amdavidson

Identity Theft?

posted on 2009-03-10 - amd.im/vFj5

So... here's a story.

I get an email from ebay.co.uk about a person trying to register amdavidson1985 on ebay.co.uk with the email address am.davidson@gmail.com...

I knew that gmail ignores periods in email addresses so was not surprised that this went to me... but it made me curious...

Then someone tries to reset my gmail password and fortunately, my alternate email address was set to my current email so I got notified.

This made me get a bit worried... maybe someone is trying to get away with a little identity theft.

So I go to change my passwords... still all secure.

I then went back to re read all the emails... and notice that it is addressed both to amdavidson1985 and to someone's name.

So I hit up a little Facebook and find a person by the name listed in the ebay email in "West Midlands" which sounded like a Britishy place to me...

I shoot a message and a reply comes back about 10 mins later that she was registering a new ebay account with her married name, and claims that she mistyped her email address which she has been meaning to update from her maiden name to her married name... still a little fishy, but altogether a bit understandable.

The internet makes it a real small world. In less than an hour, I got notices from American companies that someone in England was trying to use my email address, and I was able to track them down from a hotel room in Shanghai.