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Jennifer is a 28 year old public relations professional whose identity has been stolen multiple times...and by the same person. Identity Theft has made her life a living hell, and the worst part of it all is that she really has no one to turn to.
GlobalPOV: How did your identity get stolen?
J: They have theories on it, but they haven't completely figured it out by a long shot.
I got a letter from a collection agency in May of 2000, and they said I owed them more than $100,000. It took them 10 months to find me. They said I'd opened up two accounts at First Union in some small town outside of Philadelphia. They said I'd deposited $25,000 and opened up two different accounts, then opened up a couple of credit cards, then withdrew the money two weeks later, right after I apparently got all of the cards and what not. They finally tracked me down based on where I was paying taxes legally. They asked me about these charges in Philadelphia...they were throwing names and numbers and addresses at me - and naming banks that I'd never had accounts with, let alone opened up accounts with hundreds of thousands of dollars on.
There's no central place that fixes this. I had to call each and every bill and account … from cable to credit cards...and explain to them that someone had stolen my identity. Before everything was said and done, she'd run up more than $200,000.
GlobalPOV: How did this person open your account with just your social security#? Didn't they have to have your driver's license?
J: Well, that's the next part, I went to check on my driver's license, because there was a driver's license number on there that wasn't mine. She'd come to NY, had an address in NY, and gotten a driver's license number in my name...and I had no idea. If I'd gotten pulled over, it would have been another mess...
GlobalPOV: What's the current status of your credit?
J: They say that it's been erased, but yet every time I get my credit report back, there's something on there that shouldn't be. So something's happening monthly, and there's nothing that I can do about it. It's such a frustrating feeling to just have no one to go to.
Since this last incident, because it's a federal case, they called me at my apartment from my post office and told me that they had a photo id from the imposter and asked me to come down to see if I could identify her. They actually had an agent follow me out of my house to see if I really lived there and they took me in for questioning once I got to the post office. It was like I was a criminal. From the first moment this started, they treated me like it was all my fault.
GlobalPOV: What's your interaction with the credit bureaus been like?
J: The three credit bureaus really didn't do anything. They had my social security changed...but it was through them that this has been able to happen. I've requested every credit protection thing imaginable on my accounts. Following the initial scenario, I selected every possible credit protection measure - but this woman is still opening accounts in my name.
These are the agencies that approved these transactions to begin with, and didn't notice that anything funny was going on when this was all happening again.
GlobalPOV: Do people understand how tough this is?
J: No, they really don't.
I still can't even figure out who this woman is. She's me...but she doesn't have to prove that she's me. I have to prove that I'm me. This has been going on for 3 ½ years now. Just when you think it's going away, suddenly you get a call from a postal inspector who says that your mail has been forwarded/stolen by the same girl. How could they let her do it twice?
You've got no control, and you don't know where to turn.
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