Hi everyone,

This is a little off topic, but since quite a few of us purchase products over the internet I thought I'd let you know of my experience with this recently and tips to avoid it happening to you.

My credit card was compromised back in August.  Apparently someone got a hold of my credit card number and had enough of my personal info, including my SSN, to change the address and phone numbers.  Luckily the credit card company's fraud dept saw the discrepancy between purchases and address and locked the card down.  The old credit card acct was cancelled and a new one issued.  Guess what?  The thiefs tried to change it again.  The credit card company told me to add a password to my account, so anyone that may have gotten my acct # must provide the password to make any changes.  They also told me it is up to the victim to initiate action against the thief.  The credit card companies do not pursue prosecution.

In truth, the date that this happened lead me to believe someone in my apt complex received my August statement.  Once they had that info, they did a search on the internet and somehow found my SSN.  Very scarey.

Here's what I did:
*Added passwords to all my credit card accts.
* Contacted one of the 3 credit reporting agencies to initiate a fraud alert on my credit report.  The agency then sends info to the other two.  You answer a questionaire online, so anyone that opens a new credit line must answer the questions before it will be allowed.  This alert lasts for 3 months. 
* Pulled a credit report and reported any discrepancies.  The address that they switched my statement to was also on the credit report.
* Filed a police report.
* Filed a identity theft report with FTC.
* Signed up with a credit monitoring program that captures info from all three agenices and check weekly.  The other one I was using only captured one.
* Use Paypal when ever possible.  Prevents financial #s from being sent,
* Signed up for e-statements for bank accts, credit cards, etc.  My mail person continually puts wrong mail in the wrong box.  Very frustrating!!

The ones in red you can do now to protect yourself.  Its amazing how violated you feel when this happens.

Hope this helps some of you!!

GB