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The first time my identity was stolen
was years ago when I was young and in the Military. I opened
my first checking account, and since I was in the military, I had my
social security number printed on my checks to save time when I made
purchases on the military base. When I moved on to my next station,
I got a new account and THREW AWAY MY OLD CHECKS!!! That was a very
bad decision. Someone found the old checks in the trash, had a fake
ID made, and used them to make purchases. Fortunately, I had closed
the account, so none of the money lost was mine. Still, it took me
quite a while and significant effort get the whole mess resolved.
The second time my identity was
stolen was more serious. Someone stole a credit card number from an
account that I had opened, but not used in years. They ran the card
through its limit before they stopped using it. Of course, since I
had not been using the card, I had not updated the issuing
institution with my current address. The first indication of a
problem was when I got a copy of my credit report before applying
for a loan. I remember looking at it, seeing the large ‘past due
balance’, and thinking "I’ve never even used that card". In this
case it took over a year to prove that I had not used the card.
In both cases, the time and resources
I spent were wasted on something that I might have prevented had I
been careful.
Having personally experienced the
hassles of recovery from Identity Theft gives me an appreciation of
how quickly a person needs to react when their identity is
compromised. 'The Identity Theft Recovery Guide and Prevention
Manual' gives you a head start - instead of searching for what to do,
you'll have the first 4 steps you need to take all laid out for you.
You'll learn details about the following 4 steps: |
