dealing with identity theft!!! :-(
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| Thu, 08-19-2004 - 3:35pm |
So here I am years later still having a problem from having lost my wallet and my information. A lawyer's office contacted me about a check written five months ago. He was nice and told me what I need to send about it to dispute the check. :-( Anything after the day we moved from FL will be easy to prove, but I wonder how much if anything there is from while we were there?
How can I find out about other checks without making a trip back to FL? I know I can find out if any credit cards were issued by my credit report, which I'm about scared to look at now!!! How much is not having filed a police report on a lost wallet going to hurt me? We didn't have any credit cards at that time so I didn't have any to cancel. Now I'm thinking I really didn't do enough years ago about this.

For what it's worth, years ago we didn't know what we do now about ID theft.
Here's a link to the gov't's ID theft web site: http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/
All my best,
Danni
was written only five months ago? Yikes. Did you have
your existing account information in your wallet?
I wonder if there's a way to check with chexsystems.
https://www.chexhelp.com:447/ChexHelp/chex/english/publik/index.htm
These are the people that keep track of bad checks
or overdrawn bank accounts. When you go to open
an account with a bank they will usually check
your information on this system to be sure it's clear.
If you have bounced checks, they might be reported to them
although it might depend on the amount.
I don't mean this in a bad way, only because it's something I would
do myself, but are you sure you didn't write the check
five months ago and forget about it? I've never been
good about keeping careful track of checks and sometimes
I've been sure that I didn't write a check. But then
when I do a little more research I go "ohhh, THAT one".
Were the fradulent checks written on your existing bank account?
If so, you should probably close it right away.
Were they your checks or a different design? Have you lost checks?
Were they written on a different account, but with your information?
Then you might want to contact that bank and tell them that the account was opened fradulently.
Sorry for the babbling, I'm just trying to think of all the possibilities.
Anyway, best of luck in resolving this!
Identity theft can be a real nightmare and I hope you get it straightened out.
it looks like you can get a free report if you suspect
fraud. So it's definitely worth a look.
Your social secutrity number can show up in very subtle but obvious places. Our health insurance cards used to use our social security numbers as the ID number. A friend of mine remembered that her old driver's license was her SS # (I won't say the state in case they still do this).
Personally, I think the government needs to do more to protect us from identity theft. I know a lot of people are complaining about NJ's new identification policies regarding driver licenses, but if the government is going to issue IDs, they better make sure they are giving it to the right person. I know someone who was hit with identity theft big time and they had to put fraud warnings on their credit reports.
Good luck.
Sandra
So between the two incidents, I've put fraud alerts on my credit and DH's. I'll check with Chexsystems, too, thanks!