Identity Theft Stories

(Reuters) – Sony suffered a massive breach in its video game online network that led to the theft of names, addresses and possibly credit card data belonging to 77 million user accounts in what is one of the largest-ever Internet security break-ins. Sony learned that user information had been stolen from its PlayStation Network seven [...]

Irina Malezhik was ending an assignment as a Russian-language translator at a law office in 2004 when she asked an innocent but fateful question: Could anyone offer a lift to Brooklyn? The man who obliged by chance, authorities say, was a stranger named Dmitriy Yakovlev. He says she later began tutoring him in English and [...]

Stancy Nesby was pulled over for speeding, arrested and jailed for 3 days on mistaken identity. It happens that a judge issued a warrant for Stacy Nesby’s arrest after another woman arrested for cocaine possession gave Stacy’s name to the judge and then skipped her court date. The surprising issue with this mistaken identity case [...]

I was recently deployed in support of Operation Enduring freedom, Afghanistan. We returned Dec. 2010. I had several charges on my debit Visa account. Yet, when I reported it to the Bank (and they reported it to the NY State Police) both seem to be looking at me as the bad guy. You see, the [...]

In fewer than six months, some $900,000 in merchandise, gambling and telephone-services charges were siphoned out of his debit card. His attempts to salvage his finances have cost him nearly $100,000 and have bled dry his savings and retirement accounts. His credit score, once a strong 780, has been decimated. And his identity — Social [...]

Twitter reset passwords for an unknown number of users whose accounts appeared to have been compromised via phishing. “As part of Twitter’s ongoing security efforts, we reset passwords for a small number of accounts that we believe may have been compromised offsite,” the company said in a statement. Some Twitter users apparently “used their Twitter [...]

Data on 3.3 million borrowers was stolen from a nonprofit company that helps with student loan financing. The theft occurred on March 20 or 21 from the headquarters of Educational Credit Management Corp. (ECMC), which services loans when student borrowers enter bankruptcy. The data was contained on portable media, said the organization, which is a [...]

Not too long ago, I made a disturbing discovery. I received a statement in the mail for a department store credit card that I hadn’t authorized, and noticed a shipping address that was not my own. My name was listed on the bill, and my home address was recorded as the billing address – but [...]

I’ve been a victim of identity theft not once, but twice. So, you can be sure that I’m always aware my identity can be stolen. The first incident happened a few years ago. I was checking my bank account balance online when I noticed a problem. The bank showed I had $900 less in my [...]

Federal prosecutors this week charged a Southern California woman with aggravated identity theft and other crimes for allegedly using a popular genealogy research website to locate people who had recently died, and then taking over their credit cards. Tracy June Kirkland, 42, allegedly used Rootsweb.com to find the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates [...]