How Did This Happen???

[penny_e]

I have never been an vicitim of identity theft, Yesterday I got a Amazon chase visa in the Mail with a 2k limit, I called them and the very first thing the lady said to me was Did you apply for this card? She was very abrubt on the question, startleed me, I said I dont believe so, but in my nieve thinking I closed my amazon store card, thinking they sent it to me because of that, she then sent me to another dept, he verified my last 4 of ss number and my mothers maiden name a few more questions and said you are a victim of credit card fraud told me to contact the credit buereus which I did, but I am confused why would the thief send it to my house were they going to get it out of the mail box? The account was opened a few days ago, march 10 recieved the card march 17....My first go around here, I dont understand the world of the thieves.

[Anonymous]

Yeah probably mailbox, unless someone in your house did it.

[penny_e]

only my husband and daughter at house, and they know my mothers maiden name, which was wrong on application

[trnj88]

The only thing I can think of is that the thief used your address for verification purposes, knowing the card would be sent there. However I believe with Amazon cards, they are added automatically as Payment Methods to an Amazon account instantly upon approval. So there is no need to wait for the card, no need to type in the number/security code, etc. You just select the card as a payment method in your Amazon cart and it processes the purchase since it's available for use immediately.. perhaps the thief knew this and tried to get a purchase in before the card arrived at your house.

Were there any charges on it? Pretty strange how it was approved and sent when some of the info was entered incorrectly (i.e. maiden name, etc.). You'd think Chase would have to manually process it?

Not much experience here with Amazon Chase Cards so take this with a grain of salt (or pepper, depending on preference).

[Anonymous]

If your mother's maiden name was wrong, I'm surprised this didn't trigger a red flag with Chase. I would have expected them to have denied the app or required you to call in. 

This is one of the reasons I keep my MF credit monitoring active. So what happens now - are they going to close the account or are you just going to keep it?

[Glkslngr]

Wow that's disappointing that they didnt catch that error... More important question, are you going to keep the account open??! Lol, just kidding. I hope they take care of that asap. And I'm sure you already know this, but I would get to work changing all online financial account passwords and get a credit monitoring service if you don't already have one.

[Anonymous]

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@trnj88 wrote:

The only thing I can think of is that the thief used your address for verification purposes, knowing the card would be sent there. However I believe with Amazon cards, they are added automatically as Payment Methods to an Amazon account instantly upon approval. So there is no need to wait for the card, no need to type in the number/security code, etc. You just select the card as a payment method in your Amazon cart and it processes the purchase since it's available for use immediately.. perhaps the thief knew this and tried to get a purchase in before the card arrived at your house.

Were there any charges on it? Pretty strange how it was approved and sent when some of the info was entered incorrectly (i.e. maiden name, etc.). You'd think Chase would have to manually process it?

Not much experience here with Amazon Chase Cards so take this with a grain of salt (or pepper, depending on preference).

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Good point.  This makes me wonder if you used Amazon on a public computer and forgot to log out so they opened your account there. I used to run a lab at a univeristy and students would often go shopping online then neglect to log out of there accounts and computers when they were done. Do you have any purchases on your Amazon account that you don't reognize?

[penny_e]

No, I didnt keep the account they instantly closed it and didnt offer me a new one.  Amazon Reduced my credit line a few weeks ago after I paid them off down to 100.00 so I closed the account right then and there went from 800.00 to 100.00.  I have only ever used my home laptop, never used anything public. I dont keep payment methods on Amazon, when I charge I just pull it out. Should I go buy a locking mailbox today, and a shredder a no brainer on that, mad at myself I havent been shredding...I dont know if any charges were made, they didnt say at all. I went to activate it and it was answered by fraud dept from the first moment.

[Anonymous]

Locking mailbox and shredder are good.

Goes without saying but I'd definitely join a credit report monitoring program if you aren't already which will send you notifications of new apps and accounts. One that does all 3.  You're gonna want to keep a close eye.

You could always just freeze your files too if you want, for now.

[penny_e]

I did immed. Turn on credit alert on all three, and signed up with transunion 11.00 a month report.  After googling this people are saying same thing has happened to them and blaming it on amazon. Someone to do with amazon. One thing I have for me, my credit isnt perfect only 672 score and I have 2 judgments I am paying that are very old, I did just get 2 new cards I dont need anymore, but if I had stellar credit that would be an even greater risk. Thanks for your replies