and the hits just keep coming..... i literally have NO time to mess with this crap.

[vent]

wake up this morning and check my balance online, need to see if some checks had cleared, and hey -- what's that? i only have $35?

someone got ahold of my debit card #, home address, etc., and opened up a paypal account on friday. and bought and bought and bought until they could buy no more. $1,126.12 to be exact.

paypal is looking to make good on it, but meanwhile, i have about 5 checks out that might not clear (one to a member here). that should prove to be fun. I LOVE BEAURACRACY!


i hope there is a special place in hell for this thief.

[/vent]

dude....its the stanford DPS guy!

or..those f/g hoods i put on your card.....



nate dog.... sorry. that does suck.

have you opened any suspicious "paypal" emails lately? my gf keeps getting these saying someone spent your money and actually this IS the scam.

I had this happen to me about a month ago. It wasnt all my money, but 300 bucks was gone one morning. Call up your bank (wells fargo for me), and tell them. They will immediatly give you a provisional credit, then do an investigation. Sometimes the system works.

Deposit a nuke in the bank, and when they withdraw it...



Sorry man... I hope you somehow accidently find the people who did it at the gas station... when noone else is looking...



You have been causing alot of trouble lately...



M

Check debit cards are in my opinion a bad idea for this very reason. A direct link to your money, all you need is a number and address, and it's like keys to the bank.

Use the credit card, that way you control the payment to them, and can question any billing before your pay them. Just pay the balance in full each month, and be sure to sign up for one of them 1% cash back with 5% cash back for food and gas purchases.

The credit card companies are easy to work, they rake in so much in interest, that they offer cash back deals, doesn't take too many folk to owe interest too turn big profit for them. You just make sure you pay in full each month, and accrue no interest, just cash back points. Not only that, you hold on to your money a little longer depending on when you make the purchase verses when your credit card payment is due.

I see no advantage to a debit card, easier to steal your money even if only temporary and money is replaced it is still a hassle, no cash back or flier mile program, and you end up paying sooner.

I have even gone to the point of having a special credit card just for purchases on the internet...makes it easier to see if someone has captured the information...

When I used to set up e-commerce sites and review security of existing banks,,,I decided to insure myself....I saw way to many easy ways to get this info along with to many sloppy implementations out there.

rich

thanks for the suggestions.

i'm hoping my bank will cover my written checks. we'll see when they open tomorrow. i'm thinking about not getting another debit card for this reason. it may be just atm and credit for me from now on.

QUOTE

You have been causing alot of trouble lately...

yeah, you know -- that's how it feels. this, plus i've still got the lunatic-power-tripping parking officer out on a mission to tow my 914*, all in the midst of a massive deadline on tuesday... wtf? what an absurd week.

n


*the latest with officer snowden is: he claims the car is covered by an "old tarp", instead of a "conventional car cover"; which is total bullshit. i bought the damn car cover at kragen. it's the same car cover he ripped when taking it off to inspect the car. so he knows damn well that it's a "conventional car cover". i really don't want to lawyer-up over this thing...

Damn dude, it's true, sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug....hang in there, they can kill you but they can't eat you, that's against the law....even in Shallow Alto, Kalifornia.... 'em all. If you need to borrow a custom fitted cover for a 914 to make them happy, you can borrow mine.

Ok, what's the thing with the cops, do tell. Are they busting you for a car cover or what?

i have some experience in fighting "city hall" and winning. I stopped the illegal ticketing of "For Sale" cars in Redwood City, and had to stay on the cops, they tried writting them again, after the city attorney, and the judge all agreed with me, they can't do it (unless they have a posted sign notifing you of the violation) I shut down an illegal $12,000 a year ticket scheme, that once caught, even the cops admitted I was right once I showed them the law, yet they made me fight, I won, and they can't do it no more. Piss on them

My local code enforcer even told me that several laws on the books in my city are known to be uncounstitutional, or illegal, yet they are still on the books. Our local code agency even publishes a guide of regulations, that prohibit things that are perfectly legal to do, they just hope you don't know it.

So anyway, back to you. What have the Stanford or Palo Alto cops been hasseling you with, what violation???????? Tell me the violation, or code number, and title, and we'll figure out what you can do to fight 'em.


do tell.

PS How about a custom fitted car cover that says screw the cops in big letters, or officier so and so is a jerk! That out to lighten it up some (Ha Ha)

QUOTE (nebreitling @ Feb 6 2005, 11:58 PM)

yeah, you know -- that's how it feels. this, plus i've still got the lunatic-power-tripping parking officer out on a mission to tow my 914*, all in the midst of a massive deadline on tuesday... wtf? what an absurd week. n

The... uhh... 'company' needs to make sure candidates are in the upper .01% in taking crap.




M

Happened to me too!! Stole just over 1000 dollars. Bastards! They want to play dirty. I think we should give 'em some dirty play back. They obviously don't think hitting below the belt is wrong. I saw we rip off everything below their belt. Start with the toes.


Cole

QUOTE (dmenche914 @ Feb 6 2005, 09:10 PM)

My local code enforcer even told me that several laws on the books in my city are known to be uncounstitutional, or illegal, yet they are still on the books.

Welcome to the new America. Please the few by fucking the many.

Vote Libertarian.

