I started having problems with my Mastercard last night when I tried to put money into my phone. The transaction kept failing on O2’s website but it had been previously accepted by Blockbuster. When I first received my credit card about a year ago, I tried to activate it by phone but it couldn’t be done because I had answered one of the security questions wrong. Of course, they wouldn’t give me any more information and told me to go into my bank. I did that and was assured the card had been activated.

While I was on the phone with the fraud dept on Friday night, I had to verify a few details and that’s when I discovered they had my date of birth wrong. I’m assuming it was a typo error since they had entered “01″ instead of “10″ for the day. It has never been a problem until now because you never had to activate cards by phone before and my Mastercard was the only card I had ever had to do that with.

I’ve been stressing out all night over the situation and totally imagining the worst. I headed into town this morning, armed with my passport which has just expired (great timing!) because as a govt employee, I know my birth certificate is next to useless and wouldn’t be enough. Birth certs are easily forged and most places will ask for passports instead these days which is another reason to make sure you have one even if you never use it abroad.

Long story short, the guy at the bank updated my date of birth for me and ensured I had taken all the necessary steps to report the fraud. He checked my replacement debit card was on the way and phoned Mastercard to see if there was a problem with my card. They assured me everything was fine and the problems were probably down to the fact I hadn’t used the card in more than a year. I guess it flagged up somewhere but they never admitted to that. I was advised to try and use it an shop which I promptly refused to do since I didn’t need the embarrassment on top of everything else. I came home and tried it again on O2 and it was accepted instantly. Coincidence? I’m sure they had some kind of block on it in case it wasn’t me and once they had verification from the bank that I was definitely using the card myself - the block must’ve been lifted.

I’ve spent the rest of the afternoon researching identity theft and safe ways of shopping online. The problem is I have no way of knowing how my debit card information was taken. As mentioned in my previous post, sites like Amazon were named as possible culprits but I have been using Amazon for years with no problems. Other sites named were Ebay and PayPal. I haven’t used Ebay for a long time but I do use PayPal frequently. Again, I have no proof either site was to blame. I have always been very careful when shopping online and only use sites I am satisfied are secure but of course, no site is 100% safe. However, internet shopping seems to be the overall common denominator here.

I’m feeling quite paranoid at the moment but I really don’t want to lose the convenience of shopping online so it means I have to take even more steps to satisfy my details are not being stolen. I have done a complete virus and spyware check on my Windows laptop which I still use and nothing has come up, however I have decided all my online shopping will now be done on my Mac. The security features on my Mac are far more advanced and I know I’m less likely to fall victim to spyware if at all. I did a lot of research on viruses and spyware when I first got my Mac to make sure I was doing everything possible to protect myself, hence the reason I decided against installing Vista alongside it.

I am removing my debit card details from every site I have them stored and replacing them with my credit card details. In the event this happens again, I won’t risk having my bank account cleared out, plus my credit card protects me from fraudulent use. My debit card will only be used in shops and cash machines which means if my details are cloned again, the internet won’t be the culprit again.

From now on, I will only use cash machines inside banks or shops where tampering would be noticed. I am also considering opening another current account which I will keep topped up with £100 for example and only ever use that account for internet purposes. I’m not sure yet.

I have registered for PrivacyGuard at my bank which means my identity will be protected for a monthly fee (of course!) and I will be able to access my credit profile online, as well as being alerted if anyone attempts to use my name and address to get credit from anywhere. If I do have any problems with my identity, the bank will step in and resolve any issues that arise and restore my credit rating.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the Home Office site, reading about identity theft and the consequences it has on you if you become a victim and one of the things they advise is for you to keep a very close eye on your credit rating. There are companies who will provide you with that info upon request and you will be able to scrutinise it in detail yourself. No one knows better than you if you’ve applied for credit cards, loans, benefits or bank accounts recently.

I never thought this would happen to me and I was very lucky to catch it so quickly. The people who are doing this charge a very small transaction against your account as a test and once they get more confident, they set about clearing out your bank account, including your overdraft. With me, they bought bus tickets for £4.50 and then used it to purchase a licence from Vbulletin for around £70, which included an overseas fee of £1. There were five other transactions pending when my debit card was cancelled so who knows how much they would’ve gotten in the end.

I cannot emphasise strongly enough how careful you need to be because your identity is the most expensive thing you own!