Laura's Story

My identity theft experience started seven years ago. I was expecting a new credit card to arrive in the mail. I didn’t think much of it until one day my husband and I realized the card had never arrived. We decided to be patient and wait a little longer. Then, one day we came home to a message on our voicemail from the credit card company. They had shut down our account due to abnormal activity. Since I received the voicemail after the credit card company had closed, I wasn’t able to contact them until the next day.
I spoke to a customer service representative the next morning and was disturbed to learn that during the night someone had re-activated our account—even after the account had been frozen. I was even more worried when the customer service representative told me the identity thief had deceived the company by providing the name of my husband’s mother’s maiden name in order to verify the account!
Not only had this person stolen all the important information they needed in order to use our credit card, they had additionally made a fake driver’s license in my husband’s name in order to further the deception.
Soon we started receiving department store credit card statements for stores in other areas of the country. This is when we realized our credit information had probably been sold to other users.
As masterful as the credit card thief had seemed, he made a fatal error when he decided to use our credit card information in Las Vegas. While on the casino floor, he took cash advances four-digits large on numerous occasions. That’s what tipped off the credit card company that something might be amiss.
Fortunately, when the credit card company started to investigate the situation, they found the signature on some of the credit card receipts didn’t match the signature in our file. The credit card’s fraud department soon found at least $10,000 in illegal charges had been made. Another $1000 in fraudulent charges had been made at the out of state department stores.
The fraud investigators at the credit card company did their due diligence, and made me prove I was no where near Las Vegas during the time the cash advances were taken.  Another credit card receipt was actually the proof I needed to clear my name—a retail receipt substantiated I was in my hometown in Idaho during the time of the crime.
We were never sure how the thief got our information. No matter how the information was obtained, it still cost us our precious time and money to resolve. It took my husband at least five hours a week for three months and about $150 to resolve the issue. We spent quite a bit of money on postage, registered mail, and copying to get this straightened out.
Although we haven’t had issues with identity theft since, we now take a number of precautions against it. For instance, we shred all credit card offers and anything else that has our personal information on it. We use specific and complicated passwords, only known to us, to protect our accounts. And we no longer trust that every credit card statement contains the correct charges. We keep all our receipts and reconcile our statements at the end of each month.
Know that what happened to me and my husband can easily happen to you. Shred everything. Put confidential passwords on your accounts. Hopefully the extra effort you put into protecting your identity will result in never having to be a victim of identity theft.