Identity theft - new question about protection

last year

last modified: last year

Today DH got a letter from Comenity Bank indicating more info was needed to approve his credit card application. RED ALERT - he hasn't applied for any credit cards. So I check Experian and find four recent inquiries related to credit applications - RED ALERT. We just spent a few hours putting a freeze and fraud alert on at all the credit reporting agencies and figuring out where the applications were made based on the cryptic credit report abbreviations. You'd think you could talk to someone at Experian to get this information but you cannot reach a live human being there. Equifax and Transunion were much better to deal with but the inquiries weren't made there. It wasn't easy to get to a human at the four companies where the credit applications were made but I managed to bulldoze my way through the gawd-awful phone system. Fortunately none of the applications were approved and they were noted as fraudulent. Tomorrow I will file a police report and now I'm on alert for tax return fraud, as it seems they had his SSN as the businesses pulled up the applications based on that, and who knows what else. Of course we have no idea what led to this fiasco. Uggghhhh.....

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gsciencechick

last year

Yes, we use Norton Lifelock and are happy with it. Any type of professional office/small business is very much in danger of hacks and identity theft, so we have it for a few years. It did alert me to my own new car loan. I debated taking a loan vs. paying cash, but I took a small loan which we will likely pay off early. We also have alerts on our bank accounts and he has for his work accounts. Had to unfreeze my credit reports temporarily unfrozen, which I didn't know you could lift the freeze for just a super short time like a couple of days and then put it back on.

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Comments (9)

Allison0704
last year
We had this happend about 15yrs ago. They had our names, DOB and SSN but mixed them up. HomeDepot (in another state) still gave them a credit card (they bought painting and cleaning supplies). Had him on camera/photos, which we had to look at an our report stated we were not related to and did not know the person. Yes, the report took HOURS. Since it was a bank/CC, they were helpful alerting Experian, etc.

I feel for you.
maire_cate
last year
last modified: last year
I'm sorry you're dealing with all of that. It's a royal pain and you're right - it takes hours and hours and lots of fortitude to deal with it.

So far we haven't had identity theft of that magnitude. But I just put a freeze on my credit with the 3 credit bureaus. I needed to have my middle name added to my SS card because NJ Motor Vehicle wants it match my driver's license. SS wouldn't do it over the phone so I made an appt at our local agency. That was the easy part and the agent said I would get a new card within 2 weeks. Well it never arrived. SS verified that it had been mailed to the correct address and said they'd send another one. But it's not very reassuring to know that my SS card is floating around somewhere in the mail or even worse delivered to the wrong address.

Hopefully you caught it in time and you won't have any more problems.

Maire
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deegw
last year
last modified: last year
I'm glad you caught it early and were able to make some progress toward protecting yourself. Last Christmas we had someone steal our mail, forge a $15k gift check from my FIL and deposit it in their account on camera at the bank. After a year of "investigation", the case was closed and there were no repercussions for the thief. It's like the Wild West out there for financial crimes.

Thankfully there was a time lag between the theft of the mail and the deposit and we had stopped payment and my FIL wasn't out any money. I hope you nipped your problem in the bud.
Ally De
last year
This is a good PSA for everyone. You were smart and handled it well. I know several folks who have had their SSNs stolen, including my deceased father.

I have locked my credit for years. It is easy for me to unfreeze as needed, but the good news is that so far scammers haven't figured out a way to get around a locked credit file. Yet anyway.
Lars
last year
I have my credit frozen also. Kevin and I did this after the North Korean hack of Sony Pictures, where Kevin works. The hackers distributed Sony employee information to who knows whom, and so all Sony employees had to freeze their credit.

It is fairly easy to unfreeze if you keep a written file of the frozen reports.

It sounds like you were fairly lucky in your dealings with your theft.
OutsidePlaying
last year
Thanks for the warning. You think you are doing everything possible to safeguard your info and then wham! Sorry this happened to you. You were wise to take quick action and it’s sad it takes so many hours to untangle the mess.
3katz4me
Original Author
last year
So I filed a police report today. The officer recommended getting some kind of ID theft protection plan. He said he uses Norton Lifelock. I looked into that - multiple options up to $300+ per year. Just wondering if anyone has subscribed to one of these type of services.
3katz4me
Original Author
last year
Thanks gs - I think I will probably sign up for a year and see where we're at after that.