Identity Theft: How I was notified my was stolen.

A few hours ago, received a phone call from a Mr. Peisner notifying me that my name, VISA card number, and address was being displayed on a hacker's chatroom website for hackers to use.

At first, I thought I was talking to a telemarketer or maybe a person trying to steal my private information for criminal purposes. Mr. Peisner tells me he works for <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"><FONT STYLE="color: black">SellitSAFE</font></font> and gives the location to the company website ( http://sellitsafe.com/ ). I ask for his name and a phone number so I can call him back after I verify with the Better Business Bureau. He says his company is not listed with the Better Business Bureau. However, he suggested I could call the police and make a complaint if I felt I needed to.

Mr. Peisner begins reading out my credit card number to me. I'm shocked to hear he already had my personal information. He reads out my address and my full name. He didn't need anything from me. I begin have a panic attack and push the SPEAKER button on my cell phone for my husband to hear the conversation.

{note: Mr. Peisner was extremely courteous and patient with me. I was very rude. I might have typed the conversation details a little inaccurate, because of my paranoia and fear and difficulty to recall.}

My husband grabs the phone. Mr. Peisner then repeats things to my husband. And my husband begins questioning him, since my husband is a computer geek and knows how to investigate stuff like hacking. I tell my husband that he sounds "legit."

I begin to realize that the number Mr. Peisner read out loud to me was my DEBIT CARD . . . my cash!!!!! I grab the computer and logon to my bank online and see all the fraudulent charges (so far totaling $150) on my checking account . . . *panic*

I overhear my husband thanking Mr. Peisner and asking him how we can thank him more, donate, or contribute to his organization. Mr. Peisner said, "Just send an email 'Thank You.'"

I'm thinking . . . WOW . . . He just saved us so much money and all he wants is an email "Thank You?"

I just cancelled my debit card and will report fraudulent charges tomorrow. There were charges from June 1st to today. Lovely.

According to this article, </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
"<FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"><FONT STYLE="color: black">SellitSAFE </font></font> logs all the numbers and creates a database that ecommerce merchants and other at-risk parties can use as a fraud prevention tool (what ecommerce merchant wouldn't like to know if an order was placed with a compromised account?). In fact, the company is adding 3,000 to 5,000 numbers PER DAY to the database."

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Mr. Peisner told my husband that he tries to personally call about 30 to 50 victims of identity theft per day. (Luckily, I was one of the few called )

THANK YOU <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"><FONT STYLE="color: black"> SellitSAFE</font></font>

As warned on <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"><FONT STYLE="color: black">SellitSAFE's </font></font> Consumer Tips , I should have never used my DEBIT card for an online purchase. Lesson learned well . . . .

Who is the man that called me? According to the <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"><FONT STYLE="color: black">SellitSAFE's </font></font> website: </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>

Steven D. Peisner, president, has more than 19 years of experience in the credit card acquiring industry, in both sales and operational management for various Independent Sales Organizations, including Peachtree Bancard Corporation, Cardservice International, and E-Commerce Exchange. He is also the founder of Shared Information Systems, which developed, and later sold, NoChargeBacks.com, an Internet-based service which provided merchants access to credit card holders' chargeback histories as a way to prevent "electronic shoplifting" by card holders who take advantage of the system. Peisner currently sits on the ETA's Fraud and Risk Committee and is a member of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. He actively participates in and supports the Merchant Acquirers Committee (MAC) as well as both MasterCard and Visa sponsored conferences on fraud and risk management.

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How this relates to "Mental Health" . . .
I think receiving Mr. Peisner's phone call was essential to my mental health this week. If I didn't realize I was a victim today, I would of realized it another day when my husband was not here to support me during the panic attack.

Please read the consumer tips (linked above) if you purchase online. Also, if you get a phone call from <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"><FONT STYLE="color: black">SellitSAFE</font></font>, be nice . . . I wasn't

OMG, Jennie!!!! Thanks so much for sharing something so important!!

Because of my disability, I do most of my shopping online! Ut Oh!!

I found out my identity was stolen back in january 2000. I didn't have any company calling me. I called my bank to varify my SSDI check was there before I went shopping. It wasnt. I called my local Social security office and asked my worker where my check was. Boy was I surprised when he said - You're not getting one we don't give SSDI to convicted fellons presently doing time. I said what?! and he said records show that right now I was sitting in a chicago prison for drug possession.

I started laughing and told him boy did Y2K get his computer. And had him look at his caller ID and varify that phone number was in the phone book as a local number so I was definately not in another state over 2000 miles away.

