It has been two years since I have been a victim of credit card and identity theft. This was right before I was introduced to Bitcoin. The two criminals were able to sign up 8 credit cards totaling $50,000 and make two lines of credit, at two local jewelry stores. BTW one was $30k venture capital one card. I keep my personal information locked up and secure. It was a big slap in the face when I started to receive credit cards in the mail, that I never signed up for. As the days went by, letter after letter of congratulations kept coming in for opening these cards. One good thing is, I was able to call the credit card companies and cancel the cards. Also, I was able to call the two stores and cancel the lines of credit. Thank God they were only able to charge $2000 on one card. They even paid for a month of their car insurance through one of the credit cards. I had to file a police report and show the officer all the information I was able to retrieve. He was astounded by the number of cards and letters.
There was one flaw in this stupid act of fraud. They opened a Walmart Credit card with a $2k limit, at a Walmart in a parish (county) that is close. I called the Walmart loss prevention department. I explained to the lady all that was done. She informed me that she has had a lot of fraud complaints at that Walmart. I have never stepped foot in that place. So, I called the Walmart credit card company and was able to get a receipt emailed and printed. They bought beer, a Nintendo games and $1800 in gift cards. It detailed the register number and the time of the purchase. I was able to give the information to the Walmart prevention loss department. She was able to retrieve the camera footage. It took about two days for the lady to call me back. She told me that the person opened a Walmart credit card and charged it using my information. That wasn't the worse part, the clerk was his girlfriend, signing him up for the credit card. I had to go file another police report in the other parish (county).
It took about two months before the police were able to retrieve enough evidence to lock these people up. Of course, they were bailed out. Meanwhile, they attempted to open various other cards. I had to call the credit bureaus and put 90-day blocks on all my credit. I requested my credit report from all three credit bureaus. The report aided me in blocking them. I had to get Equifax security blocker and life lock. It became a big hassle, I couldn't buy anything with credit. It even affected me almost six months after, when I went to buy a new car. It took almost a year to prosecute these people and now they must pay me restitution. One of the criminals is on the run and is wanted in other states. I really hate accusing people, but it may have been my former employee that gave my information to these criminals. She lives close to them in the same town and, she had them both as mutual friends on facebook.
This occurrence really opened my eyes and made me realize how vulnerable we are. We walk around today with checks, well some of us. The checks have all the information for a scammer to copy, yeah even a clerk or whoever takes the check as a form of payment, can go in and use that account. I know the bank can refund the money or something if fraudulent transactions are present, but it's such a hassle. We also carry credit cards around and think it’s safe. During a trip to Hawaii, on a stormy day, I saw something in the street. It was a credit card, an Alaskan Airline credit card, think those cards have very high limits. I searched Facebook and located the owner of the credit card. I was able to verify by his middle name and the guy just moved there from Chicago. He was happy to get his card back. I had another instance where I found another credit card only with the business name on it. Again, I was able to find the owners on Facebook and verify the name of the business on the card. It just takes one time for some criminal to steal someone's purse or even for you to just accidentally drop a credit card. I would say make a copy of all the credit cards, front and back and keep it in a safe. This will help you in case one or all are stolen. Then you can call and cancel them. Also, limit the number of cards you carry on you. Try using something like apple pay or some smartphone payment app.
Getting into Bitcoin has changed my whole view on securing my money. I learned how to hold my own keys, not to hold Bitcoin on exchanges and found different forms of encryption to protect my personal information. My passwords became longer. I will have to say my private keys have become more important to me, than my social security number. Never trust anyone with your private keys and if you do use an exchange, quickly get it in and out to a secure hardware wallet. The Cold storage wallets, like a trezor, have proven to be the ideal form of securing your assets. Be diligent and always watch your back, because you never what a person's intentions are.