Fraudulent Sale of My SIM card

wtran98 wrote:

I've been a loyal customer of T-Mobile for over 15 years, however, just this past Wednesday (8/12/2020) my identity was stolen.  Someone purchased a SIM card at the Cerritos, CA store and were somehow able to switch out my SIM number with the new SIM purchased.  I'm just shocked that they were able to do this.  From there they were able to change the email, password, security questions and user name.  My phone was literally disabled so easily.  To add to my frustration the thief ended up trying to purchase nearly $5000 worth of security itmes at a Best Buy.  They might have opened up another account, but I need to await my credit alerts to see anymore damage was done.  I guess they're trying to disable your phone so that when you do a get a call from Citibank or whatever bank you have they can't call you to confirm the purchase amount. Thankfully after spending time with T-Mobile customer service I was able to enable the use of my cellphone again just as Citibank called to verify my identity before the purchase could be processed.  The thief was in the store while I was online with Citibank verifying the purchase!!!  It's been a nightmare having to add fraud alerts to all three credit bureaus and having to change my account information back on T-Mobile. Just wanted to add a backstory  to this type of fraud that's going on in the store.  

My question is doesn't the store check the customer ID or driver's license before processing such a request.  It seems like it was so easily done.  I'm not sure what the exact identity procedures the store goes through, but this was indeed a headache.  Not sure what else can be done on my end to protect myself in the future.  

This just happened to me twice in the same week.  I've been a customer for 17 years.  T-mobile fixed the issue by reverting the code back to my phone.  It just happened again yesterday after a few days.  They are investigating again!