Identity Theft - I'm not Kidding

We are officially the one of the 1 out of 8 who are victims of identity theft! I never thought it could happen to us. For the past couple of weeks we've been getting phone calls and letters denying credit inquiries. So someone is out there with an apartment address (where we lived for 9 months in Michigan in 2002) and Corey's name and is trying to get credit cards all over the place. So we placed a fraud alert on our credit report and the credit monitering service we pay for told us that there was nothing suspicious other than inquiries. I didn't think that would be the end of it. It isn't. Last night we got a letter verifying our request to change the address on a credit card line that we never opened. We called and it is a TJMaxx Mastercard that has been used several times for $500, $400, $1500 and so on. We stopped adding the numbers. Corey checked our credit report again and saw that our Lowe's card that we used in 2005 had a $7000 balance on it from purchases made in Georgia! I can't believe that someone succeeded. It makes me sick. We probably won't be responsible for any of the charges. They will investigate, check with stores to see if the person had a card with them, check signatures, and video surveillance. Our credit score will probably be affected, but fortunately we caught it early before payments were late and collections started. The cards were both used starting April 20th. The problem is that the person could call and say he's us and undo all of the things that we are doing to protect ourselves. What a mess. I'm just glad no one has gotten to our checking and savings accounts yet.

We think what happened is that Lowe's sent a statement or something to our old address and voila they had our name and some credit card info. The credit card guy said that there are even websites where people buy and sell info like this, so who knows who has it. I feel for the next person, but I hope they drop our info and move on. Stay tuned for more.