Is surviving identity theft six times an accomplishment or a disappointment? For Stacey Cowley, the tech editor for CNN Money, it is both. She recently told USAA magazine about how she has had many different thieves access her bank accounts periodically over the past eight years. She blames the first time on using a “sketchy ATM,†meaning one that wasn’t at or near a financial institution but instead on the street next to a local deli. The ATM was altered so that it recorded both her card number and her PIN. Then a thief used her information to order pizza in a town several states over.
But that is the least of it. It’s pretty easy to recover the cost of a pizza, but it takes a little more work if the thief decides to purchase something larger. Say, a Mercedes. Convincing all parties involved that this property is not yours (even if you wish it were) can take many hours, many dollars and many headaches. Well, unless you have identity theft protection in place before such a crime happens to you. While protection plans are focused on prevention for the most part, many also offer services to help you if you are victimized, such as insurance policies to cover your expenses, even such things as lost wages if you have to spend the day at the Social Security office.
That being said, even with an identity protection plan in place you should still be careful. Cowley learned that she should keep a bit of cash on hand at home just in case a thief got hold of her debit card and she suddenly had to cancel it. She also learned not to carry all of her credit cards with her and to never have just one credit account. While these items can be replaced, they cannot be replaced immediately, and you don’t want to leave yourself in a lurch. She was left begging friends for lunch money for about seven days.
As far as “sketchy†ATMs go, just use your better judgment. If you have a bad feeling about a machine, or it looks like it has been tampered with, move on to the next one. There are few places in this country that don’t have an overabundance of bank machines, and you can charge most things on your debit card anyway. It could end up saving you a whole lot of money in the long run, plus a whole lot of aggravation.