#damnruskies

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

I must be lucky. They so far only hit my charge card and almost immediately the card notifies me and we cancel card. Happened the other day. Gas and outback in michigan and I live in south. Oh someone opened a business in Nevada with bogus address.

Norton's has a product that as I understand it looks at internet traffic somehow to see if you info is being shopped. I probably don't have that exactly right. But search.

Also ask Putin' boys or ask trump to ask them. Keep us posted if you crack the code or heck start a business because apparently the bureaus and life lock aren't getting it done.

I would drop lifelock, terrible company. Just look up the lawsuits. You can get a better deal with any of the three credit companies or check for deals with your home owner insurance company.

Don't use public wifi ever
Don't use the same passwords for all you accounts
Use an IPhone
Change your passwords from time to time

For the record, from what you describe, I'd be hard pressed to think that your identity situation has anything to do with the internet.

Good luck. That really sucks...

Um the DEA thing is a federal crime. Did you contact the DEA or FBI about that? If I had to guess someone went through your trash (shred everything) or stolen your information from a job, school, or government agency.

This^^^^^^^

Your DEA license is much more than simple identity theft. I imagine the Feds would be very interested and they have the expertise and resources to track it down. If you haven't already, contact them.

How do we know you are the real AndyPeterson and not the person who stole AndyPeterson's identity?

Think back 3 + years ago or so. Did you dick someone over you probably shouldn't of?
Find them and atone.

To answer a couple of things:

1. Theft / misuse of DEA numbers is pretty common. I actually found out about it from the DEA. They handle the investigation and assigned me a new federal number. They are remarkably easy to work with on these things.

2. I think there is a difference here between someone just getting credit card info and people actually being able to get the info to do real identify theft. The first happens all the time. The second sounds like it is pretty rare and it is what I'm really interested in trying to tamp down.

3. I may or may not be the real AndyPeterson. But probably am.

Andy

I just clicked on your screen name and you seem to like to advertise yourself on open/public forums. I'm not sure if that matters in the big picture of identity theft but I would stop doing that.

For everyone who thinks their information is safe if they keep identifying info off social media. I did an exercise in seeing how much info I could get on someone.

I got rear ended Friday morning. My pickup took moderate damage but the bright red Mercedes took a blow to the nose. In my haste to get to work all I got from the other driver was first name, last name, insurance info, and car license plate. I also talked to her so I knew what she looked like.

Free White pages (and a couple other similar sites) search gives you approximate age, address, past addresses and associated people. Municipal court search gives birth date, address, height, and weight, as well as all court records (tickets, criminal cases, civial cases, etc). Secretary of State voting registration search give address and previous address. County Auditor search gives all the property you own, when you bought it, price paid, and a picture. Google map search gives picture of the house and any cars in the driveway when they drove by. Linked In gives your job info. You can also search the Sec. of State office for any businesses registered in their name which has a ton of info.

Working off the the white pages search you know the spouse and the children. Then you can get all of the above for them.

Then you get to Facebook. Many women have their maiden name in the name of their profile so old friends can find them. Search friends for married and maiden names you find parents, siblings, children, in-laws, ... You can then find their addresses and all of the above.

All of the info in government entities has always been public. It just used to take a long time to go to all the offices. Now you can search it in seconds.

I got all of the above in two hours for free. I'd bet it would be no issue at all getting access to credit history on any of the free credit report sites with just a tiny bit of work.

It seems like the best way to protect yourself and keep people from getting accounts in your name is to have shitty credit so they get rejected.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I couldn't agree more. Take down this info NOW!

First off, doctors have big red identity theft targets on their back. So your in trouble right there it is generally assumed you have lots of money and little time to watch your finances.

Now on a public forum your listing where you work and one can assume they can easily find your email I'm going to assume it is Peterson.andrew@UofIowa or something. Your company's phishing filters are good but not perfect. A smart criminal can send you an email that looks like its from your payroll dept asking to update your bank account info. Chances are if your busy and rushing through admin stuff, you will fall for it. Now they have your bank info, they can take from your checking, apply for credit cards and maybe even file taxes.

Edit: your work email is on your profile. TAKE THAT OFF NOW!!!

I think there are obviously a lot of parts to this. I don't have any first hand experience but from talking to a few friends who have had troubles in the past, this generally can last a long time, depending if your information is still being distributed out there or if it is just one individual who is either an opportunist or someone you pissed off.

There are obviously real life precautions and also internet precautions.

Real life precautions:

• don't carry your SSN card around with you,
• protect your private information and don't leave personal information laying around.
• Don't give someone your SSN or DEA license number unless they actually need it (just because they ask for it doesn't mean they need it).
• don't provide personal information over the phone, in person or online
• to go with the above, don't answer the phone from a number you don't recognize. If it is important they will leave a message. Some calls could be less about scamming you immediately and more about social engineering private information from you. I.e.
• freeze credit with all bureaus unless you plan on opening a new account.

Internet precautions:

• use strong, unique passwords for each website.
• Keep up to date with privacy breaches
• change passwords/security questions when a site has been compromised.
• Change passwords regularly.
• Use end-to-end encrypted e-mail (such as ProtonMail or otherwise) for all communication, especially sensitive information.
• Use gibberish answers to security questions. Why should Yahoo know who your favorite high school teacher was when they have already been hacked multiple times over the years? You will need to write down the gibberish answers either in a pen/paper or in a secured password vault.
• Use strong internet protection and firewalls
• use an adblocker and whitelist sites you are OK with ads from (such as ST).
• Use Javascript pop-up blocker to block javascript from running malicious code
• use ghostery to protect privacy
• subscribe to a VPN service such as Private Internet Access and use it when browsing the web. This also will help protect your privacy
• Use fake names when signing up to websites if they don't need to know your real name.
• get off social media. Some people leave entirely too much information on them out there.
• Try googling yourself on occasion and review any search results. What pulls up when you search your name? Do you want that information out there? Etc, etc.

I'm sure I could think of more but ultimately if someone is really determined then they could still target you. Also, if your information is still out there being sold/distributed or in the hands of an opportunist/someone you pissed off then this could still take a while. Take actions to stop the specific types of theft you're seeing.