Lessons Learned from Being A Victim of Identity Theft

[Yavin4]

I went to school in L.A. After I left, someone dumpster dove and filled out a credit card offer using my name. They used an address in L.A. that I never lived at. Then proceeded to run up some charges and bounced a payment check.

This kind of scam is very common around colleges. Kids move in and out all of the time, and credit card companies send unsolicited offers for new credit cards. Sometimes they include a ready to go credit card in the offer and all it takes is a phone call to activate it. Thieves know this and they scour the dumpsters for un forwarded mail.

If you are away at college or have kids at college, be wary of this scam.


A few years later a collection agency tried to collect from me on this debt. I did the following:

1. I sent a letter disputing the debt and asked for verification of the debt.

2. After 30 days, I never received verification, and they started calling to harass me.

3. I sent a cease and desist letter and they stopped calling me.

4. After another 30 days, I still did not get verification of the debt.

5. They sent me a bogus complaint against me. Now, they cannot bring a suit unless they provide debt verification.

6. I got an attorney to file an answer to the suit.

7. Three months later, their attorneys dropped the suit altogether. I hated to spend money on an attorney, but they would have never dropped the suit if they only had to deal with me. Remember, this charge is on my credit report.

8. I sent copies of their attorneys dropping the suit to all three of my creditors. Two of them finally removed that claim off of my report. One did not.

9. After a year, I got the collection agency's version of verification, which was old statements sent to the ID thief. BTW, old statements are NOT verification. They need to send the original, signed agreement.

Here are the lessons that I learned:

1. Immediately dispute the debt and demand verification.

2. Send a cease and desist letter telling them to stop harassing you.

3. They cannot file any lawsuit against you until they send you verification of the debt.

4. Always check your credit reports, but DO NOT USE FreeCreditReport.com. There is a legitimate completely FREE credit report that you are entitled to.

5. The debt collectors cannot get a judgment against you unless you really do owe the debt, and if you really do owe it, then they will move quickly to get that judgment because there's a statue of limitations to collect unsecured debt.

6. What they can, and will do, is get bogus information on your credit reports The credit reporting agencies will let anyone file anything against you even when shown evidence of the error.

7. Set up alerts with the credit reporting agencies so that you are alerted when anyone opens an account in your name.

[crispini]

1. Just be glad it wasn't checks.

A friend of mine had someone running around writing fake checks in her name and she didn't know. The county came and got her AND TOOK HER TO JAIL. she spent the weekend in the county lockup for something she DID NOT DO. it was a real mess to get straightened out.

Makes a great story though!

[Mike 03]

2. Incredibly valuable post. Bookmarked, kicked and rec'd. NT

[Mike 03]

3. And printing out five copies of this baby while I'm at it. NT

[Triana]

4. handling your mail...

...IMMEDIATELY when you move, have your mail sent to your new address or a friend's or parent's address - do it BEFORE moving if possible. The verification of change of address will go to your OLD address.

DO NOT THROW ANYTHING IN THE TRASH THAT HAS YOUR NAME ON IT ie: credit card offers, catalogs, old or paid bills, medical records, your PET's medical record, cancelled checks, bank statements, insurance records, receipts - ANYTHING.

Invest in a paper shredder and SHRED the stuff so id thieves can't get at it.

[Sherman A1]

7. With Catalogs, don't forget the pre-printed order form inside

They usually include one with your address and name, so pull it out and grind it up as well.

[Triana]

10. Yup - absolutely - anything that has your name, tear it out, and shred it..

...or shred the whole document if it's not a catalog.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. but DO NOT USE FreeCreditReport.com????

who do we use, then??????

[Cronus Protagonist]

6. Each credit agency is required to give you a free credit report once per year

And every time you are refused credit from a creditor.

[Yavin4]

8. Use AnnualCreditReport.com

Here's the link:

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Here's the NY Times article about Free Credit Report:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/business/media/04adco.html

[northernlights]

9. my identity was stolen after Fidelity Investments

had a laptop stolen with all the pension information on it for my former company. They had entered my address incorrectly, so I never received the notice that our info was stolen (but that it was a random theft according to police, and the thief didn't know what it contained, and all our info was encrypted, yada..yada..yada).

A few months later I was contacted by a former colleague about a freelance project. Said colleague was married to Fidelity VP from whose branch -- and rental car -- the laptop had been stolen. The rental car was parked in an Hewlett-Packard lot in Palo Alto at the time of the theft.

Anyway on the same day my colleague emailed that he'd received my resume (complete with my current address, phone & work history), somebody at an auto dealership ~10 miles from his house did an unauthorized search on me and got my cc number. That somebody had my SS # and current address and phonenumber to be able to do that search.

2 days later, someone called the CC company, impersonated me, and added a new person, named "Heddy Packard" to my account. They had my SS#, and the CC company failed to ask them for my security password.
The next day, they called the CC company and changed my address to California. Same scene -- no password requested.
2 days after that, they reported my card stolen and had a replacement sent to my "new" address in CA.
Somewhere in there, but before they could have received the new card, they racked up a $4500 charge in CA.

3 days after that, I went to pay for something and my CC was denied. Ran home to straighten out the mistake. That's when I became acquainted with Citi Identity Theft Solutions. The charge was removed *immediately* and my only cost was $5.00 for police report.

But it sucked big time. And what sucks worse is knowing that somebody out there has all my info and could try again at any time. It's like having a chronic disease -- it could crop up any time and other than looking over my shoulder, there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.