Very sorry to hear about what you have gone through. It is awful when someone robs you. It leaves us with a sense of remorse that if we had taken proper measures in the past we could have escaped this. Also the very thoughts about your stolen valuables keep haunting you for days. The best one can do to prevent this is installing a home security system. A Home security system which includes an alarm and a video relay, which is connected to your smartphone for a two way communication and video footage of your front and garage door for surveillance sake, is definitely better than informing cops or neighbors that you are away and that they need to keep an eye on your house. Other things like fake TV , sensor garden lights ,and a big barking dog helps too. But nothing does a better job than a security system. Make sure the alarms have a high pitch sound capable of waking the neighbors. This could give the bad guy a tough time for escape. You can also ask a friend or relative to be around ( in case you are away for days) and collect all the mails and newspapers from the porch , so that the house does not have an unoccupied look. Here is a link that might be useful: Some information about home security systems

Was the notice sent through U.S. Mail, or was it an email? My first concern would be that this is a scam designed to get you to click on some link and input your credit card data supposedly to "protect" it, but what you'd really be doing is putting it into a thief's website. If you have not done so yet, call Countrywide and verify that this is actually something which has occurred. Do not click on any links in email messages you may have received, and do not call the numbers written on the notice you got. Call Countrywide at a customer service number printed on your statement or somewhere else that you can be sure that you're really calling them and not someone else. My concern arises from the fact that, if this did occur, I would think they would suggest a very definite course of action, and would assign someone to work with you on it. I do not think an acceptable solution would be to offer you free "credit watch" protection when one of their own employees has stolen your personal data. If you find that this really did occur, go to Annualcreditreport.com (link below) and pull your three credit reports right away. Contact your credit card issuers and advise them of what has happened; they will probably cancel your current cards and issue new ones with new numbers. In addition, save all correspondence related to this in case legal action is required later. Here is a link that might be useful: AnnualCreditReport.com

I totally agree with MacT and its why I've been refusing to let anyone scan my DL which you are allowed to do! Just insist! Read this which I posted somewhere else just to help out: "Hi, I just found your post because I just got home from Target and figured for once I'd google and see if anyone else had this problem. I'm posting this just to tell you a few things you can do. I periodically jump into target to do my shopping because its right next to my house. On the occasion I do that and grab a bottle of wine they always ask for my license, The first time over a year ago, she took it and swiped, I asked her right away, why cant you just look at it and see I'm WAY old enough?? She couldnt answer. Well as an experiment I went back the next week and did the same thing, only this time when she asked for my license, I said you can look at it but you may not swipe it. She said I have to, I said NO you dont. All you need to do is verify my age, and in over 20 years that used to be done with your eyes,m NOT a computer scanner. She called over the manager, and to my surprise, the manager keyed something in, and she politely gave me back my license. THere was some sort of note the pc generated on my receipt. Apparently you CAN refuse to let them scan, just insist. You need not put your items back on the shelf. I just did it again today, and of course there are people behind who sigh, because I am stubborn about not letting htem HARVEST my information off scanning my id. But I assured them, one day you'll thank me:) SO, let them check your id, and dont let them scan it. Make them call someone over. This happens alot more than you think, thats why they have a special code they punch in. Its an infringement of privacy and not necessary. Have a great weekend! Niki"

It happened to DW with our Debit credit card. We bank on line and pay 95% of our bills using on line banking. She notice a $20.00 purchase that we didn't make and notified the bank. The bank representitave told her that it was a good thing that we don't leave money in our checking account and that our over draft was maxed (Thanks to remodeling) They tried to make large pruchases from on line sites like Target, QVC, JC Penney's and Best Buy. Had we not picked up on this when we did they could have cleaned us out because the next day both our pay checks would have been directly deposited into the checking account. The bank credited our account $20 that day. Since then we now have our pay checks deposited into the saving account and tranfer it to checking as we need it. The odd thing about this is that we never use this account for online shopping. I think you stand bigger chance of fraud when using the credit card in a store rather then on line. DW set up our account so that we are alerted to any purchase made over $15. The alert message goes directly to her Blackberry so no matter where we are we are protected.