davidgagne.net

Well, it’s finally happened. After over a decade of using the Internet for 10+ hours/day, someone has attempted to steal my identity. I went to my Washington Mutual online checking account to review my balance this morning and discovered a dozen charges that were most certainly not made by me (or my wife).

Someone using the email address davidgagne@insurer.com made charges to Napster (2 $1.00 charges), ProActive (a single $1.00 charge), York Photo (2 charges for $1.00, 1 charge for $25.98, and 1 charge for $60.98), something called “ADRENAL8887728170” (for $129.90), DRI*REG.NET (1 charge for $4.95 and 1 charge for $34.95), Clarisonic (for $212.06), and Columbia House (for $27.35).

I called WaMu and they canceled my check-card and are sending me a new one in 5 to 7 business days. They’re also going to change my PIN. But they were decidedly unhelpful in dealing with the false charges. The representative said that I could three-way call each of the companies listed — although she only had a phone number for four of the seven companies — and dispute the charges. So with the WaMu rep on the line I called ProActive, who said this sort of thing happens all the time with them. But it took over a half-hour to get just that one charge handled. There was no way I was going to sit on the phone for another couple of hours to get the others resolved, especially since there would still be three that we couldn’t even contact.

So now I have to wait for the charges to post and then call WaMu to dispute the rest individually.

Ridiculous.