Complaint Review: Juno Internet Service Provider

"-Cyber Crime Agency?  Sorry but you have been watching too much TV.  The best thing you can do is go down to your local law enforcement and file an Identity Theft Report."

-This was true 4-5 years ago, however, the current epidemic of cyber-related ID theft has spawned more than a dozen organizations/agencies, (some governmental, some not) that track , investigate and pursue ID thieves. To name a few, IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center, a division of the FBI), California Office of Privacy Protection (a governmental agency), National Fraud Information Center (fraud.org), International Consumer Protection & Enforcement Network (EConsumer.gov), regional branches of the United States Secret Service's Electronic Crimes Task Force or the Federal Trade Commission's ID Theft Clearinghouse.

These are just a few of the resources available to consumer's whose personal information or financial information is suspected to have been compromised or stolen and misused.

"-For all they know is that you are a person that has some grudge against the person that opened the account and are trying to get "even" by closing their account."

I might have considered their response reasonable if it had not been the third time in 3 weeks that someone had attempted to open an account using my address, the first time having used my name, address, credit card #, a phone number that was so close to my own, and a fabricated email address using my name, all of which I confirmed and matched to the original account attempt. It is very easy to look up in their system any account matching a particular address and in fact the MAC address/IP address of the computer terminal that was used in the account initiation. I know this because I formerly worked at a service provider that provided both wireless and dial-up services to consumers. This is very basic information collected for the purpose of identifying the authorized terminal to grant access to. A quick and basic scan of the account's technical profile would be all that was necessary to determine if there was illegitimate activity involved.

Lastly, and what made me most angry, was their refusal to provide me with contact information to their Anti-Fraud/Legal Department (which leads one to wonder just how seriously this company is about consumer security) or even open an investigation into the issue, given the amount of information that pointed to a case of fraudulent use/abuse of their service, which should be a violation of their Terms and Conditions. This supervisor's actions told me that their only response to fraudulent activity is to close the account, and only if the victim can provide all of the exact information that the thief used.  Effectively this makes it easy for anyone with even the most basic knowledge of IT able to easily hack and abuse their network. And that to me is irresponsible and potentially dangerous for a number of reasons.

I am lucky in the fact that the thief chose a card number that does them no real good. And in the process they alerted me that I should keep a close eye on all of my information and accounts to make sure that's all they have access to. It also alerted me to contact the various companies, etc. to watch for any suspicious activity. And most importantly gave me a heads up before any real damage could be done, giving me the credibility, in the event they do eventually succeed. So my actions are not to recoup any sort of losses yet. I just hope that potential customers of Juno service will read and consider this post, when making their decision to subscribe or not, so that they can at least make an informed decision about what type of ethics this company holds when it comes to consumer protection and security for their customers.

I truly hope that you never fall victim to an identity thief. But, if you do, I hope that you will remember my post and refer back to the resources that I have listed to help you undo any damage that may have been done and to help alert others who may fall victim.

While I understand where you are coming from.  Realize that without something such as the Credit Card that was used to open the account they have no idea if you are that person or not.  For all they know is that you are a person that has some grudge against the person that opened the account and are trying to get "even" by closing their account.

The fact that someone knew your address, and had used a Pre-Paid VISA of yours suggests that they are probably not getting this information from your Credit Report.  Which means that either it is someone you know and has access to this info, or got your information from a site you have used.

I have decided to pursue this on my own, starting by contacting any Cyber Crime related Agency or Department, as I, in NO WAY, believe that this is just a coincidence.
- Cyber Crime Agency?  Sorry but you have been watching too much TV.  The best thing you can do is go down to your local law enforcement and file an Identity Theft Report.  Even though they may not be using your Credit Report, with the ID Theft report you can have a Fraud Alert placed on your credit reports.  This is free and if you do have an identity theft issue going on, any company that accesses your credit report for the purpose of opening an account must do additional verification to prove that it is in fact you.