Identity Theft sucks. The following happened on my birthday, last Friday, February 6th:
I got to work and checked my bank account [online] and found some fraudulent charges. someone was using my debit card #/clone of my card and going on mini shopping sprees at a Wal-Mart in Austin, Texas. I haven’t been to Austin since Austin City Limits. And I don’t think I even know where a Wal-Mart in Austin is. I had to cancel my debit card, which took about 2 hours at the bank; they got me for a few hundred dollars. Jerks. They even got a $15 car wash. I don’t even own a car fam.
Said card was connected to a bunch of necessary things, like my cable and internet, my iPhone bill, my Rappers I Know server, student loans—even rent.
So yeah, Rappers I Know was down. The server had to sit idle for a few days and considering we do so much traffic that the host on top of our regular hosting bill hit me with a pretty sizeable bandwidth overage hosting bill that I wasn’t prepared to handle considering someone spending up all my hard earned HOT 97 and indie rapper album cover money on 20 lb bags of Hershey Kisses and bulk packs of Hanes V-Neck undershirts at Wal-Mart.
So yeah, if you wanna donate a few duckets to help keep the site up, that’d be sweet. And if you don’t and want to just download free music, that’s also sweet.
On some extra-keep it real shit (when keeping it real goes wrong?), I’ve neglected to seek out outside sponsorship or investors to (help) pay for the site, because I dislike answering to any agenda but the one I’ve set forth, to showcase music and art that I like by rappers (and producers and singers and djs and graphic designers and photographers and … and …) I happen to know. And as we all know, when the economy gets bad and the going gets rough, the first things that usually go are Entertainment and the Arts. Sadly as an out of pocket endeavour that I love to do, because I love music and narrative and shared experience, I won’t be able to do alone. I mean, not on this 7 figure a month HOT 97 salary anyway. I gotta pay for my grillion dollar Scandanavian architected, and at some pointed posted on Kanye’s Blog, Bruce Wayne loft in Midtown and my platinum-plated Metrocard.
Otherwise most is well for now, and on the road to being fixed up, but man. What a headache. Watch your things and things of importance. Don’t let identity theft happen to you. And please watch your credit rating. It’s not a game! Not that a good credit rating means much in this economy either
Damn, what an ordeal…
Great to have you back! :D
Sorry to hear that man when i get some extra money after i move ill donate man this site is dope and supports indie hiphop artist stay strong man
Pikahsso
damnn, i got chu wen i get my taxesss shunn..lol..
gotta surport my niggaas
Damn, I was worried when the site wouldnt load up, but I never imagined it was due to ID Theft.
Did you ever, or can you find out, how (EXACTLY) it happened?….
At the moment, my identity if stolen wouldnt do the theft much good because I have no bank account nor job at the moment, no Cellphone etc……… Only thing someone could do to harm me would be gank my MAcBook and External Harddrives w/ all my Masters, and Sample and Drum Libraries.
I was just in the process of shooting you an email before I read this about, moving my website/online BlogAzine from BLOGSPOT.COM to my Own Site, or at least somewhere else that I could be more in control of the Design and features and widgets…. Also, I need to be able to host music and such… but after reading this, Im thinking I might be better off staying with BLOGSPOT.COM if it really is that exspensive.
Dont get me wrong (http://THEHOBBYSHOPHERO.BLOGSPOT.COM) does not get a fraction of the Traffic that RIKM gets, but the past year its grown pretty well…..
Its crazy how Crappy things always happen to great people, I bet this ID THEFT ish with Actually benefit you in some way frank, open a door that might not have before been visable, but who knows hahahaha
That had just happened to me about 3 weeks back where I checked my bank account and someone had took a $1000 dollars and spent it on Walmart.com. in Arkansas. I was pissed off like crazy so I know where u are coming from.
Damn. That sucks. I’m broke as a joke right now but I’ll help out when i can. You can get some free labor out of me before/at SXSW :) Ever get my email about that?
Identity theft is a big problem these days. In times of recession people will stoop to ultimate lows to make money for their families. I found some good ways to prevent identity theft in this article. I hope it helps you too
http://www.gotoguy.com/2009/02/15/prevent-identity-theft/
Lol @ Dutchmaster on the plug. That junk worked though. But yea nonetheless we all seem to be broke and like the rest I’ll donate mos def next month. God Bless.
Anybody wanna buy some Hanes V-Neck undershirts / family size bags of Hersheys? I got a whole bunch of ’em going cheap…
Seriously though, this happened to me about 11 times because the crack head mail man in my old flat was stealing all my mail and applying for credit cards in my name. I’m now on some register of fraud victims or something which is a good thing I guess but if I buy something from a petrol station twice the same day, some guy phones my mobile to check if it was me which is also pretty scary.
my bank USED to call me anytime semi suspicious happened on my card, but then they got bought by Chase.
Brandon,
Thanks for this resource.
http://www.gotoguy.com/
There is a lot of cool stuff there. One to be bookmarked.
Thanks man
C
Ayo FWMJ
your page really gets traffic coming in!
You should really look into Google Adsense!!
You’ll be getting extra paper on your page my dude, no lie!!