Wilgje.net

Jup. Happened to me too. And no, it doesn’t need to be someone who knows you. There are millions of ways to get to your address. For example:
whois, gets your (Foo’s?) address in Zoetermeer.
CV, gets your (Parent’s?) address in Oudkarspel.
It’s all freely available on the internet for anyone to find. And put there by yourself.
There are a LOT of ID thieves out there who scavenge the net for this stuff.

By Wh|te Russian on Aug 15, 2007

Hope it doesn’t happen again… even though it’s clear you are not to blame, it always causes stress and trouble. It’s amazing what some people will go through to steal a few euro’s worth of clothing.

By FooBar on Aug 15, 2007

Yikes, that sucks. Reminds me to check whether I have any of that kind of info publicly available. Sorry to hear about this, I hope it gets solved quickly and without headaches.

By Solitas on Aug 16, 2007

Don’t pay H&M, their procedure is in error.
They should ask the person for an ID when he/she came to pick up the clothes and if it wasn’t the account holder doing the pickup the ID should be copied and held on file. Some stores already require this when you pay with a creditcard.

Welcome to the anonymity of ‘teh internets’ \o/ -or not- ;-)

By Deckardt on Aug 16, 2007

I had the same thing.. It’s H&M’s fault that their procedure sucks. I took it to the police, because H&M wanted me to at first, but the police can’t do anything, since you can’t prove that you didn’t order the stuff. Just call H&M and tell them that it’s only costing you time and that you’re not going to pay. H&M knows this and this happens a lot..

By xinit on Aug 16, 2007

Don’t take this the wrong way, but in your defense you could always rant “Do I look like I would order a size 36?!” Although they’d probably counter by saying that you bought/stole them for your niece, or something.

What a crappy situation to be in. But yeah, identity theft is damn easy when all you need is an address or date of birth. Once my domain is transferred to DreamHost I’ll definitely be blanking out my WHOIS info. Even with my low-profile Internet activities I sometimes piss people off.

Best of luck hon’… I hope you get things resolved :)

By Cailin Coilleach on Aug 16, 2007

Haha, this is rich indeed :)

I already found out that at H&M, this indeed happens a lot more often than I thought. The woman on the phone didn’t make a problem of it at all, wasn’t even surprised that it had happened. I indeed threw in the argument ‘I don’t fit into anything H&M creates, so I would never buy this stuff’, and she readily believed me. After checking out the information it appeared that the name, address and birth date were right, but the email-adress certainly wasn’t (I always use <something> at wilgje.net for sites), and I never heard if the phone numbers matched (that I’d like to find out about, though).

I don’t have to pay anything so that’s been taken care of, and today I’m making an appointment with the police to tell them all about it. Very likely the culprit will never be caught of course, but you never know.. :)

It’s a relaxing (but at the same time disturbing) thought that more people have experienced this at H&M. They should most definitely adjust their policies and handlings on this.

By Wi11ow on Aug 16, 2007

It’s actually not H&M’s error and also not really their problem. But a problem with the drop-off points. I forgot the name of them but it’s possible to have parcels dropped off and picked up at things like petrol stations. THAT organization should ask for proper matching ID. But many of those people working there usually don’t.
The losses are claimed back from that company, and H&M just facilitates a smooth error resolving for the abused client.

By Wh|te Russian on Aug 16, 2007