Traveling credit card a real surprise to owner

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Caren Bulmer's Visa bank card made a road trip last year to Manhattan, without ever leaving West Palm Beach or her wallet.

In February of last year, someone used Bulmer's credit card to buy two $1,500 gift certificates at a Staples store, by having the cashier key in the numbers rather than swiping the card. Then they cashed them to buy computer laptops and printers. Fortunately, when she saw them on her bank statement, she was able to call Wachovia Bank and have the charges removed.

But the stress of the ordeal didn't end there. To this day, she has no idea how thieves could have gotten her card number. The bank referred the case to its fraud department. When Bulmer asked what would happen, a Wachovia customer-service person said she didn't know whether anything further would be done.

"I said, 'Is this it, aren't you going to find out who did this?' " Bulmer recalled recently.

To be sure, such concerns about ID theft have heightened over the past month after computer security at U.S. information brokers ChoicePoint Inc. and Seisint Inc. was breached and the identities and other personal data of 175,000 Americans were stolen.

At least three bills in Congress would place stiffer regulations on data brokers and limit access to consumers personal records.

But while Congress lays out laws to protect Americans personal information held by data brokers, only a fraction of identity thefts are pilfered from them.

In fact, most ID theft results from decidedly low-tech schemes that range from a waiter swiping your credit card through a pocket-sized imprinter to sell the number on the black market to low-lifes who Dumpster dive, or fish for credit card receipts in a garbage container.

"There are people out there stealing people's identities and hundreds of thousands of dollars. My case is little compared to that," Bulmer said. Little, and unusual because most cases take months or years to resolve, and rarely is someone ever prosecuted.

A sobering fact given that an estimated 9 to 10 million Americans a year are victims of identity theft, and the number of complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission has risen each year since 2000, sometimes doubling. The effect is a $53 billion-a-year bite out of the economy.

The ordeal can be at once frustrating, and eye-opening to victims. The FTC says it can take anywhere from one hour to 240 hours to resolve credit problems resulting from ID theft. Sadly, you may be violated again months after you think the case is closed.