Credit card fraud - need recommendations on what to do

[Obt3wKLq5t]

Today I just noticed the contact information on my American Express account has been changed for the third time this year without authorization.

Apparently, someone's been calling in pretending to be me and change those information.  Even though the info has been changed, I do not get an email since they were changed over the phone and not online.

I have two cards with Amex, one Costco and one SPG.  Both had to be replaced, SPG around May, Costco in August.  These information were changed separately so that's why I didn't changed them at the same time.  In addition, charges were made on the account in each incident except this time as I caught it before they can make any charges.  This third incident happened in October with American Express stating the person called in to change the info.  Separately, several airline tickets were charged to a Citi credit card that I cancelled and replaced immediately.  No personal information was changed on that card.

I have now set up a personal pin but there is no guarantee that Amex will ask for it everytime someone calls in.  Also, I have been monitoring my credit profile like a hawk so there is no additional cards listed on my credit profile.  I'm afraid that all my credit cards were compromise so I wonder if I should even bother changing them all since it seems that the perpetrator have all my information in order to be able to talk to American Express and convinced them to change my account information.

I wonder if there is anything that I can do to protect myself in this case.  So far no damages to the credit rating but I'm not sure if they will go further as the 4 incidents were spread from begining of this year to now.

[casmith1980]

out of curiosity, did you lose your wallet or purse?

If not, it sounds like it is an "inside" job since they have all your personal information.  You might want to consider filing a police report if you haven't already. 

There's so much identity theft these days, it's quite scary.  You're on the right track with monitoring your credit report

[Obt3wKLq5t]

My laptop that has a lot of my personal information including maybe 1 credit card number out of the 3 affected accounts were stolen 3 years ago.  Those information should be locked by username/password on the windows interface and also encrypted for the individual files that have my information.

So I ruled out my laptop based on that.  Another possibly is that there is a keylogger installed on my current laptop but I have already replaced the Amex cards and wiped my laptop clean so that made me think it was an inside job at Amex before the Citi card were charged for those tickets.  This brings me back to square one as the information available to me conflicts with each other and couldn't pin point what caused this problem.

[Obt3wKLq5t]

Amex says that even though the person might not have my card number, they will still talk to them and comply if the person have all my personal information.  That's why I added the pin but there is no guarantee that they will ask every time.  I wonder if there is additional steps that I can take lock this down further.  I just couldn't understand why they still focus on me after charging unsuccessfully to 3 of my accounts so far. 

My paypal and ebay account was also accessed with the passwords changed.  I have changed all passwords since then.  I don't quite understand this part because I actually change the passwords for accounts that I use often every 3 to 12 months so the person somehow knows my passwords too.  I have hard time understanding how anyone could get access to numbers that I constantly change.

[casmith1980]

have you found out where the plane tickets were headed and whose name they were in?  Chances are they aren't in your name...

as far as passwords are concerned...this may seem like a silly question, but do you have them written down anywhere?  or possibly stored on your computer in a document?  my guess is your computer has a keylogger or some other type of virus.  I'd clean the computer again AND install a decent software for antivirus.

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@Obt3wKLq5t wrote:

Amex says that even though the person might not have my card number, they will still talk to them and comply if the person have all my personal information.  That's why I added the pin but there is no guarantee that they will ask every time.  I wonder if there is additional steps that I can take lock this down further.  I just couldn't understand why they still focus on me after charging unsuccessfully to 3 of my accounts so far. 

My paypal and ebay account was also accessed with the passwords changed.  I have changed all passwords since then.  I don't quite understand this part because I actually change the passwords for accounts that I use often every 3 to 12 months so the person somehow knows my passwords too.  I have hard time understanding how anyone could get access to numbers that I constantly change.

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[Anonymous]

I guess it's possible that it might be an 'inside job', but I'd personally hope that the CCCs have more control over employees than that (I know that realistically they don't - don't burst my bubble).

My first thought is that it's just plain ol' identity theft. If they know your name, date of birth, address, social security number and a few common security questions (mother's maiden name etc) they can just call the bank up, say they don't have the credit card with them so they can't give them the number, and give them your SSN etc to look up the accounts with. That way even if you get a completely new card and card number, it doesn't stop them at all - they can always get your account looked up with your social and other personal info.

I would definitely file a police report for it if you haven't already. Freezing your credit reports might be a good idea if you're worried about them opening new cards in your name. Make sure you keep paperwork/copies/documents of everything you do - when you contact the banks/CCCs about the fraud and needing a new card, the police report, if you end up filing anything in with the CRAs, etc.

If worse comes to worse, you CAN get a new social security number. At that point having documentation of all the troubles you've had will definitely help. As the SSA website says:

If you have done  all you can to fix the problems resulting from misuse of your Social Security  number and someone still is using your number, we may assign you a new number.

But it'll be a massive pain to get your social updated EVERYWHERE, so that should always be a last resort. The problem is that unless some of your information changes and the person or persons using your info get caught, they can just keep doing it. Even if the bank is supposed to be more diligent about your account if you report identity theft concerns, you might end up with some lax customer service reps.

[casmith1980]

I meant "inside" job as in family member/friend/etc.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Anonymous]

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@casmith1980 wrote:

I meant "inside" job as in family member/friend/etc.

Sorry for the confusion.

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That makes a lot more sense. As harsh as it sounds, it's a good chance that's the case, and it would explain how someone got access to all the pesronal information.

I've heard of enough parents opening cards/loans in their kids' names and them not paying them, resulting in the kids having absolutely wrecked credit reports by the time they're old enough to realize it. So I defintely wouldn't put it past being a family member or friend. Maybe they don't even think they're doing that much harm, since they can just buy something, then you contest it as fraud, don't have to pay for it, and nobody gets "hurt".

Obviously that's not how it works in reality, but enough people have no sense of how finances work to where it's a definite possibility.

[casmith1980]

my Aunt's step-daughter did the same thing OP stated....

bought 2 round trip tickets to New York for her and her friend.  Thanks to fraud protection, my aunt asked for the name the tickets were placed in and low and behold, it was her step daughter.  Apparently she snuck the card out of my aunt's wallet when she was sleeping (sad part is, her step daugher is 34 years old!!!!!)

Things like this make me realize why my husband doesn't trust anyone but me   too many sketchy people in this world (and some of them are in your own family)

[Obt3wKLq5t]

I wiped the computer in September after the Citi card incident and wiped it after the Costco card charges in August.  If anything, I'm pretty careful at these security things, I have Norton, avast, and spybot along with couple of other things for security measures.

I use roboform at home that have a master password that I change every 3 months and the files for individual passwords are encrypted using .  Noone else should have access to my laptop.  The files are encrypted using AES 256 bit.

The airline tickets were Paris to Albania but I didn't get the names yet because Citi haven't concluded the investigation.  This shouldn't be a 'inside' job as noone I know would go anywhere close to Albania.  I live with my wife only so other people are out of question.  I want to find this out from Citi as soon as possible now.

Different scenerios that I suspected but were shut down:

Lost of laptop from 3 years ago - someone finally hacked into the personal files and/or roboform files.  Problem is how did they get my current passwords or user ids or credit cards including the security id when making a charge.

Keylogger - possible until the paypal incident is after I wiped my laptop and generated a 15 digit password and locked it using a new password that is also 15 digit long that I remember in my head, not written down anywhere.

Inside job at American Express - this was a possibility until the Citi/Paypal/Ebay incident.

Inside job with only suspect being my wife - ruled out as we shared finances and the tickets to Albania being an obvious evident.