How do I protect myself?
I want to buy non-Porsche ‘things’ online, some on a notorious auction site.
I want to protect myself and my ID.
So … my plan is to:
Start another email address, unique to this process.
I have an unused Master Card account I can use solely for this PayPal.
I will use a ‘screen name’ not related to my real name and so common to not be able to be successfully searched (Googled).
I can get a ‘Magicjack’ phone number.
My regular phone is outgoing ‘Call ID Blocked’.
I can use a P.O. Box.
I can use a company ‘drop’ for receiving shipping.
I’ll keep screen images of every on-line transaction.
What else can I do?
I want to have a ‘system’ that avoids problems.
If there is a problem, I want it easily resolved.
I’m used to on-line transactions.
I use Amazon Prime ‘
One-Click’ and a very few others regularly.
Last year my card service bank called and someone had hacked my number and several million others. They charged several million $27 transactions. The bank sent me a new card overnight.
My CPA (who has POA) can see every transaction of mine as soon as it is posted – I occasionally get calls: “Did you charge…?”
I
think I am reasonably well protected. Not?
I use my name here and on other Porsche forums because most everyone in this group knows my name from 40+ years of Porsche activity.
I suppose that is one of the hazards of being in business, racing and other.
If you Google my name, you get me (#4), my dad (the author, journalist, etc. #1&2+) and Mohamed Ali’s mom (Odessa Grady Clay #3).
(Cassius Marcellus Clay was my great- - - grandfather, US Senator from KY and a pre-Civil War slave owner. Senator Clay freed his slaves. My friend changed his name to gain distance from his slave-name.)
If I had known the extent of ID search today, I would have spent my life as “John Winter” or the like.
One thing I have just considered is to ask the card-bank to issue me a card in my ‘screen name’.
I wonder if they can do that considering ‘Homeland Security’ and all?
I think my goal here is to have a process if (when?) someone gains access to my ‘screen name’ identity, I can close-out that one and simply start a new one.
In this world of ‘everyone is identified’ (except the crooks), this may be difficult.
Please offer your suggestions and comments.
Best,
Grady