Posted on 02/04/2021 6:38:23 AM PST by rktman
Your “application for unemployment benefits has been approved,” stated the letter from the Illinois unemployment bureau a few weeks back. That was perplexing, since I never applied and wasn’t unemployed. So I immediately told my (part-time) employer and the state unemployment agency.
Turns out somebody had stolen my personal information – again. [Insert grimace emoji here.]
Since this was the third time I’d been a victim of identity theft and fraud, I was steamed and wanted to know how thieves kept getting my information and conducted their grifting. If I knew where they got my information, maybe I could change some of my online behavior or take better precautions. I spent a lot of time on the phone giving my state unemployment agency my details. They were so swamped, it took them weeks to get back to me after I left a voicemail reporting the fraud.
I realized I would have to take matters into my own hands. This led to a month-long odyssey that included interviews with security experts and law enforcement officials and some frightening insights about the modern thieves market called the dark web. It was also a dispiriting trek as I was reminded how helpless we can be in the face of global technology that makes life easier for both the law abiding and the criminal.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearinvestigations.com ...
My identity was hacked and my credit score went up.
(Old gag, but not far off)
I use the same password on all chat boards, and hackers probably know it.
So if you don’t like my post - it wasn’t me!
I was hoping after the assclowns got our debit cards they’d feel bad and make a deposit. No such luck.
A fella recently posted that at the rate things are going we would be living in vans under a bridge by the river.
I demanded to know how he knew my retirement plan.
We are dealing with this as I write. Mrs. L got three letters from the IDES yesterday. One confirmed a Change of Address request, one confirmed an application for unemployment benefits, and the third denied that application on grounds of fraud.
To be fair IDES called us back in less than an hour and completely wiped her “account” with them. I thoroughly documented all of the interactions with everyone we spoke to, just in case.
Now on to locking down everything else because apparently they have her SSN, our current address, her birthday, and her current employer.
So on top of dealing with the COVID we’ve had for the last two weeks, the Almighty decided we needed this, too.
I’m starting to hate 2021 even more than I did 2020.
L
That’s an old one. There is a great website that has all the major hacked DB’s that made it to the dark web. Run by a former Microsoft guy. You can lookup your email and/or password and see if it was contained in one of those. That’s where the got the real pw from.
It’s not IF, it’s only a matter of WHEN your info gets hacked. Use different passwords, enter as little info as possible. Use your initials only.
Bobby Fuller.
Horrible. 🙁
I’ve often wondered if Lifelock was reliable for protection.
Save your money. You can lock your credit on the big three credit agencies yourself. Plus you can see if you’ve made it “out there” yourself.
I’ve played that a time or two. LOL!
Roger that.
BTW - I did see your pics... nasty... what a bad boy lol
Or you can simply go to your credit card web site and lock them. All ours are lockable from their web sites. Thanks for the link.
I find it easier just to setup an alert for any purchase over zero (.01). Instant text messages on every card. I slide a card at the supermarket and my phone text message beeps before the card is even back in the wallet.
Thanks!
Now of course if you lookup your password and it’s “dog12”, there’s going to be a zillion hits. But if it’s “asdFG$11QWREG” and you get a hit, you’d better look deeper at where the hit came from.
Scary thing is most state UI systems are using ID.me as the sole verifiable proof of who you are.
More strict than e-verify (passport plus drivers license plus birth certificate plus proof of billing in most cases)
Good until they get hacked.
We have had our address changed twice where all of our mail was diverted to another location for weeks the first time and about a month the second time. The first time I was able to find out where the mail had been diverted to, which did me absolutely no good as the police had zero interest into looking into it. It is not their jurisdiction you see.
The second time the people at the post office after making me jump through all sorts of hoops, at first refused to even acknowledge that a change of address had again been done. After multiple calls it still took about a week to get any response back from them at all, and never anything meaningful. I ended up filing another Change of Address myself online to a different address. It was another week before we started getting our mail again. Then I was able to change the address back.
But what a nightmare and this was not even full on identity theft, although I am sure that was the intention.
Along with stealing checks and packages. I have lost all confidence in the people running our post offices and the US Postal Service. They were much less than helpful. No one would tell me anything at all the second time around at any point. It was quite obvious that everyone that I dealt with could not have cared at all and just were their to collect a paycheck. They enable this crime by doing changes of address with no verification any time someone fills out a little change of address card. When criminals steal mail this way the people I dealt with treated me like I was a nuisance. If you think that they would have any desire to find and bring the criminals to justice... you are going to get an education.
You already have a VPN, it's called HTTPS. If you can't click on the padlock to the left of freerepublic.com and every other important website you visit, then you need to stop immediately until you have fixed that. If you don't see the padlock, then type https://freerepublic.com You need to do that with every other website of any importance.
Also if your password is stolen at some insecure website, then a VPN won't help you at all.
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