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Dollars & Sense Credit Card Rip-Offs By Sam Ewing Thieves are trying to steal your good credit. If you've used your credit card recently. you may be responsible for another credit card you don't know you have Your credit may be severely damaged. Worse, a collection agency may soon be coming after you. This year hundreds of thousands of people will be stung by bank-card, department store and gas-card fraud. Anytime you use your credit card, you are exposing yourself to a potential rip-off. Police and banking officials say that most such crimes are committed by organized rings. These sophisticated crooks, armed with computer knowledge, use electronic methods to victimize the public. They copy data from a credit card's magnetic strip. In this way, they steal a person's identity and take over the account. New Hartford, N.Y. police arrested a 14-year boy for buying thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment by using stolen credit card numbers that he found while illegally accessing a bank's database. More down-to-earth credit thieves, known as "Dumpster Divers" dig through garbage cans for discarded credit card slips which display private numbers. If your credit is good, that's all they need to apply for a legitimate credit card at another bank. They use the card holder's present address as a previous address. Then the new, illegal card is sent to a new address, usually a post office box. "We arrested one fellow with a box filled with car rental agreements slips that had been thrown out in the trash," said Canadian fraud detective Dennis Falcioni. "Each slip was all he needed to apply and receive credit cards at other banks." Crooks even take work as janitors so they can rummage through the tenants’ trash containers for plastic account statements. Sometimes they intercept mail deliveries and steam open Visa, MasteCard, American Express and other credit company envelopes to get the information. Then they reseal the envelopes and return it to the unsuspecting victim's mailbox. Of course, account numbers are stolen by cashiers in all kinds of businesses to obtain illegal cards. When authorities finally caught up with her, a woman cashier in a San Jose, Calif. hotel restaurant had accumulated a top-of-the-line TV set, stereo and appliances, $22,000 in designer clothing, $10,000 In jewelry and treated herself and her boyfriend to a ten-day Hawaiian vacation. The victim doesn't know the fraudulent card is issued until a collection agency starts calling. Sometimes the bad guys even make the card's minimum payment to keep it in good standing so they can keep using it. They often go so far as to cover illicit charges with bad checks in order' to keep the accounts open for a few weeks longer. Your name will be on the bounced checks also. Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing types of white-collar crime today. It's so simple it's shocking. Here's how it works: Most credit-card applications request a name, address and Social Security number. This information is entered into a computer which automatically checks with the three national credit reporting agencies-Experian, Trans-Union and Equifax. If the applicant's credit rating is okay, the bogus card is issued. Fortunately, there are simple ways that you can outsmart the clever identity thieves'.
Fortunately, victims of credit card fraud are legally liable only for the first $50 of unauthorized purchases, but there are many headaches involved in straightening out the problem. To be sure that there's no phony card buying goods and services in your name, you should check your credit once each year by phoning each of the three major credit reporting agencies for current status: EQUIFAX 1-800-685-1111 TRANS-UNION 1-800-888-4213 EXPERIAN 1-800-682-7654
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