identity theft

 

I have had three friends attacked by identity thieves. Two of them discovered that their bank accounts had been drained when checks started bouncing. In each case, the point of origin was a popular discount store where they had shopped using their debit cards. The criminals had co-conspirators in other states, hundreds of miles away. The bad guys visited ATM’s in those distant locations and just helped themselves to their hard-earned money. 

Though the banks did cover the losses, my friends had the painful process of alerting everyone to whom they owed money explaining why payments were not there or why checks had bounced. In one case, she had no money to buy food for her family and her church came to the rescue. Fees and charges after fees and charges piled up before they actually were reversed. It was a nightmare.

The third case was my own daughter. Her bank notified her that suspicious activity was taking place with her accounts. It was late news, though. Much had been fraudulently charged on her credit cards before she knew what was going on. Again, a stressful process was ahead of her to get all the damage undone. What a world we live in.

So, enough with the horror stories. We all know that it’s smart to have an alert system in place to help us stop the damage soon as it is about to happen. But most of us don’t want to have to pay for the protection.