Watch your Personal ID

[Dizzy]

Identity theft warning:

My husband and I recently spent a month in another State where he received 4 weeks of dialysis tx.  We learned two weeks after our return home that his identity (Soc. Sec., Name, DOB) was stolen during that period of time.  A credit card account was opened in a store in that state on the day we began our two-day trip home.  We suspect that someone who worked at the out-of-state dialysis clinic stole his information and opened the account.  Everyone who worked at that location knew his personal information, as it was on every sheet of paper that the clinic worked from/recorded on.

We are pursuing the matter through the proper channels (we hope).  If our suspecions are true, I'll update with more specifics.


 

[jbeany]

Hope they catch them!

[okarol]

  That's terrible!

[kellyt]

Horrible!  Some people...   So sorry y'all are going through this.

[sullidog]

Goes to show one can't be too careful in todays world. I hope it gets settled, let us know of the outcome.
Troy

[monrein]

That's just unbelievable.  I hope karma bites the culprit hard in the butt...no, make that head...might hurt more.

[kitkatz]

That is awful! I griped when I saw my SS# was up on a computer screen for the world to see at one center.

[peleroja]

Watch out for LifeLock, too!  I signed up with them a few years back, and this year they charged my yearly fee to a credit card that I received (although I never asked for it).  I never acknowledged the account, so I have no idea how LifeLock found out about it.  Now I have to do battle with LifeLock.  Life's a bitch and then you go on dialysis!

[Stacy Without An E]

There has to a special room in the basement of Hell for individuals like this.  Stealing from a Dialysis patient?  The criminal should be forced to be on Dialysis the remainder of their lives as penance.

[monrein]

There has to a special room in the basement of Hell for individuals like this.  Stealing from a Dialysis patient?  The criminal should be forced to be on Dialysis the remainder of their lives as penance.

Or, as Sartre says..."Hell is others"...Well he actually said "L'enfer, c'est les autres", but there it is.  (From the play "Huis Clos"..."No Exit").

[Dizzy]

In early April, we finally brought our concerns to the attention of the dialysis clinic.  They initially were offended  by our accusations.  But when I gave them the address that was now appearing on my husband's credit report that was linked to the new account, and they realized it was the same as one of their employee's, their tune changed.  Also on the day of my husband's last treatment, the secretary was off, the offending employee worked, and most likely was able to access his personal information. 

That employee was terminated that day, and they also notified the same police agency we filed a report with. 

A follow-up phone call a week ago has not been returned by the police department requesting info on any action taken by them.   (had to leave a phone message requisting a return call)  However, apparently the police department did not followup on our suspiciouns.  Because just yesterday someone tried to open a cell phone account using my husband's info.  We received an alert today from Equifax via e-mail. 

[YLGuy]

It might not be someone from the clinic.  They probably do not shred personal information and may have just thrown some papers in the trash.  There are rings that will go through trash at certain places where they know personal information is not disposed of properly. 

[RightSide]

Yup,
the same thing just happened to me these last couple weeks.

I didn't even know it was happening until Discover Card, noticing that the "pattern" of my purchases had suddenly changed, phoned me to inquire if I had made all those purchases.  Of course I hadn't.  So they canceled those purchases, canceled my card, and issued me a new one.

[cookie2008]

It happened to us last year, someone got a hold of my husbands debit number and used it in Canada paid cell phone bills used it at the airpot, our bank put a hold on our account after we had three bounced payments, we did receive that money back excluding the bank charges. We have never been to Canada.

[Dizzy]

Oh it was someone from the clinic........

How else would that "someone from the clinic's" home address now be appearing on our credit report. 

They even went to the trouble of making a fake driver's license with my husband's name and date of birth on iit. They then used it when they opened a charge account in a department store near where they live.

[RightSide]

A more brazen case happened with a local supermarket chain in my state, some years ago.

Evidently, some very clever hacker had figured out how to hack into those terminals at the checkout lines that you swipe your credit card through to pay your grocery bill.  (Something that we had been repeatedly assured was absolutely impossible.)  And from then on, that hacker could read the credit cards that were being swiped through those supermarket terminals.  He stole a few of the numbers, but not many.

Each supermarket posted a sign at the entrance, advising all their customers to call their credit card companies and determine if their card numbers had been stolen and used by others.

[Henry P Snicklesnorter]

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