9 Things To Do When Your Identity Stolen

Well then,... list your name,address,bank account#,ss#, who you work for and we will see if it works. Hey,what can go wrong? As their ad says, you COULD get a million bucks for your problems...until you read the fine print which would probally change. Of course that million would not be protected because you were breached in the first place. Guess you would have to get a new identity.

Hi

I was a victim last March 2007 and it lasted for months.  Not only was my American Express card victimized they got the subsequent numbers too.  Why?  Amex only changes the last few digits and I complained to Amex that any person who used the card would be able to figure the new ones.  I finally had to change all my billing and phone to new information so that the people who were using my numbers could not get authorization any longer.  I did that not Amex.  I ended up paying too as Amex who still paid fraud items (even across seas) and in states I do not live in went after me.   I no longer have them and would never have them again as a credit card.  My ex bank was also tagged and I told them not to pay anything etc.  I had over 900.00 in my checking account and then one day they want me to pay them 1800.00 (mostly bounced check fees) I want an accounting and they will not give it to me.  They know about the id theft but want to make a deal with me.  Guess what banks do not hold you harmless despite the claims you hear.  I am not paying them and frankly I am just now getting caught up.  So I decided no credit cards for me.  What I would like to ask is can I still notify the credit agencie like equifax?  I cannot remember if I notified them now, I think I did I notified the police and the federal agency etc.  Is a year to the day almost but is it still too late?

By the way, I used to laugh at a co-worker for buying id theft protection.  He had it up to $50,000.00.  He has had it for years and when I get situated again, I will be doing the same.  Just cannot afford the premiums right now.

I WOULD BE VERY SUSPICIOUS THAT THE PEOPLE AT YOUR APS MIGHT BE DOING SOMETHING SIMILAR TO WHAT YOUR NIECE DID!!!
I don’t mean to be cynical, but that Adult Protective Services (APS) thing sure sounds fishy to me! Are you absolutely sure your elderly relative is actually eventually receiving her WHOLE SS check, either deposited into her account(s) or in cash? What about the interest on that money? Is APS (or one of their workers) somehow getting it, or is your relative?

What your elderly relative’s niece did was a CRIME. Has no-one reported THAT to local law enforcement? If not, WHY NOT? & DO IT NOW!
I am not an attorney, but I am an RN & worked for over a decade with another RN who is also a JD. We worked with legal matters every day in a very large publicly funded healthcare organization in AZ. According to what she taught me during that time, it is my understanding that no person can be proclaimed/declared incompetent except by a court of law, because it obviously involves taking away some very important personal rights. I would think that goes for APS too. I doubt a judge would disagree with you about your relative’s capabilities. Advanced age and hearing loss are NOT enough. Neither is being the victim of identity theft because you trusted your own niece to help you. Here is a legal definition of ‘incompetent’:

“adj. 1) referring to a person who is not able to manage his/her affairs due to mental deficiency (low I.Q., deterioration, illness or psychosis) or sometimes physical disability. Being incompetent can be the basis for appointment of a guardian or conservator (after a hearing in which the party who may be found to be incompetent has been interviewed by a court investigator and is present and/or represented by an attorney) to handle his/her person and/or affairs (often called ‘estate’)”. (from http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=925&bold=||||)  “The word incompetent is also used to describe persons who lack mental capacity to make contracts, handle their financial and other personal matters such as consenting to medical treatment, etc. and need a legal guardian to handle their affairs.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competence_%28law%29).

So, if your relative is supposedly incompetent to handle her own affairs, who is your relative’s LEGAL GUARDIAN?
Someone, either your elderly relative herself, or someone to whom she had given power of attorney, had to have signed over your elderly relative’s Social Security to APS & ALLOWED them to become her SS payee. If those things did not happen, I think you MAY need to file a police report against APS, and maybe also get an attorney. Have you contacted Social Security? If not, you should be able to find out HOW APS got to be your relative’s SS payee. (You will need her SS# & legal authority to access her information. If you don’t have that, does someone else in your family? Also you might be able to get a lawyer for free or cheap (as attorneys go) through your state’s Legal Services (“Legal Aid”). This is the URL for the official national organization, “LSC”, which manages Legal Aid: http://www.lsc.gov/.

