Last year I was the victim of Identity theft. Luckily, I have fully recovered an excellent credit score thanks to the efforts of my credit card company! Anyway, something I learned along the way is how damaging it is to finance something on one those “special no money down, not payment until…..” deals! I never knew that any legitimate financing could count as a “negative” against a credit score. I know a lot of companies offer this from time to time on trailers, furniture and other high ticket pleasure items, so just be aware that you know you may indeed be unintentionally hurting yourself. Who knew!    

The credit card company felt like it was one of those “pre-qualified” offers “before” they were put in the mailed to me. The actual credit card company that issued the fraudulent card even called me at my home and said to call them, that I may a have a fraudulent charge on my card. (A fraudulent card with a questionable charge…hmmm) I thought it was just a sales pitch since I knew I didn’t have a card with that company. About two months later I ran a credit report and literally had a cow! I had everything locked up so tight; I could hardly write a check! They had taken a card out with all my personal information on it (name, SS3 and including my actual phone #) but used their address. They even paid on the card for about six months (this too is common practice so that “red flags” don’t come up to quickly). I had always assumed that thieves would go for the big guys, not the working underclass! Go figure!

Did you ever determine how they acquired your personal data?

About 8 years ago I got a call at work from a bank asking me if I was trying to open up a White Sox credit card.  I laughed and said no.  Seems that someone in the Chicago area had gotten hold of my personal info and was trying to open up a credit card.  Since I lived and worked at the same place for the past 15 years, the bank knew something didn't jive.

  An hour later another bank called and asked if I was trying to open up an Elvis credit card.  same story - The bank told me to put passwords on my current credit cards so no one could change the mailing address, get credit reports, and in writing close out any outstanding credit cards I no longer used.

   I haven't had any issues since, but I too black out info and shred everything I don't need to keep.  They will check your garbage for info, so don't make the mistake of thinking your safe by just tossing stuff in the trash.

Do you have a rural roadside mailbox?

If so, you might want to think about a lockable version, where the mailperson have to drop your mail into a slot...

No, we've always had a po box that you must use a key to open. This didn't happen in the mail, it happend before the artical was put into the postal system. Most likly in a mailing house. Anyway, because of the amount of money involved, it will end up being jail time once everything is sorted out and all the different charges are filed.

If it had been to feed a child or medical care for a child, I might have been more understanding, but it wasn't. 

Your advice is good! I hope this will make others more aware. As times continue to worsen, I'm sure we will hear more tails about stolen mail, checks, etc. since a great many of us do live in rural areas.

We were just notified that hubby was victim of identity theft for the second time!    They somehow got a new business credit card account which is not easy to get!    We signed up last nite for lifelock.

We'll be trying to untangle this mess for a while it looks like.  When he called the c.card company, he missed 2 of their security questions...they had picked the questions....such as what was the last vehicle that you bought....they had the wrong answers so Mark flunked the security test.   We've got some work to do come Monday.