Identity Theft is a Bitch.

Posted by Erik | Filed under Uncategorized

So in late May, my PayPal account was compromised and more than ?3400 ($6700) was spent on fraudulent EBay auctions. I caught it and had my bank and credit card put a stop on all PayPal payments. To PayPal’s credit, they caught the unusual activity, limited my account and notified me. They’ve since reversed the transactions as well. I’m out nothing.

This morning I check my online credit card transactions and see an odd $26.82 WORLDOFWARCRAFT transaction plus the standard 3% FOREIGN TRANSACTION FEE. I don’t play the game and never have. With the foreign transaction and the odd dollar amount it’s clear that it was a ?20 charge, made on a European site.

I call my card’s bank. The guy tells me I actually have to call the merchant myself to resolve this, despite my argument that I have nothing to do with the merchant and it’s clearly a fraudulent, compromised charge. The guy must be new. I have such stellar credit history that he should have wiped the charge out immediately, frozen my account and issued a new card. But alas, no.

So I make the effort of calling WoW support. I only found a tech support # in California. I call and it’s suggested I call European billing, but then am told to try North American billing so it’s toll free. I have free long distance to UK so I call their 0800 billing support number.

Javier (I think, the guy had a heavy Manchester accent) listens to my explanation that I’m only calling for legal reasons per my credit card bank’s advice. He asked for my card number which I reluctantly give - I really wanted to see what he dug up. My card was charged for one-time purchases on two different WoW accounts. He wasn’t overly willing to cancel those accounts and that’s not really my issue. I hang up.

I call my credit card back. They have an automated fraud alert system that prompts you about suspect charges. I had one the first time I called about a $4 charge at Fry’s grocery store. Lame. Clearly mine, I accepted it. On this call it asks me about a $39.99 charge to “COMPUTER STORE” - WTF?

No, not mine. I’m immediately transferred to a security rep. I explain the situation and who I’ve contacted. He markes the WoW charge as fraudulent, determines the ComputerStore charge is in CA with a 949 number - that’s the area code WoW North America is in - and marks it fraudulent as well. He freezes my account and issues me an expedited replacement like the first guy should have and I’ll get it by Saturday.

So - this leads me to wonder what the hell happened. How did my information become compromised? Apparently I’m also sending people instant messages on MSN and AIM that I never sent. Strange. Could this be because of my Dell PDA that was stolen in Bucharest on March 7th? Passwords were encrypted on that, and I was certain there were no credit card records. Nevertheless, I’m changing every account number. I already changed every single password I could think of after the PayPal incident.

This isn’t even really identity theft to an extreme (no lost SS#, no one obtaining accounts in my name) and I can’t imagine how true victims of this really feel.

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My name is Erik Heinz and I am the ArizonaGuy.

Permalink | June 21st, 2007

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