Help,advice needed - anybody here dealt with identity theft before?

[gimmethesimplelife]

Just wondering if anyone here has dealt with identity theft before? Last December my wallet was lost/stolen and I called all the cards in my wallet and cancelled everything out - interestingly enough one of debit cards declined for a $400+ fraud purchase minutes before I cancelled.....Anyhow, I thought everything was done but today in the mail I received two letters from Target telling me that I had written checks, one over $400 and one over $200 that my bank was not honoring.....I never wrote any such checks. Looks like I am dealing with pros here, I'm guessing a fraudulent account was opened in my name - they have my state ID card I believe. I filed a report with the police today and interestingly enough a few weeks ago I froze my credit with all three credit reporting firms. So Monday morning when the recovery office opens I call Target and start the ball rolling. Will be interesting to see what else arrives in the mail and what kind of hassle this becomes.

But the silver lining here is that I now have another topic I am passionate about to blog about and start a youtube channel about.....Rob

[herisf]

You might want to subscribe to credit monitoring, if you can find one at a reasonable cost. You've frozen your credit reports and closed all previous cards. The only suggestion I have is to constantly monitor your credit report and the accounts you know about.

You did tell your bank that your wallet stolen when it occurred, right? You should also have given them the police report number. I'm assuming your wallet included ATM/debit info, which gives thieves access to your checking account. If your state ID was stolen, then the state needed to be informed. Basically, any vendor in your wallet (bank, state, credit card issuer, etc) needs to know that your info was compromised. If you carried professional certification, then that agency also needs to know. Unfortunately, you may be trying to deal with this for months - once your info is out there, it can be sold and re-sold to the unscrupulous. Definitely keep your credit frozen! And good luck.

Here's a link you might find helpful: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft//consumers/about-identity-theft.html

[gimmethesimplelife]

Thanks for the link herisf, some useful info there! Moving forward I am keeping my credit frozen, continuing to work on paying off what I do owe in legit debts, and moving more and more towards being cash only, or at least almost only cash. My resolve to continue this process has only become stronger due to this situation.

But I do have some good news - I got up early today to deal with Target check recovery services and the lady I talked to was very pleasant and told me this happens often, she had me in the system as this situation being fraud, and I just need to fill out the police report and fax it to them. This is something I can handle and not quite the nightmare (so far anyway) I was dreading, let's hope any more such notifications of fraud go so well.........

[shadowmoss]

I use CreditKarma.com, a free site that I can get a report of what my credit report shows as my current credit cards and how much I owe. I've used them for over a year and a half, and so far no shady dealings that I can tell. It also gives me an estimate of my credit score.