Identity theft

[pomtzu]

I got a letter in the mail today from American Express, stating that my application for a JetBlue card was denied. WHAT????? I have never applied to American Express for anything. I called them to see if I could get any info on who would have submitted the application, but of course, they were of no help. They "flagged" my name with a fraud alert, and told me to call the 3 credit bureaus on Monday, and have them do the same. This is darn scary!!!! Does anyone know of anything else that I can do to bring this to a screeching halt? Should I change the passwords on my bank and credit card accounts???

[Lady's Human]

Passwords should change, and besides notifying the credit reporting agencies, I would also notify any financial institution you deal with, and the postal inspectors.

Mail and wire fraud is their bailiwick.

[pomtzu]

Passwords should change, and besides notifying the credit reporting agencies, I would also notify any financial institution you deal with, and the postal inspectors.

Mail and wire fraud is their bailiwick.

I'm trying to figure how this happened, and the only thing I can think of is that one of those junk mail offers folks always get for credit cards, got delivered to the wrong address, and someone sent it in, since I have gone paperless on all of my accounts. If this was a real fraud, they certainly wouldn't have sent in an application to steal my identity with MY address - they would have used my name and THEIR address. Make sense???

Anyway - I'm still treating it as the real thing and will notify the credit bureaus and change all of my passwords that have any link to money, my address, or anything else that can identify me. What a pain!!!!!

[Karen]

I'm trying to figure how this happened, and the only thing I can think of is that one of those junk mail offers folks always get for credit cards, got delivered to the wrong address, and someone sent it in, since I have gone paperless on all of my accounts. If this was a real fraud, they certainly wouldn't have sent in an application to steal my identity with MY address - they would have used my name and THEIR address. Make sense???

Anyway - I'm still treating it as the real thing and will notify the credit bureaus and change all of my passwords that have any link to money, my address, or anything else that can identify me. What a pain!!!!!

Do also notify the Postal Inspectors - Lady's Human works for the Post Office, but even before that, we grew up with a guy in our church who was a Postal Inspector. He was the lay preacher one time when the regular pastor was on vacation, and showed up in a very nice suit! I commented, and he said, "Oh, yes, this is one of my 'go to court' suits. Whenever we catch a bad guy, I get to go testify to help put him or her away!" and appeared to really relish that part!

[Freedom]

Ellie, I think you best phone your credit card company as well. For mine, I can have them run through the last 5 charges, do that and see if anything went through that shouldn't have.

[Lady's Human]

Pom,

One of the ways this can happen involves a postal service employee being less than honest.

If it was a postal employee, the bastard needs to be off the workroom floor.