Cole

QUOTE (dmenche914 @ Feb 6 2005, 09:10 PM)

Ok, what's the thing with the cops, do tell. Are they busting you for a car cover or what?

dmenche... it's an issue over what constitutes either an "abandoned vehicle" or a "visually comprimising vehichle" on private (stanford) property, in an unincorporated part of santa clara county. it's also an issue of one particular, non-sworn, community parking officer in the stanford DPS with an extraordinarily small penis and a maniacal sense of power.

let's talk... pm/email me your ph number -- i'd like to hear about your story, happy to share mine and aquire any wisdom in dealing with our local governments...

kind of a high jack

follow this DPS ( dumb public shit ) home one day, then start calling the locals about loud music during the night, which is easy buy a 5 dollar junk shop boom box, and when he is working a night shift go put it in his back yard. then next week sneak in to his drive way and put his car up on some walmart jack stands, slide an oil pan ( full )under his car, pull one wheel off and call the locals about his non running car in public view. to make matter worse for him pull the drain plug on his oil pan and let oil run on his driveway, and drop the plug in to your pocket, that way the car will not move till the cops get there.

then next week go pull the turn signal bulb from his car and replace it with a burnt out bulb. the week after that scrape the sticker from his plates. then go back and do the jacked up thing but this time drain his tranny fluid, and call the cops

i am sure you can get him several fines or letters from his HOA and let him know how it feels.

Nathan,

QUOTE

have you opened any suspicious "paypal" emails lately?

Did you do this scam?, I "almost" responded until they asked for specific info...

My debit card was "lost" at a FLAPS and that night I found $100s charges at gas stations. Not all stations require PIN's.

There is so much influential wealth in Palo Alto that their law enforcement goes after the low hanging fruit (us)
My cousin and I used to get stopped all the time when dropping off girlfriends who worked as aupairs...

ID THEFT- What to do when jacked.

Contact the fraud division of your bank and a credit reporting agency to let them know you have been a victim of identity theft.

Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 <- The one I used.
Experian: 1-888-397-3742
Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289

Request they place a "fraud alert" on your file. This alert will warn lenders to be especially careful in authenticating identity of anyone claiming to be you. It will mean that you cannot open instant credit, for example, at a retail store or get. But that is a minor inconvenience in light of the damage identity theft can do.

Yes, sign up with one of their programs so you can watch your purchases and even get your credit report / FICO score.

File a report with your local police department and make sure to get a copy.

Contact each credit grantor who has allowed a fraudulent account and tell them you did not open that account. Have them close these accounts. If you open new accounts, make sure to place a password or something on the account.


Contact the State of California Department of Justice at 1-888-880-0240 or via the internet at http://caag.state.ca.us/idtheft/index.htm and request an Identity Theft registration packet. The packet will contain all the necessary forms and instructions that you must complete and submit to the Department of Justice.

Call the Identity Theft Toll-Free Hotline at 1-877-IDTHEF (1-288-438-4338). This is the central point of contact within the federal government for reporting incidents of identity theft.

Document all these contacts with dates, names, and phone numbers for your records. You should also talk to a rep at your bank and they should take care of checks out there unless you were a previous b uncer

My father recently retired as the security & fraud officer at a major midwestern bank. His advice to me after I had a checkbook stolen a couple of years ago was to close the account completely and open an entirely new one.

I found out about the stolen checkbook, btw, when I got a call from the police who were holding someone who'd tried to cash checks to themselves at my bank. They'd already managed to cash a couple of other checks at another branch of the same bank 30 min before. An employee at the bank got suspicious, and called the cops. So, not all banks are full of incompetent boobs. The checkbook had been missing for as many as four days, and I hadn't noticed as I almost never write checks anymore.

Close that account, tell the bank everything, and it will all be cleared up. It's not that bad.

btw, as for the rants about debit cards, they're simply electronic checks. Signatures aren't really checked, and the thing that caught the thieves in my case was that they cashed several checks in a couple of hours for small amounts on an account that has nearly zero check activity. If I'd written more checks, they could have gotten away with more, and working my way out of it would have been a lot harder. Generally speaking, when this happens and you inform the bank promptly, they will believe you when you say you didn't make X charges. It's small change to them, they keep you as a customer. You're about as safe with a debit card as you are with a check, which is to say, not very.

Banks also employ some pretty rigorous anti-fraud measures, particularly against cards. Anything that's done that breaks your normal pattern will often be noticed. I've gotten calls from my bank asking if I made a particular charge that was flagged in their system. I was once called if I'd ordered an exhaust system (an expensive one, all stainless) from a vendor I only found out later had racked up a LOT of complaints about charging and then not getting around to actually shipping out the systems for months. That charge got flagged, so I got a courtesy call. I also didn't get an exhaust system for three months...

So much money flows through banks and credit card companies that they look on fraud and ID theft as simply the cost of doing business, and they're generally quite happy to pay up to make things right with the victims. I suppose some people have committed fraud by faking having their cards/checks stolen, but it's apparently not that big a problem, at least not in dollar terms. After all, they can't steal more than they have from the bank, and they're unlikely to get away with it more than once. Bank consolidation is also making it hard to jump from bank to bank to repeat this theft (not as many banks anymore), and even if they stole from 10 different banks, they're unlikely to steal more than $4-5K from each one, which means they (maybe) get away with a whole $50K, which is hardly enough to risk it, now is it? This kind of fraud would be interstate, which make it Federal, which means it's the FBI on your ass, and a pretty serious sentence if they nail you. The banks know this, so they just pay up with a smile.