My post asking for help! Thank you for answering the call: #1553707 @grayruby @WeAreAllSatoshi @optimism @harrigan

RBD’s Identity Theft Story: On Sunday I became a victim of identity theft.

I’m ok now thankfully, but it’s been a wild 24 hours.

My stolen identity was used to open a virtual debit card with Go2Bank. Then, my stolen identity was used to open an account with Intuit QuickBooks payments. The Go2Bank account was added to QuickBooks as an authorized payment method. The attacker then issued themself an invoice for $5 for payment.

I did not lose any money out of pocket. I caught and blocked the $5 QuickBooks charge before it was settled. None of my actual checking, savings, or credit cards were compromised. This was strictly limited to newly opened accounts. They likely got my basic info from public data breaches. There’s no reason to panic if your name and address are online, but you can protect yourself. 

I received an email from Intuit that my payment was pending further bank verification, but that email was hidden amongst over a thousand emails I received within a two hour window on Sunday night in an email subscription bomb. Emails signing me up for hundreds of international spam newsletters all asking me to confirm I wanted to subscribe. I spotted the single legitimate alert by using a Gmail search filter for all email within the last day with the word “payment.”

On Sunday night I called Go2Bank to report identity theft and cancel the account. However Intuit’s customer service was closed, so Monday morning I called Intuit to cancel the QuickBooks account and report fraud.

The attacker used my real name, email, and address. As far as I can tell they used someone else’s DOB and SSN to finish opening the accounts. My personal Gmail was never compromised. It had no suspicious login activity, email forwarding, or filters turned on. I changed my password anyways.

Over Sunday and Monday, I froze my credit files and issued fraud alerts across all major bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, ChexSystems, Innovis, NCTUE, LexisNexis). Next, I’m locking down my IRS Identity Protection PIN, reporting it on IdentityTheft.gov, and filing a police report.

That’s all it took the attacker. Name. Email. Address. That’s all it takes to steal someone’s identity to start opening legitimate U.S. bank accounts in someone’s name. 

Everybody talks about signing up for Identity Theft Protection or Identity Theft Monitoring, but few ppl actually freeze their credit reports until after becoming a victim. In getting attacked the priority became clear: freezing things to block further attacks NOT learning how to write paper trails to undo fraud performed with my identity.

If you think you’re too busy, you’ll find the time at midnight on Sunday night!!