come on NO ONE is safe

really. i've had my debit/credit card # (never the card itself mind you, just the number) stolen MANY times (once i had it taken 3 times in about a month and a half. yes THREE replacement numbers taken. same card). i have never had to pay out of pocket for anything i didn't buy myself. that's all cool. i know it costs the banks and the credit card companies tons o' bucks. i also know it's a MEGA inconvenience to MOI when it happens. one must actually WAIT for the new card to arrive in the mail.

oh and i just had my gmail account hacked as well. so if you see an email from me beginning "dear" DON'T OPEN IT. DELETE IT. if you KNEW me you'd know i'd never use "DEAR". the email was about an iphone or some such nonsense. i've followed the instructions on the google site about what to do when that happens and i'm hoping it's the end of that.

ID-Theft Ring Ensnares Even the Fed Chairman

By Jerry Markon and Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writers

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke struggled to hold the economy together last August, he was distracted by a more personal financial problem: He and his wife were victims of identity theft.

Bernanke's brush with financial crime began when a thief stole Anna Bernanke's purse from the back of her chair at a Capitol Hill Starbucks on Aug. 7, 2008, according to court documents and a source close to the Fed chief. Inside were her leather wallet, four credit cards, $5 in cash and her checkbook, a D.C. police report said.

A week later, a $900 check from the couple's Wachovia Bank account was deposited at a Bank of America in Hyattsville....