After asking me lots of questions that only I would know the answer to and they did not include debit card numbers and so on. I asked him if he wanted that info to and he told me no never say or confirm things like bank acounts, debit cards and so on. There are scammers that call people stating they are preventing an Identity theft and get the person to confirm the numbers and so on and then before the person can cancil anything they have someone at an atm with a bogus atm card with my number on it and are taking money out of my account while the other person is keeping me on the phone varifying the information. The only people who I would ever get a call from for Identity theft is the police if they captured someone who happened to have my credit cards on them or if my SSI check didn't come. And they don't call on weekends. Scammers call on weekends so they have the weekend before you can call your bank and so on because very few banks have saturday hours and no bank in the USA has sunday banking hours. You can reach automated lines on weekends but face to face and with a person not a computer that has to be M-F and sometimes Saturday. The only other way would be my recieving written credit reports from three specific credit companies Equifax is one of them, north something and another one I can't remember Sellitsafe was not one of them so if it is for real it is a new one. anyway after lots of red tape it turned out that a woman posing as me was arrested for selling cocaine and possession of pot and she had been found with all kinds of stuff in my name. she finally came clean and confessed she was not me when I released my mental health records containing my hospitalizatioons. The cops in chicago started proceedings to have her committed to a mental health unit for an evaluation. She decided very quickly she did nopt want to be me anymore.

It took about 6 months to a year to get everything straighted out. in the process I had to call all my credit card companies and the three credit beraus to have my name "flagged" which means that anytime anyone applies for a credit card or creditline anywhere in the USA I have to be notified and approval is not sent to the person applying until I supply certain information that only I know. And that information does not include any numbers, relatives names and so on. I have gotten many calls over the years from people wanting me to varify my debit card and SS number and so on. The latest one was a person posing as a DELL finance center wanting me to authoirse their taking a payment over the phone from my bank account. then they repeated some numbers of my ss number, bank account and debit card. Some were right and some were wrong but to each one I said Im sorry I cannot give that information. Finally to get them to stop calling I agreed to a wrong number and then I called my local police and the person was caught in maine trying to access the account with the wrong numbers.

No matter who calls be it some credit company or not I don't varify bank account and debit cards and so on over the phone. When anyone asks me to I report that person immediately to the local police.

I also recieve monthy credit reports that itemize any purchases made on my credit cards and I read them. If I don't recognize something I report it to the credit company and the store that I have the credit card from.

I have also had my name "flagged" so that anyone applying for any form of credit, ID cards and so on in my name I recieve a call as does the police in the area that the person is applying.

I als shread all reciept, bills and so on. here many people have been caught committing identity theft and how they did it was by dumpster diving, taking bills and junk mail that contains the persons name saying they have been preapproved for a credit card. so now Shreaders are on all the department store shelves for as little as 20 dollars and I bought one and use it. no matter what it is it goes through the shreader before going out to the garbage dumpster. They even have free shreading days here for bulk shreading that goes on in local agencies and parking lots. and I have used that on occasion when my shreader has been down or I needed a new one.

With these steps I have had no further problems with identity theft

Hey Jennie, it is a bit of good luck that the president of a company personally phoned you to report your info on a hackers website...as soon as I read this an immediate red flag flipped up in my brain...I found it extremely strange that a president of a company would take the time out of his busy day to phone you...I visited the site just now and it also struck me as being a bit odd that a company who professes to protect it's clients from internet fraud would have an unsecure website for doing business...a secure line has in it's address https...the S on the end means the site is secure...look at paypal or discover card or American express ...these have https in their address...here is an explaination of what I am talking about... web page...if the site doesn't have the HTTPS in it's address line then it isn't secure...I don't mean to get you paranoid Jennie but just pointing this out to you...it is very easy to set up a dummy website to look and act just like shall we say paypal...what happens is you recieve an email from paypal saying that their server crashed and they lost some of their records and backups and they ask you to go to the provided link and re-enter your account info...Bam they got you...my concern here is that if you get another call from this Mr. Peisner asking you if you would like to purchase their services you might want to let your hubby handle it and don't be pushed into anything if he says that it can't wait and if you don't act right away you will lose the offer...just refuse and thank him and hangup...then call the police and inform them...I maybe jumping to conclusions here but better save than sorry...one last thing to keep in mind Jennie is that this company isn't registered with the better business buruea...WHY NOT...safe internetting Jennie...

This whole thread has scares the wits out of me. I never buy on line and this just makes me more determined never to go there.

myself . . . thank you for sharing your story. I see some valuable lessons from your story.

Wow, that is scary hey? I wonder if they have the same sort of investigators/advisors as mr peisner?? that would be interestig to find out.

I just throw bills away (afetr ive paid them of course) along with receipts and such like. Im thinking i should be shreading them now. This is really worrying. I dont trust anyone with financial things. I remember there was a fund raiser thing here on PC and i wanted to donate but all afraid about identity theft. I think i will just avoid internet banking and payments etc forever

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Mystry said: Hey Jennie, it is a bit of good luck that the president of a company personally phoned you to report your info on a hackers website...as soon as I read this an immediate red flag flipped up in my brain...I found it extremely strange that a president of a company would take the time out of his busy day to phone you...

