I got a call on my mobile phone while I was at work. It was a rep claiming to be from my credit card company. Someone in Florida had tried to buy a $8,000 plane ticket with my credit card. I found out later Florida is one the leading states for identity theft, tax refund fraud, Medicare fraud, e-mail spam, etc.

But I was suspicious, because I've heard scammers will try to claim you're being scammed to get you to panic and give them your personal info. I thanked the rep for calling but didn't give him any important information.

After I hung up, I went to my credit card company's website and found their fraud hotline phone number.

I told this rep about the previous phone call, and turned out it was a legit call from their office. She read out loud the most recent charges on my credit card. Some were mine, but the others were not.

She said the credit card was compromised, so they would close this account, issue a new card and rush mail it to me. Got my new card 2-3 days later.

That incident sparked my interest in identity theft. How could someone steal my credit card, even though it was still in my wallet?! It was a brand-new card too, I had only gotten it a few weeks ago.

Here are some resources that helped me understand it better:

American Greed - Hackers: Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (Video) - Profiles Albert Gonzalez, who led a team of hackers to breaches of T.J. Maxx and other retailers.

The Great Cyber Heist - New York Times piece on Gonzalez.

Four Kids From South Florida Led the World's Biggest Online Identity Heist - Another great article on the Gonzalez case.

One Hacker's Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards - Great Wired article about Max Butler, who wanted to create the number-one website for identity thieves. Great window into that criminal underground. The writer turned the story into a book titled Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground.