Privacy in the digital age...

Privacy has long been illusionary. Biggest single loss of privacy has probably been the three credit bureaus. Access a credit file and you know one's history and all their current financial information and the access isn't difficult to get. Do you all have your credit files locked from access? Even if you do, there are still the bureau employees. I'm not sure anyone here truly understands through the use of the credit bureaus how easy it is to steal identities.

Insurance companies also are sources of tremendous information.

It's a bit like when I recall people being so scared of using their credit cards online, yet they thought nothing of handing it to a below minimum wage employee in a restaurant and allowing them to disappear out of sight for an extended period of time. Meanwhile, restaurants were major sources of card theft.

We're in a world today where eventually others will get your information. You must put up a good defense that allows you to recognize misuse of it at the earliest possible moment. I don't know how many times I've had cards compromised as there have been many times where an unknown pending item showed up or a $1 item and the card company and I immediately cancelled and reissued.

And for those of you who protect your card vigilantly, do you ever write checks? Yes, you know, that thing where you hand all your account information over to someone else on a nice legible piece of paper and they, or anyone in their business or office with access, can then use that information and write all the checks they want to with it or do e-checks online.

Point is, no one should delude themselves into believing they have their privacy fully protected, not by avoiding Facebook or using fake emails or not using Alexa.

And no overdraft protection. If I overdraft, it means I was defrauded as I'd never do it myself. I don't want that check to clear.

Got all of the above, works great, never had a problem.
(Better be lucky than good, I guess)
My Citybank CC however has been hacked 3 times, we did a road trip to Georgia a year ago and used the CC left and right, bunch of bogus charges
Followed in our wake, $499 nail saloon and similar BS.
Cash is king of course, but addicted to plastic, points and easy accounting @ tax time.

We got hit for about $ 13K in checks about 5 mos ago. Someone took a check of ours, printed it with consecutive numbers starting 150 check numbers out from our original.

They never wrote a check over $ 200.00. wrote and cashed 65 checks over a 6 hour period !!! must've had writers cramp !! Bank caught it, call us, stopped payment etc.

Had to start over with new checks, warn people that had been paid legitimately that we'd need to send new checks. A giant PITA but it did go away.

We never heard what came of the issue, the bank said they were after the people involved tho.

Took three months to get our account credited for the loses.

My wife wanted NAMES & ADDRESSES & she wanted REVENGE !!!
Of course the bank was tight lipped.
We did track down one of the people whose name was on 15 of the checks, some dude in Baltimore. Could they have been dumb enough to use their true name ?

We think it was some kind on inside job with that many checks cashed so fast and made out to only 3 or 4 people/companies.

I knew a case where everyone who wrote a check paying rent to a specific apartment complex was compromised and mostly e-checks. Now, a large group of people used them although they think it all originated from an office employee and her boyfriend. But many of those used them to pay personal bills like their insurance or rent or their furniture rental. Not the brightest group but over 100 tenants affected. By the next month, the complex had reduced the fee for online payment from $9.95 to $0.00 and had strongly encouraged the use of it.