People who know me are sick of this story, but here goes. I mentioned the one time that took me for a ton of money (which I did eventually get back). Never found out exactly how it happened, but it is assumed it was a skimmer on a card machine.
The second one was a lot more complicated. Somehow, someone got enough of my information to impersonate me. They changed my address for my driver's license and had it registered in another city, and started diverting some of my mail to this new address. Then they used my identity to open up a phony business, promising to help people clean up their credit scores. People being stupid, they fell for it by the thousands. Because mail fraud was involved, the US Postal Inspectors got involved, as well as the Secret Service.
Meanwhile, I'm cruising around none the wiser, since there were no fraudulent charges on my cards - the person who devised this was smart enough to not try and use my credit cards. That's one reason it took so long for her to be caught. So, one day I'm driving to work, doing the speed limit, and I get pulled over. Turns out my plate was expired, which I didn't even realize because I never got the notice in the mail (because my address had been changed without my knowledge) and it just slipped my mind. When the officer looked up my driver's license, he saw a completely different address and photo on his computer than what was on my license, and had to make a decision to either arrest me for driving on a bad license and with expired plates, or to believe my story that I had never lived in this other city, was NOT a black woman (which he could see) and this was my legitimate license. He was cool about it and just warned me not to drive anywhere until I got it cleared up. So, I had to leave my car in a parking lot, get someone to come get me, do all kinds of police reports and affidavits as to who I was (proved with my passport, thank goodness) and get my license reinstated.
I can no longer renew license or plate online, I have to go in person, with passport. Which reminds me... I need to do that in the next couple of weeks.
Thousands of people were caught in this scam, and they are still building a case against the person and her accomplices. And by the way, turned out she also used my identity to commit tax fraud too. Unfortunately for her, I owed money for the last two years, so she didn't get anything there from me, but she did steal lots more from the IRS in other names.
So, long story short, although it is probably too late for that, I fully and completely support Apple Pay.
