[Billy Bibbit]

Cliff notes: new credit card got stolen from my mailbox, someone activated it and used it, I'm not sure what all I should do to keep this from happening again?

OK a couple of weeks ago I ordered a rewards card from Bank of America (credit card where they give you back 1% of what you spend with it). It was supposed to arrive in my mailbox like a week and a half ago, but since I'm lazy I don't check my mailbox every day. I checked it last Saturday and there was nothing in there, which I thought was a little weird since I was expecting some other stuff too plus I usually have a fair amount of junk mail in there when I don't check my mail for a week. I live in an apartment complex where you need a key to access your mailbox but the mailman can open all the mailboxes at once with a lever.

Then on Tuesday morning I got a call from the fraud department at BOA and they said someone had been using my card that weekend to buy a bunch of crap, and they deactivated it for me. I assume the card was stolen from my mailbox so I filed a police report, and asked my landlord to change the lock on the box which he did.

After talking with the people at the bank again yesterday I was told that the perp would have needed other details about me in order to activate the card, such as date of birth, SSN, etc, which I have no idea how they obtained such information. Anyone here have experience with this sort of thing and can recommend what I should do now to protect against getting my identity stolen again?