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You are wise . . . I agree it's weird. I'm not certain it was Mr. Peisner who called me.

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Mystry said: I visited the site just now and it also struck me as being a bit odd that a company who professes to protect it's clients from internet fraud would have an unsecure website for doing business...

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That's uncertain unless you first establish an account and then see no secure URL.

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Mystry said:I don't mean to get you paranoid Jennie but just pointing this out to you...

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Thanks! It is scary.

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Mystry said:it is very easy to set up a dummy website

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True. Fortunately, SellitSAFE is a valid website and company. See my next post.

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Mystry said:my concern here is that if you get another call from this Mr. Peisner asking you if you would like to purchase their services you might want to let your hubby handle it

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Good advice I'll take.

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Mystry said: this company isn't registered with the better business buruea...WHY NOT

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Apparently, SellitSAFE is a new company.

You're welcome. Its a scarey thing and going through it is one of the worse things on earth knowing someone out there was going to pretend they were you. I still have problems from what happened but thanks to the fast action of the social security office shutting down my checks it could have been worse. My bank account is always in trouble because of my DID. So having my bank overdrawn at times is normal for me but now I wonder how many of those times it was because of the identity theft instead of my DID. Ill never know. Now my bank freezes my account and calls me each and every time my account is overdrawn. Its sometimes a hassle but a choice between this hassle or identity theft I prefer my account getting frozen.

Hang in there jennie. You are not alone millions of people every day are victims of identity theft. Identity theft is now considered the number one crime as in amount of victims it takes.

I would have to say I consider you very VERY lucky you have not been a victim of Identity Theft. Yes shread those bills, reciepts and so on. if you look at your reciepts you will see a barcode. That bar code matches your credit / debit card and sometimes store that the purchase was made in. it is how the stores varify you bought the item you are trying to return. If it is a reciept like Mcdonalds you will see a bunch of numbers some of those numbers match your credit and debit card. Basically a reciept contains all the info needed to commit Identity Theft. The same with bills. If you look at the bills you will see your name address and account number, and sometimes your phone number is also mixed in with some of the numbers. A person here showed the police for a news broadcast how easy it was. they dialed the billing company and told them they forgot to write in their records if they made a payment and how that mayment was made. Then the person asked the billing department to varify the check, debit card and or credit card so that they could be sure he didn't use his wifes card by mistake. The billing department supplied all the info needed to go to the atm with the police officer and take money out of the police officers account. Then the guy went to motor vehicle and showed the bill for proof of address and showed a forged birth certificate and got a photo ID done as that police officers name. Then he walked into the local bank showed the ID and handed over a withdrawal slip.

Shread those documents - they may not be important to you but they sure are to the theives.

After waking up this morning a mess and paranoid, I decided to inquire more about SellitSAFE.

I read on SellitSAFE executives webpage that one of the executives, Mr. Brown, works at CardCops
(webpage).

So, I went to CardCops' website and saw it was a valid company. A CNN video verifies CardCops. (I recommend everyone view this video.)

Next, I emailed CardCops and asked them if SellitSAFE was a legitimite company website. CardCops email reply stated this:
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"Sellitsafe works with CardCops as a sales organization for our merchant customers."

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Therefore, SellitSAFE's website is a valid company website.

After viewing the CNN video mentioned above, I believe it was Mr. Peisner who called me and notified me my identity was stolen.

Note: <font color="red"> I NEVER gave the caller any of my info . . . he already had my full name, phone number, address, VISA number, and private email address. </font> Why not listen to such caller? After the call, I found the fraud charges were already posted to my account and was able to cancel the VISA. The caller gained nothing from talking to me or my husband.

I found a much better link: Consumer Tips to protect against identity theft
I hope everyone reads those tips.