“The Congress of the United States entrusts the Legal Services Corporation with a dual mission: to promote equal access to justice and to provide high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.” (http://www.lsc.gov/about/lsc.php)

You can search for legal assistance in your state here: http://www.rin.lsc.gov/rinboard/rguide/pdir1.htm 

As for the harassment you’re getting & what to do about it, there is a good article with links to other good information on this subject right here on this website at https://800notes.com/articles/Article.aspx/KBN5c2IZiAC_wQjKBNRWFA.

Hope this helps. Send me an email  if you'd like & let me know how things are going:  Puppy.Luv_66@yahoo.com.  For you low-life spammers, I hardly ever use this email account & all spam is reported to the feds.
Good luck!

Check with your local Legal Aid group.  Call your city hall or country courthouse to find if you have one.

Second, DON'T TALK WITH THEM!  You are under no obligation to talk with anyone.  As soon as they call, don't say a word, just hang up.  Do that enough time and they will eventually give up.

Third, tell them to either file suit or shut up.

I'm on Social Security and got some calls such as you're getting. I told them "I do not owe the bill you are trying to collect.  I only have social security.  So, under legal counsel I am telling you to either sue me or shut up.  You may not call me again," and hang up.

You don't have to have an attorney to say that, but that is what an attorney will tell you to do...that's what I did and I never got another call, nor did they sue me.

A word about suits:  All it does is give the collecting agency the "right" to get money from you, but if you don't HAVE it, they cannot collect.

My mother just got a bill for My brother who has been deceased for 8 years.  This was a bill for "running a toll booth in the State of Maryland.   An even though it was a nominal amount, it shows us that not only are they using the wrong address for him they also have a vehicle registered in his name. Where do I go for information so we can get this cleaned up and the culprit taken care of for using my brother's identity?

LadyRose:
I suggest you file a complaint with the FTC. You can find the form through http://www.ftc.gov. You can also file a complaint with your state Attorney General. Just type in Attorney General and your state in a search box in your browser. Keep a record by writing down all the times they call (the time and date) and if possible get a name of the person calling and the company name. By law they are required to tell you who they are. Also make sure you put in your reports that they are threatening you and what they are saying. There are huge fines for them violating the Fair Debt Collection Act. I would also make sure to file disputes on your credit reports to have the stuff taken off there as well. Hope all this helps. If they don't stop, keep filing complaints. I've had to do this myself.

File complaints with the FTC and the Attorney General in your state. You can do this through the Internet. I had to do this with a bank that kept calling me looking for my daughter. She and I both kept telling them not to call my number as she no longer lives with me, but they continued to call 12 or so times a day, every day, and harass me. So I wrote down all the times they called and what days. Then I reported them to both agencies by filing the complaints and the calls stopped. The government will fine them heavily.

Your relative probably doesn't realize it, but they probably signed something giving Adult Protective Services the right to handle her money.  They are only trying to protect the woman.  The neice abused her relationship once already and could easily do it again.  The neice could have been taking money in addition to using her information to obtain fraudulent credit accounts.

Ask the collection agencies, etc., to send your relative forgery affidavits for her to complete that state the charges were fraudulent.  Most will also require you to submit a copy of a police report along with the affidavit.  They have the right to collect a debt and can call you daily unless you have filed bankruptcy.

I suspect you are not getting the entire story from your relative.  As in many cases, they do not want to mess up the life of the neice by filing a police report.  Doing so would more than likely cause the neice some legal problems and may cause hard feelings with other members of the family.  Yes, it was wrong and the girl should be prosecuted.  Even if a police report is filed, the police must have hard evidence that the neice did this unknowingly to your relative and that the relative did not consent.

