What I Learned From Being a Victim of Identity Theft

October 26, 2012

A few years ago I was the victim of identity theft. Someone in Texas (where I’ve never lived…) was using my name and Social Security number and had gotten an apartment, satellite TV, utilities, and accounts with some local food establishments.  Oh, they went to the doctor a lot too. 

I found out while doing a routine check of my credit report.  With my name, there are ALWAYS a few things on my credit report that aren’t mine.  Sometimes they don’t even have the right Social Security number or middle initial, which makes me very skeptical about the whole credit report/credit score industry, but I may save that rant for another day.

So, I make sure that I use my free credit reports (www.annualcreditreport.com) to keep an eye on what’s going on with my credit history.  In fact, because of my name and my history with seeing items that don’t belong to me, I order one credit report every 4 months.  You’re entitled to one free report from each of the 3 credit bureaus annually, but you don’t have to order them all at once.  Space it out and over the course of a year, you are never more than 4 months away from seeing your next report.   The good news is that I was able to spot my identity theft pretty early in the game and was able to recover rather quickly.

This woman was not so lucky.  Her identity theft case was not a simple one.  This was a more invasive “total identity theft” situation where someone isn’t looking to just scam a little bit of money from a few companies.  This was a complete takeover of a person’s identity.  Name, Social Security number, tax returns (scary!) medical records (scarier!), driving records, mortgages and more are involved in total identity theft.  The woman who stole her identity even fought to prove that she (the fake) was the one who owned the identity.  It will take years and years to unravel the mess that was created by this situation.  Read the article to see just how serious a case of identity theft can be.  Then, ask yourself “how do I protect myself from this?”

Here’s what you can do:

  • Order your credit report NOW!  You can use my every 4 month system or you can order all 3 today.  www.AnnualCreditReport.com is a free way to start looking at your credit history immediately.  You can view the report in PDF form and save it to your computer so that you can have an ongoing record of which reports you have ordered & which you still need to order.
  • Review your credit report thoroughly!  Make sure that every single item on your credit report belongs to you.  Dispute anything that isn’t yours.  Keep excellent records of your contact with the credit bureaus.
  • Check out the free services offered by CreditKarma.com and CreditSesame.com.  You can see your credit score on these sites and as information in your credit file changes, you will be alerted by these two services.
  • Buy a shredder and use it!  I know a lot of people who own shredders.  I know fewer who actually use them for shredding mail that includes account numbers or personal financial data.
  • Don’t reply to any email that looks like it’s from your bank or credit card company.  If there is an email that looks important and is a call to action from your financial institutions, you can find that information by going directly to their website and logging in securely.  This can prevent fraudulent emails from allowing “bad guys” to get access to your personal data.

With these tips, hopefully you can prevent identity theft completely or spot it very early in the process and limit the damage that it can do to your financial life.  I’ve lived through it and because I spotted it early, it was relatively easy to recover.  It wasn’t fun.  It was time consuming, frustrating, and very annoying.  But I’ve recovered.  I’m hoping that with these steps, you never have to deal with this issue.