Well this is just strange

[SeaCat]

Over the past two months we have been receiving phone calls for a guy with the same last name as ours. This morning the calls started again and I became a bit irritated so I started asking questions.

The first caller was from a Credit Card Company calling in reference to a credit card balance in this guys name. When I asked how they got my name and number they told me I was listed as a family member and as a point of contact. The young lady on the other end of the line must ahve been new as she gave me the guys original address and phone number from her files. (Yes I wrote everything down including the return number for her bussiness.)

The second call, about an hour later was a collections company. When asked they told me my number and address were listed on the card as a primary address. When I asked them for the entire address listed they told me, and it was off by more than a couple of units. (Same street address, for the Park but my unit number is in the single digits and the one they had was in the triple digits.) Again everything was documented.

The third call this evening was a bit different. The lady gave her name and asked for the guy. I told her he didn't live there and again started in on my questions. She hung up. This too was documented.

Now before I get jumped I do have to state that we keep very close track of our money. (You tend to do that when you don't have much.) There have been no unauthorised withdrawles from our checking or from the credit card.

The information being used can be easily picked up from the White Pages. Hell I got it in less than five minutes using the Internet. The information being used is my name, phone number and partial address. (By partial the entry in the phone book shows the street name and number but not the lot number. He hasn't been using the lot number. In other words my address in the book may show 1999 Lizard Lips Trail. My lot number may be Lot1. He's using 1999 Lizard Lips Trail, Lot666.)

So for the next few weeks I think I'll be documenting all of these calls then I'll drag the whole thing down to the local Police and see what they think. I don't think it can be classified as I.D. Theft but they may be able to get him for scamming the card companies or harrasment.

Cat

 

[TE999]

The local constabulary prolly won't do diddley squat. IMHO you should contact the state Department of Consumer Affairs Fraud Division or the State Attorney General. This dude is scamming people and that's fraud, plain and simple.

 

[DesertPirate]

The local constabulary prolly won't do diddley squat. IMHO you should contact the state Department of Consumer Affairs Fraud Division or the State Attorney General. This dude is scamming people and that's fraud, plain and simple.

I agree, much better chance of a responce from the AG.

 

[JagFarlane]

Over the past two months we have been receiving phone calls for a guy with the same last name as ours. This morning the calls started again and I became a bit irritated so I started asking questions.

The first caller was from a Credit Card Company calling in reference to a credit card balance in this guys name. When I asked how they got my name and number they told me I was listed as a family member and as a point of contact. The young lady on the other end of the line must ahve been new as she gave me the guys original address and phone number from her files. (Yes I wrote everything down including the return number for her bussiness.)

The second call, about an hour later was a collections company. When asked they told me my number and address were listed on the card as a primary address. When I asked them for the entire address listed they told me, and it was off by more than a couple of units. (Same street address, for the Park but my unit number is in the single digits and the one they had was in the triple digits.) Again everything was documented.

The third call this evening was a bit different. The lady gave her name and asked for the guy. I told her he didn't live there and again started in on my questions. She hung up. This too was documented.

Now before I get jumped I do have to state that we keep very close track of our money. (You tend to do that when you don't have much.) There have been no unauthorised withdrawles from our checking or from the credit card.

The information being used can be easily picked up from the White Pages. Hell I got it in less than five minutes using the Internet. The information being used is my name, phone number and partial address. (By partial the entry in the phone book shows the street name and number but not the lot number. He hasn't been using the lot number. In other words my address in the book may show 1999 Lizard Lips Trail. My lot number may be Lot1. He's using 1999 Lizard Lips Trail, Lot666.)

So for the next few weeks I think I'll be documenting all of these calls then I'll drag the whole thing down to the local Police and see what they think. I don't think it can be classified as I.D. Theft but they may be able to get him for scamming the card companies or harrasment.

Cat

Just to be on the safe side, if you haven't already, check your credit report. By law each of the companies [TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian] has to give you a copy of your report free once a year [some states have laws making it 2-4 times a year] thus how freecreditreport.com works.

 

[SlickTony]

Looks like some kind of ID theft to me.

 

[neonlyte]

Keep a close eye, SeaCat.

I've had two ID thefts over fifteen years, one by a Bank Employee who bought a car using my bank details. It was an account I had when I first moved to back to England, closed when we took a mortgage with a different bank. I found out about it when Debt Collectors wrote to me two years ago, it was dropped once we'd sorted out the facts. The second, still in investigation, appears to be by a Credit Card employee. I have an emergency card, never used, with debts of £5k. Me and the Credit Company agree I didn't use as the bills were run up during a period when I could prove I was in Portugal, all the expenditure had taken place in the UK. The credit limit was raised twice, supposedly at my request but I never received confirmation letters. It turns out my address had been changed... and the suspicion falls on it being an employee.

ID theft is easy from the inside... they have all the information they need.

 

[only_more_so]

I had something similar happen a few years ago, except much more insidious, and overall less dangerous.

Some fucko used my email address when he visited/commented/whatever to a bunch of websites. To this day I still get emails saying "T*%%& B**%** you Ipod is awaiting delivery." Or "T*%%& B**%** the Democrats need your support." That was over ten years ago.

I almost put the guys name, but decided against it. First of all, he might be just as much a victim as I am. And secondly, he might track this post down and decide to spam me here.

 

[john-the-author]

I had something similar happen a few years ago, except much more insidious, and overall less dangerous.

Some fucko used my email address when he visited/commented/whatever to a bunch of websites. To this day I still get emails saying "T*%%& B**%** you Ipod is awaiting delivery." Or "T*%%& B**%** the Democrats need your support." That was over ten years ago.

I almost put the guys name, but decided against it. First of all, he might be just as much a victim as I am. And secondly, he might track this post down and decide to spam me here.

Some shithook spammer grabbed my domain name and started sending out millions of spam emails about 2 years ago. I found out about only when I was on a cruise and happened to check my email and saw thousands of bounce messages for bad addressees. I still get junk mail from Christian evangelists and Scientologists and other lunatics as a result.

I'm still of the opinion that we should start finding spammers with their knees nailed to a coffee table by vigilantes and a piece of paper on their chests that say "This could be you, next." It would sure cut down on the number of spammers, IMO. Legal threats don't bother them but the chance of having someone come in and inflict an unbelievable amount of pain and GBH... yeah, that'd make me consider a career change.

I've had several people sign up for credit cards using my home office line (which has a nice, easy to remember number) as their business number. I then get calls from credit card companies asking after whoever the hell it is. One card company thought I was being evasive and that I really knew where this deadbeat was. I got rather pointed with them and said that no, this was my number, if they didn't believe me, they could look it up, that I was an author with no employees and they could check my website if they didn't believe that, and that no matter how many times they phoned me, I wouldn't know where to find this guy so it was going to be a waste of their time. They got the message and buggered off, but geeeeze!