Good luck.

This person is right. I know this for sure.  You can also verify this information on the Social Security Administrations website.  Getting a new SSN is not easy, but it can be done.  The Social Security Administration does not hand them out without good reason.  You must provide adequate documentation supporting the identify theft and show that you have done everything in your power to prohibit additional theft issues.  Sometimes these criminals just won't stop.  By the way Joe, just because the person who wrote the original message cannot spell doesn't mean that they do not know what they are talking about.

I had a similar situation happened to my mother-in-law.  Her grandson was the financial abuser.  He lived with her and opened credit card accounts, got a cell phone, asked for money all the time and even wrote checks forging the signature of my mother-in-law.  None of this was discovered until she passed away.  At that time we discovered that he had not paid the cell phone bill in three months and that there were a number of credit cards he had maxed out and changed the address to another state so the past due bills would no longer come to her house.  The credit card companies had his cell phone number and it was turned off so my mother-in-law never received any phone calls.  It turns out that my sister-in-law, the grandson's mother, was fully aware of what was going on.  My mother-in-law knew too because she had seen some of the bills, but my sister-in-law convinced her to not file a police report, etc., because it would mess up her son's life.  My mother-in-law continued to allow the grandson to stay with her and he continued to steal money, etc. from her until she died.

Sometimes low tech is best!  If you believe you are being unfairly contacted and even harrassed by collection agencies, then I suggest you tape record every phone conversation. I believe you can still purchase a simple device from Radio Shack or other electronic places that will allow you to record telephone conversations on a tape recorder or other audio recording device.  Or you can just hold a small, handheld recorder to the phone. Depending on the laws in your state, you may have to inform the calling party that you are recording the conversation and get their permission. If they agree, then fine, you have a verbal record of the conversation.  Make sure the caller gives you verbal agreement to record the conversation, completely identifites him or herself, the name of the company he/she is employed by, that company's full contact info, the city and state the caller is calling from, the date and time of the call, and any other pertinent information regarding the reason of the call. If not, then they can contact you in writing - phone conversation over. Be sure to record from the moment the caller contacts you - it is legal and proper to record yourself informing the caller of the recording and getting their agreement or refusal to continue.

I don't mean to get off the subject but i had my identity stolen a couple of years ago but just found out last december.  I filed a police report about my identity theft for that one company but never did anything more to find out if I had more.  Now i am being sued by another company and don't know what to do.  My court date is on June 27th and I am soooo nervous.  My fiance is pregnant and I don't have money to pay.  WIll the court force me to pay something I cannot pay?  

ANother thing is what can I do to get these things off my credit report.  I don't want more companies calling me to sue me.  I am getting all these collection agencies sending me mail and calling my mothers house, job , etc....looking for me...  WHAT DO I DO????  I just want to get this over with.

I had ID theft happen to me as well.  I actually have to go to court on Friday to fight a C.C. company sueing me for $15,000 and i feel like i have no case.  This is my first time being sued and i really can't pay.  Isn't their any way that I can ask for full accounting on this debt and the judge see it my way?  HELP!!!!  What can I do?  and what is the number that I call to put fraud alert on my credit so more companies don't sue me?????

I got a involved in a phone scam and the only information they got from my was my year of birth and my occupation as a student. I never gave them my address or any credit card numbers. Am I safe?

WOW! Marge, thank you for posting that very informative and eye-opening post!!! To other posters, I too have been a victim of IDT, SS number only, not financial so far, I think that applications for creadit were made, but not sure as they were denied, and the person is a convicted criminal unknown to me.

I came upon a site by a a very involved attorney, Mari Frank, out in California and got her tapes and have gone through most of the processes. The laws are slow to change but advancement keeps going in a positive direction. Get involved in making a difference on this front in any way you can. It can effect you in so many way, it has cost me employment within the financial industry.