Back a few years when I first heard of the term, ID theft, I thought that was something that would only happen to a very rich person. Sort of like kidnapping a rich person's family member or dog and holding them for a huge ransom. Guess I have seen too many movies because reality proves me wrong. I am not so wealthy that I would even consider myself a candidate but when Lowe's Home Improvement called us Monday morning to see if we had a step-son in Michigan we wanted added to our charge account, reality set in! First of all, we are still in our first marriage of 33 years, and secondly neither of us knows anyone in Michigan we are related to in any way. We do have a few relatives that may be capable of something like this but none in Dearborn, that either of us know about.
Thought I would throw in a pic of my new sister-in-law and her step-son just to say congrats! There are stepson's in our family but we do not have any.
Anyway, after calling the credit reporting services bureau and getting a fraud alert started we began the notification of the credit card companies, banks, dept. stores, utility and cell phone services, etc. and spent two days and nights on the phone getting information together to file reports. First the FTC report has to be filed then the local law enforcement report has to be filed in person so they can sign off on the FTC report. That is required so the proper interstate authorities can pursue the criminals. Do you have any idea what a pain this is!!!
Once we started talking to our creditors, we found out there were at least two people involved because when JC Penny credit called and said they had a call from one of them and they asked to speak to my wife's name and they put another man on, (she has a gender nuetral name) they knew it was fraud and called us. The name they used was the same one that had convinced Capital One card to issue an authorized user card for already and send it to them in Michigan, we found out a few hours later. This had obviously been going on for a few days when a couple of sharp people working in credit departments smelled a rat. Thank goodness they found it before it got any worse than it already has.
It is still too soon to tell how much damage has been done or will come about from all their criminal activities but I wanted to give you a picture of what all is involved in this process so you will protect your identity more than you think you need to. It is kind of like health and disability insurance, you can't afford to buy it but you sure can't afford not to have it when you need it! Here is where I started:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/
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