Again in my travels down the road of life I have experienced a personal bout with identity theft that gave me pause. Somehow, my debit card got hacked, and I found out about it due to a call from my bank. A woman on the phone asked me – while I was sitting in my friend’s home in Seattle – whether I had just been in North Carolina purchasing over three thousand dollars in athletic equipment. While I would love to have the money to make such a purchase, the benefactor of such products was certainly not me.
Luckily, my bank was able to reverse the charges before the money was pulled from my account, which can be very difficult to recover with a debit card. I hadn’t entered my debit card information online, and I had my wallet on my person, so I have absolutely no idea how an identity thief was able to get my information.
Sometimes it does happen that way. You’re doing everything right and you simply get blindsided by the behavior of others. This is one of the worst ways to be victimized, when you know that there is pretty much nothing you could have done to prevent it.
Thankfully, if you have someone looking out for you, you will still be all right. In my case, it was my bank, but in your case it could be an identity theft protection plan. I have no doubt that some companies, like LifeLock for example, would have caught that funny activity and asked me about it too. I may not have caught it on my own since I was traveling and not regularly checking my bank statements. Well, I would have noticed it when I tried to pull money and suddenly realized that I didn’t have any.
The lesson, always have someone on your side that can help you to make things right. This is true not only in identity theft but in life. Remember that anyone can be a victim of someone elses irresponsible behavior. This is my third time as an identity theft victim and I write about identity protection for a living.
My advice to you is to take the threat of identity theft seriously and make sure you are doing all you can to protect yourself and your family.