TOP SECRET! How much is your information worth? I can buy stolen account information—your name, address, credit card number, and more—for $10 to $50 per account from hackers who advertise on more than a dozen black market websites.
1. Watch your back. In line at the grocery store, I’ll hold my phone like I’m looking at the screen and snap your card as you’re using it. Next thing you know, I’m ordering things online—on your dime.
2. That red flag tells the mail carrier—and me—that you have outgoing mail. And that can mean credit card numbers and checks I can reproduce. And if a bill doesn’t show up when it’s supposed to, don’t breathe a sigh of relief. Start to wonder if your mail has been stolen. Stealing mail is easy. Sometimes, I act like I’m delivering flyers. Other times, I just stand there and riffle through it. If I don’t look suspicious, your neighbors just think I’m a friend picking up your mail.
3. Check your bank and credit card balances at least once a week. I can do a lot of damage in the 30 days between statements.
4. If you see something that looks like it doesn’t belong on the ATM or sticks out from the card slot, walk away. That’s the skimmer I attached to capture your card information and PIN. If you use the same ATM every time, you’re a lot more likely to notice if something changes on the machine.
5. I use your credit cards all the time, and I never get asked for ID. A helpful hint: I’d never use a credit card with a picture on it.
6. Thanks for using your debit card instead of your credit card. Hackers are constantly breaking into retail databases, and debit cards give me direct access to your banking account.
7. Sometimes I pose as a salesman and go into a small office. After I make my pitch, I ask the secretary to make me a copy of something. Since most women leave their purses on the floor by their chairs, as soon as she leaves the room, I can grab her wallet. I also check the top and bottom right-hand drawers of their desks, where I often find company checks.
TOP SECRET! How much is your information worth? I can buy stolen account information—your name, address, credit card number, and more—for $10 to $50 per account from hackers who advertise on more than a dozen black market websites.
8. Even with all the new technology, most of us still steal your information the old-fashioned way: by swiping your wallet or purse (thanks for writing your PIN number on that little slip of paper in your wallet), going through your mail, or Dumpster diving. I can dig through Dumpsters in broad daylight, and if anyone asks (but no one does), I just say my girlfriend lost her ring or that I may have thrown my keys away by mistake.
9. That’s me driving through your neighborhood at 3 a.m. on trash day. I fill my trunk with bags of garbage from different houses and sort later, because you throw away the darnedest things—preapproved credit card applications, old bills, expired credit cards, checking account deposit slips, and crumpled-up job or loan applications with all your personal information.
10. One time I was on the run and needed a new identity so I went through a hospital Dumpster and found a statement with a Puerto Rican Social Security number for a Manuel Rivera. For a good two years after that, I was Manuel Rivera. I had his name on my apartment, on my paychecks, and, of course, on my credit cards.
11. Why don’t more of you call 888-5-OPTOUT to stop banks from sending you preapproved credit offers? You’re making it way too easy for me.
12. Is your Social Security number on your driver’s license or your checks, or is it your account number for your health insurance? Dumb move.
13. When I send out e-mails “phishing” for personal information by posing as a bank or online merchant, I often target AOL customers. They just seem less computer literate—and more likely (I hope) to fall for my schemes.
SOURCES: Former identity thieves in Kentucky, Florida, Indiana, Virginia, and New York.