I would imagine by now you may have read about my catching the home care RN stealing my mothers Identity. When she minupalated her way into caring for my Mother (the RN was the neighbor of my Mothers boyfriend & a close friend of his daughter), I notices strange things happening. I noticed that several checks were filled out to someone we didn't know & then one was filled out to CASH. The RN told me not to worry my mother about putting a stop payment on the checks which totaled almost $1000. There was also jewelry missing in the house (like all my Mothers valuable jewelry), & her wedding ring was missing off her hand. My mother mentioned that she got a call asking her for her PIN number to her Discover card. She told me she couldn't remember it & told the person that....(she would have told them if she had remembered). Then one morning, I heard the RN on the phone giving out my Mothers Identity including her Mothers maiden name. I guess the RN had talked to my mother & asked her the information....because she had everything....mothers maiden name, my Mothers SS #, & everyone's date of birth......then my Mother had given the RN my SS # & information on top of everything else. Luckily my mother hadn't remembered it correctly, but when I looked through everything my Mother had written down, she had the SS# for me & my daughter written in her phone book for anyone to read that wanted it. I confronted the RN when she was on the phone applying for a credit card as my Mother.....& when I took the phone, the RN went to the base phone & cut the phone line......the phone had gone dead when I was talking to the lady & I found the phone cord cut later that morning. The RN had come into my room & told me not to tell anyone what had happened & that her Vet had called her earlier that morning telling her that her dog had to be put to sleep & that was her excuse for not thinking well & being upset, she made a poor choice. At that point I realized that I had to get her out of the house, but the damage she did before that is something I will probably never be able to erase. She had the police called anonomously to accuse me of abusing my Mother & the came to the house & spent over 2 hours herassing me about the fact that I should know why they were there. I didn't find out that I was being accused of abusing my mother until about an hour into the questioning after trying to tell them about everything that had been going on in the house for the 4 prior days with the RN. Being told to shut up & sit down & continually being asked to tell them why they were there is something I probably will never be able to erase from my mind. The fear of being accused of something I didn't do & the fear that my mother didn't have the cognative ability anymore to let them know that it wasn't me. She was continually being fed by the RN that I was being controlling & that I wasn't giving my mother the freedom she should have to take care of her own business. Luckily my Mother wasn't influenced by the RN enough to hurt me, but the fear was still there until they left the house. The final straw was when the RN OD'ed my mother on morphine.....I don't know what the purpose was.....maybe to get us out of the house so she could clean it out.....but I made sure that just after my mother was taken to the ER that my husband changed the locks on all the doors. I tried so hard to protect my Mother & the hospital security suggested using an alias for her.......that was a fight because she wanted to see her boyfriend so badly that was all she asked for....but he was so closely related to the RN, I had a fear that she could get to us before I could file a report with the police. The hospital social worker helped me by filing a report with Adult Protective Services & I did also.....then followed that with a police report. The sad part of it all was that I did a good enough job reacting to everything that happened that there was nothing left to catch the RN by. Even when she stole & used one of my Mothers credit cards, that was just written off as fraud & nothing was left to catch the RN with. Even the police ended up dropping it when the DA told the detective there was not enough evidence to prosecute her.

I have no idea how many people she did the same thing to before....I know she bragged about having a Tiffiny wedding ring (I am sure that was stolen). She had a financial person involved with her also, but nothing able to catch her either. I am sure that she is continuing to plot against people with cancer......she was wanting to set up a care place where she could care for people with cancer .....that had no families.....so you know she was planning on stealing all of their ID's too. When looking up her name on the internet, I was surprised to see that it was supposed to be a lady that was 70 years old....& to top that off, the lady had been 70 years old for 4 years. I know there was alot going on....but there was no way to prove anything....& the police didn't have enough to go on. They did tell me that the name on one of my mothers checks that was filled out had the alias name that the RN used.....but even with that....because the checks were never cashed (because she knew that we had put a stop payment on them)...nothing could ever be done with that information.

People that steal ID's really have get away with it most of the time.....they know how to keep just safe enough & to make our lived a living nightmare....for years following.

No matter how our ID's are stolen, whether we find out that someone has done it to us, or we actually physically catch them, it is a violation that is hard to get through. I know I feel for you when it happens over the internet.....initially we don't see any danger until after it hits. It is good that you posted about your experience.....hopefully we all can be more aware of what we are doing to at least try to keep ourselves safer than if we ignore the possibilities.

Thank you for your post......the more experiences that we realize happen, the more aware we can be to try to protect ourselves.
Debbie

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eskielover said:
I would imagine by now you may have read about my catching the home care RN stealing my mothers Identity. When she minupalated her way into caring for my Mother (the RN was the neighbor of my Mothers boyfriend & a close friend of his daughter), I notices strange things happening. I noticed that several checks were filled out to someone we didn't know & then one was filled out to CASH.

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(((((((eskielover))))))) . . . your situation was more traumatic than mine, since you victimization was initimate and personal.

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eskielover said:
People that steal ID's really have get away with it most of the time.....they know how to keep just safe enough & to make our lived a living nightmare....for years following.

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Hopefully, others benefit from this thread.

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eskielover said:
No matter how our ID's are stolen, whether we find out that someone has done it to us, or we actually physically catch them, it is a violation that is hard to get through.

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I think it's best to take things one day at a time when identity theft happens to you. It's very overwhelming.

Here's the direct link to the CNN video illustrating how my identity was stolen on the internet AND how I was notified. Click CNN video link.

Thousands of people have their identity stolen every DAY. Learn how to protect yourself. Read the following articles linked below:
* "How" Your Identity is Stolen.
* "How To" Protect Your Identity
* "What to Do" When Your Identity is Stolen
* Misconceptions About Credit Cards