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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks gs - I think I will probably sign up for a year and see where we're at after that.