68 ms·

The thief made some small purchases that would have been comical if their consequences hadn't been so ridiculous and far reaching. For instance, he rented a vid

The thief made some small purchases that would have been comical if their consequences hadn't been so ridiculous and far reaching. For instance, he rented a video at Blockbuster (!) that he didn't return. Blockbuster attempted to contact "me" several times about the video, assessing various late fees, but never charging them to my card for some odd reason, until finally it sent a collections agency after me. This entire, petty drama went unbeknownst to me until it wound up on my credit rating. All over a fraudulently derived, $15 late fee at a freaking video rental place. Getting this incident wiped from my credit history took an elaborate and drawn-out series of phone calls, letters, forms, interviews, etc. Even then, a decent amount of damage had been done, and various reports had spawned other reports, and I was borked in countless derivative reports and company databases. I had to do some "rebuilding" (in the parlance of the credit companies) for a few years. And this was just one of several, roughly similar purchases that accrued in the system under my name. The irony is that a bolder thief, making bigger purchases and maxing out the card, would have caused less damage to me by catching everyone's attention in flagrante delicto.

driverdan 12y ago
Thanks for clearing that up. Did he make a fake ID to open the Blockbuster account? It sounds like he had more than your credit card. If all he had was your card Blockbuster wouldn't be able to go after you, they wouldn't have the necessary ID information.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  No worries. To be honest, I'm not sure. All I can do is speculate. All I really know is that my credit card number was obtained and was used to make a few small purchases. Blockbuster was one of them. I didn't find out about Blockbuster -- or its attempts to go after me -- until I got a letter in the mail from a collections agency. That was the first I'd heard of anything involving Blockbuster. I put two and two together and realized it must have stemmed from the credit card theft, which had happened a few months prior, and which I'd assumed had been largely wrapped up by then. I figured that the collections agency hadn't just been called in overnight. No doubt it was the third or fourth step in some procedure at Blockbuster, starting with phone calls and letters, presumably to whatever falsified address and number this guy gave them. When it finally came time to involve collections, collections probably figured that I was some sort of deadbeat, and that "my" address on file with Blockbuster was bogus, and that at least the credit card number and bank were valid. So they found a way to contact me at my real address. (It's also possible they found me, at that point, through some ancient account on file with Blockbuster's system. Who's to say how sophisticated their dedupe practices were with their DB, but I'm guessing not very?) I have no idea what else was involved in the theft, above and beyond lifting my number. It's possible a fake ID was involved. I really can't say, and I don't want to overstep the bounds of my recollection.

driverdan 12y ago

Thanks for clearing that up. Did he make a fake ID to open the Blockbuster account? It sounds like he had more than your credit card. If all he had was your card Blockbuster wouldn't be able to go after you, they wouldn't have the necessary ID information.

jonnathanson 12y ago
No worries. To be honest, I'm not sure. All I can do is speculate. All I really know is that my credit card number was obtained and was used to make a few small purchases. Blockbuster was one of them. I didn't find out about Blockbuster -- or its attempts to go after me -- until I got a letter in the mail from a collections agency. That was the first I'd heard of anything involving Blockbuster. I put two and two together and realized it must have stemmed from the credit card theft, which had happened a few months prior, and which I'd assumed had been largely wrapped up by then. I figured that the collections agency hadn't just been called in overnight. No doubt it was the third or fourth step in some procedure at Blockbuster, starting with phone calls and letters, presumably to whatever falsified address and number this guy gave them. When it finally came time to involve collections, collections probably figured that I was some sort of deadbeat, and that "my" address on file with Blockbuster was bogus, and that at least the credit card number and bank were valid. So they found a way to contact me at my real address. (It's also possible they found me, at that point, through some ancient account on file with Blockbuster's system. Who's to say how sophisticated their dedupe practices were with their DB, but I'm guessing not very?) I have no idea what else was involved in the theft, above and beyond lifting my number. It's possible a fake ID was involved. I really can't say, and I don't want to overstep the bounds of my recollection.