Identity Theft.
Feb. 21st, 2008 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupI just got off the phone with the bank. Or, at least, they said they were the bank. You know, when you set up an account, they ask you for personal information plus a secret word or something so that you can prove who you are. They never ask for something so that they can prove who they are.
They offered to tell me my birth date and address and the name of my wife. Uh, yeah. As if 30 seconds on Google wouldn't tell someone all of that about me. Heck, most of that info is on this very site. He said they couldn't tell me anything that wasn't public knowledge without me giving them private information first. Ditto.
Then they told me they could give me their number, and I could phone them back, and it would prove who they were, Uh, how? It would prove it was their number, no more. Now, if I could find that number on the bank's website online, that would prove something. Only they told me it was an unlisted number. So I asked them how I could go online and find a number that would lead me back to talking to the person I was talking to now. They said their wasn't any.
So, they're either
A) An incredibly incompetent bank that just doesn't care about identity theft, or
B) an identity thief.
Once upon a time, I would have said the odds greatly favoured A). Now that I've had friends who've had to deal with identity theft, and as its become so prevalent, B) has become a real possibility.
In the end, they said they'll send me a letter. Again, that requires knowing my address, no more. Now, maybe the letter will contain information that only my bank would know, but at this point I'm beginning to doubt it.
So, I have to ask folks here on my friends list: do you take precautions against identity theft, and if so which? And how the heck do you get the banks and other institutions to deal with you in a responsible manner in these cases? I can't possibly be the only person in the world who has insisted that the person claiming to be from their bank identify themselves first, before they discuss private details with them, can I?
Hell, all my bank would really have to do to prove it was them would be to drop a note into my online account with them, and that would do it. They seem perfectly capable of doing that for advertising purposes...
They offered to tell me my birth date and address and the name of my wife. Uh, yeah. As if 30 seconds on Google wouldn't tell someone all of that about me. Heck, most of that info is on this very site. He said they couldn't tell me anything that wasn't public knowledge without me giving them private information first. Ditto.
Then they told me they could give me their number, and I could phone them back, and it would prove who they were, Uh, how? It would prove it was their number, no more. Now, if I could find that number on the bank's website online, that would prove something. Only they told me it was an unlisted number. So I asked them how I could go online and find a number that would lead me back to talking to the person I was talking to now. They said their wasn't any.
So, they're either
A) An incredibly incompetent bank that just doesn't care about identity theft, or
B) an identity thief.
Once upon a time, I would have said the odds greatly favoured A). Now that I've had friends who've had to deal with identity theft, and as its become so prevalent, B) has become a real possibility.
In the end, they said they'll send me a letter. Again, that requires knowing my address, no more. Now, maybe the letter will contain information that only my bank would know, but at this point I'm beginning to doubt it.
So, I have to ask folks here on my friends list: do you take precautions against identity theft, and if so which? And how the heck do you get the banks and other institutions to deal with you in a responsible manner in these cases? I can't possibly be the only person in the world who has insisted that the person claiming to be from their bank identify themselves first, before they discuss private details with them, can I?
Hell, all my bank would really have to do to prove it was them would be to drop a note into my online account with them, and that would do it. They seem perfectly capable of doing that for advertising purposes...
