"Well Cletus, should we call the kitties on this one?"
"Gee Bubba, I dunno."
"You two figure it out, I'm gonna go sleep on the porch."
Posted on 11/11/2005 12:36:21 PM PST by Nigosi
My family and I recently went on a cruise vacation that left out of New York City. When we arrived in New York we got straight off the airplane and went straight to the pier and registered to get on the ship. While registering you are required to show a lot of personal information to prove that you are who you are. Upon returning home from our vacation my in-laws received a phone call from a department store credit firm inquiring about credit that had been applied for and used under their names. Of course, it was not them since we had already returned home to another state. My wife and I went ahead and put fraud alerts on our credit reports just for safe measure, low and behold, almost a month afterwards we recieved the same type of phone call. Even though the alerts were on the credit reports, the department store still allowed the people to get credit under my wife's name. Now the paperwork of proving it wasn't us begins. Please be aware of your surroundings when taking a cruise or any other vacation. If asked for your SSN, ask why they need it, and how will it be protected and I would even go as far as getting the persons name who took the information.
My wife recently had her ATM/Debit card stolen. She works at a parcel mailing place part-time. She keeps her purse in the back of the store and one of the package delivery drivers swiped it out of her purse. She and her boss figured they knew who did it. Due to her doggedness in not letting it go and her calls to the PD and the stores where it was used plus the bank, they caught the perp, just who they thought it was. Turns out he used a fake name to get hired plus was wanted in a couple other states for burglary and robbery. He's cooling his heels in a Texas jail as I type. The bank was quick in taking off the $300 in bogus charges to our account. You've got to act quick to catch these guys. The store where he used the card was within a day of taping over the surveillance tape.
"Well Cletus, should we call the kitties on this one?"
"Gee Bubba, I dunno."
"You two figure it out, I'm gonna go sleep on the porch."
It is amazing how easy it is for these people to steal this information. I have been in contact with the stores that they tried to obtain credit and they do have video and as soon as you made your post....I did contact oneof them and made sure they had not erased it. So I APPRECIATE THAT THOUGHT!
Note: You do NOT have to give out your SS number to go on a cruise. The cruise lines ask for it, but you have the right to refuse it.
We had to straighten this out with Carnival before we went on a cruise with them.
Port Authority personnel at the NYC piers are unconscious. It would be so easy for terrorists to slip on board a cruise ship there.
We waited 4 hours to board there because one of their cameras broke down. (You have to get a photo ID before boarding).
Then, each time we entered a port and I wanted to disembark, they swiped my ID card and a different person's picture showed up on the screen. Nevertheless, they allowed me to disembark and re-embark!
Homeland Security, please take note of this HUMONGOUS GAP in Port Security!!!
Has anyone else here had experiences like this!
Out of curiosity, was her card the type that needs a pin code for the purchase to be completed? I only ask because several years ago, someone (a mover that was packing up my household belongings for a cross-country relocation) stole my Visa credit card and used it to make cash advances out of 2 atm machines. This was just a regular Visa credit card, not linked to any bank account for debits or anything like that. He had to have a pin number to get cash advances, and I had destroyed my pin number (I don't need a credit card for cash advances) and I had no idea what the pin number even was. I never was able to learn how he was able to do that without a pin code, unless he had a contact at the bank that issued the credit card that provided that to him.
Her card can either be used as a debit card or a credit card. It only needs a pin when used as a debit card. The guy made the charges using it as a credit card.
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