assigned a mediator to my case. They would notify me when they heard back.

Shortly after that, I received another letter from the State of Ohio saying that the collections company had dropped the debt, and I should be receiving written notification of this shortly.

A few days later I received a letter from the collections company. The weirdest part was that it was hand addressed, and the return address was from a rubber stamp. The letter enclosed did indeed tell me that the "matter had been dropped" and was not on the same company letterhead that they had sent the first two letters on.

I am pleased that I was able to get this resolved, but I am thoroughly annoyed at the amount of time and money I had to put into it. This was literally the last straw for me and I became downright retentive about giving out personal information and how I used my money. While many of the things I did were a little on the paranoid side (yes yes, I admit it) they are all things that each and every one of us should be doing to protect ourselves, our businesses, our families, and our financial futures.