Identity Theft

It's a long story but my identity has been stolen. The people who did it called me last week posing to be a law company suing me on behalf of Chase Bank for overdraft charges. But I've never had a Chase Bank account. They were reading off my personal info such as my birthday, social security and drivers license numbers, and asking me to confirm them. They sounded super professional and I believed them at first. But at the same time I had a funny feeling so when they asked me to confirm my info I did at first but then I said "I don't know." Then I looked up their company online (we googled "ACS fraud") and told them I just saw online that they're frauds and I asked how they got my info (and opened a bank account in my name). Then they started yelling at me saying I need to call back when I'm ready to apologize because they're "helping" me clear my name. I hung up and changed my phone number and met with the police to file a report, etc.

It stinks because all my info is out there. ANYONE could have it and possibly always will. The cops said changing my driver's license number could cause new problems and won't really protect me. And you're not allowed to change your social unless you've had multiple identity theft incidents for a long period of time and doing so could cause new problems. In short, there's not much I can do other than placing a fraud alert with the credit bureaus so that if anyone tries to open a bank account or line of credit in my name with my social, the bank has to contact me.

They call themselves ACS (All Care Services) and say they're in New York. But everyone who has complained about them has been in CA. If they or anyone calls you with your personal info, don't confirm it, don't tell them anything. The scary part is, someone did open a Chase Bank account with my name and social security but I know ACS had something to do with it. They act like they're helping you try to find who did it, but they did it. They want you to believe they're on your side so they can get more information. For example, they asked if I have a checking account in good standing. Also, the police said there may have been a security breech in Health Net's data base a few months back, and we had Health Net Insurance for a while. So that could definitely be how they got my info. I've never lost my social security card or wallet.

I read this today, "In 2007, there were 8.4 million adult victims of identity theft, with a total cost of $49.3 billion." Be careful people!