BLOGGER COOMENTS ON COMPUTERS BEING STOLEN my laptops were stolen... how to prevent identity theft - LoveShack.org Community Forums


Hi all--

My apartment was robbed yesterday and my two laptops were stolen (I had just bought a Mac to replace my 4-year old Dell).

The cops are pretty sure junkies in my neighborhood stole them to feed their heroine habit.

That being said, a lot of sensitive financial information (and personal info!) was on those computers and I am trying to figure out how best to protect myself from identity theft or fraud, and/or recover my property, and/or catch the jerks who did it. So far here's what I've done:

-filed a police report;
-put a fraud alert on my credit report;
-changed my online usernames and passwords for my checking, savings, and credit card accounts (my online login info was in a file called "PINS" on mycomputer, but not my account numbers) (real bright, I know);
-canceled my checks (actually I canceled them after my first break-in and never re-ordered new checks);
-contacted Apple and told them my computer was stolen; they put a note in my record and if anyone tries to service it, it will show up as stolen property;
-checked craigslist to see if they are showing up for sale there (they're not).

What else can I do at this point?

Anybody know what these ***hats are likely to do with my machines? Will they strip the documents off and sell the hardware at arms-length? Are they crafty enough to mine the computers for data they can exploit in other ways? If they sell them at a pawn shop, how likely are the pawn shop dudes to report it to police (my understanding is that they are legally required to report serial numbers of computers they sell... but I am skeptical about how often they do...)

I'm so pissed. Robbed TWICE IN LESS THAN A YEAR?! That's some d*mn bad luck