As Michelle Goodson’s mother answered the phone, a wave of confusion and terror washed over her. Her daughter, former Elon student Michelle Goodson, was studying abroad in London, but hadn’t charged anything in traveling costs. Conversing with Goodson and authorities, she was able to eliminate possibilities until she arrived at one: credit card fraud.

While Goodson isn’t sure exactly how her personal information was stolen, she suspects a vender or cashier in London memorized her number since her credit card has to go through various steps each time she uses it, since it’s not European.

“I found out my credit card number was stolen about two weeks ago,” she said. “I can never be 100 percent sure how.”

Cases like Goodson’s are just one example of the growing issue of identity theft across the nation. In North Carolina alone, 5,748 residents claimed identity theft last year, 22 percent of which came from credit card fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft Victim Complaint packet.

While this number is lower than the nation’s 25 percent average for credit card fraud, the number of people reporting claims has jumped from 3,383 in North Carolina in 2002 to 5,307 in 2006.

Chris Fulkerson, assistant vice president for technology, said identity theft has not been too common on Elon’s campus, but that college students need to be particularly careful about their personal information, since identity theft is very serious and can ruin credit, which he referred to as a lifeline for finances.

“Since students are starting to build credit, they may not be thinking about [the possibility of identity theft], but it can cause big problems down the road,” he said. “When they’re getting their first apartment or car loan, if their information has already been compromised it will make it very difficult.”

Goodson, who is now at student at New York University, said she had several orientations on protecting her identity when she first arrived in London since it is such a big city.

“Gangs here actually make their own devices to attach to the cash or ATM machines that read the credit card number off of ATM cards so that they can later use the number elsewhere,” Goodson said. “It’s a huge issue here according to the university.”

While she was able to rule out that possibility since she does not own an ATM card, she said the situation has been extremely stressful since she is trying to deal with it while overseas.

“So far it has not been a big deal at all, just very frustrating and unnerving,” Goodson said. “It only impacted me by financial means which will hopefully be cleared up shortly by the credit card company.”

While credit card fraud was second to other forms of identity theft for North Carolina in 2006, Fulkerson said students need to be cautious of displaying too much information that could make them easy targets to thieves.

He said Web sites like Facebook and MySpace, where addresses, friends’ names or favorite activities are displayed, can be helpful to criminals. He urged extreme caution around spamming and phishing.

“Phishing is when you get an e-mail that sounds like your bank and sends a legitimate message and asks you to verify your account and has you go to a Web site,” he said. “They say just fill it in: name, social, etc. When people do that, they’re giving the information that those who want to steal your identity need.”

Fulkerson said a bank will never contact their customers via e-mail to verify their information.

Dumpster diving, where thieves dig through the trash to find credit card applications, bank account numbers or other forms with information on them is a new form of identity theft, he said.

“They can fill it out and have a card with your name on it,” Fulkerson said. “Things like that, even simple documents like phone bills, should be shredded because that’s information ID thieves can use to get information about you and start building a false ID.”

Goodson said her situation was particularly aggravating because she had been extremely careful since her orientation the week before the fraud yet it was during that period that her number was stolen.

“My peers should be concerned about theft because no matter how cautious you are, it’s always possible,” she said.

While Goodson never leaves her card out and regularly checks her bills, Fulkerson stressed shredding all unwanted documents and keeping personal information in safe places.

“Always, always protect your Social Security number. You should only give it out when required by law,” he said. “You can see your total history from your Social Security number; from credit history to bank account numbers to your history of payments.”

While Goodson’s parents assisted her by going through all of the charges on her card and confirming or denying the ones that had in fact been made by their daughter, she said it has made an impact on how she guards her identity now.

“I’m overly rude to people behind me in line. I will blatantly ask them to back up and I also will never take my card out before a cashier asks for it and I know they’re ready for it so that I know the numbers cannot be seen for long,” she said. “It makes me look like a rude American [in London], but it is measures I now take to prevent this from happening again.”

Fulkerson said if a site is sent to you via e-mail it could be a ploy, but that Web sites that students go to, like E-Bay and Amazon, are generally trustworthy. He also recommended checking for a lock on the browser to be assured information is sent securely and signing up for a free PayPal account, which has guarantees and security built in for making payments online.

Special Features Editor: Andie Diemer - 09/26/07