identity theft
So, one year ago I received a letter from the US Navy reporting that my personal information (SSN, address, etc) was on a 'missing' or possibly stolen recruitment computer. I am assuming my high school sold my information to recruiters being that I'd never signed up for anything army related.
Yesterday, I received a similar letter from my university stating that myself along with 5,800 students had their information 'improperly disposed' of on an obsolete computer. This included (SSN, drivers license, personal information, my loan information, tax, etc).
I wonder---has this happened to any of you? I find it hard to believe that again, one year later I'm receiving such a disturbing letter.
I spent all morning putting fraud alerts up and filing with the Federal Trade Commission for possible identity fraud. Then silly me---I went to check my credit reports and they were on lock down. So I'll have to wait for further instructions to view my record. Luckily (unlike the NAVY) my university's paying for one year of credit monitoring to alert me when suspicious activity occurs.
I'm a little concerned because the past couple years we've been getting about 15 different people's mail and getting phone calls from creditors looking for people at my house that do not exist. We have an unpublished address and phone number and have attempted to take this up with the companies and post office directly, to no avail.
The crappy part is the only activity I have with my identity is my student loans. I have no bank account, credit cards, utility bills, etc. I'm totally devoid of 'grown up' tools, so I hope that no one ruins my virginal credit :(
I'm sorry Bean! That truly sucks to hear. I hope it all works out, and if you get any type of credit card statements in the mail, be sure to call them immediately! :(
Ahh, wow Identity theft is so common and pretty scary...hope it all works out...now you got me wondering too :-\
Beanthai - I sympathize with what a hassle this is! I just bought my first house ever and so am FREAKED out about my credit and my cash situation. A couple weeks ago, I was looking at my bank statement and though: I live in Boston, why is there a $600 (!!!) charge to my account from a Target in California? Turns out while at a restaurant, someone had swiped my bank card into a machine then transferred the account/code info to another card with their name on it....the really nice security agent said that same person had made about 20 purchases that day with dif credit card numbers :( PIA!!! to get it sorted out. Be sure to call the big three credit agencies - they're the ones that track your FICO score.
....I received a similar letter from my university stating that myself along with 5,800 students had their information 'improperly disposed' of on an obsolete computer. This included (SSN, drivers license, personal information, my loan information, tax, etc).
I wonder---has this happened to any of you? I find it hard to believe that again, one year later I'm receiving such a disturbing letter.
I recently received a similar letter (authentic email, actually) from a graduate school that I applied to nearly 4 years ago. I was stunned to find out that they kept all of my identifying information for so long even though I didn't end up matriculating to that particular university.
I ended up contacting the big 3 credit reporting agencies to put a fraud alert on my credit profile. Nothing concerning has shown up yet, thank goodness.
ID theft is a P.I.T.A. but they will remove the bad stuff from your record if you go through the appropriate channels to prove that it indeed is fraud. Hopefully, it was just some A-hole looking for a free computer and you won't have to go through any rigmarole (weird...I've never typed that word out before). Good luck!
OMG, that's so scary! Thankfully I've never had that happen to me (knock on wood)! I'm sorry to hear it's happened to you.
I've gotten a few. Two from universities, because people hacked into financial aid computers and used them to spam, and I don't remember the exact circumstances on the other. I got one from my lawyer, break in at his offices. So far no one's tried anything.
I received a letter like that about a year ago - my university was hacked into :-\
I did everything that you've done and thankfully nothing came of it. Hang in there!
That's horrible. My university switched over to random student ID numbers because of this. Before that, we were using our social security numbers. Of course, someone hacked into the computers and got quite a few students' information. Apparently, I was on that list as well. But, I didn't do anything about it. 2 years later, nothing has happened so far. I don't use credit cards - pay debit or cash for everything. So, I have no credit (which at age 24 is the equivalent to having bad credit in terms of any deals I may get, lol).
I probably treated my situation WAY too lightly, and have been lucky so far. I'm just so anti-government that it irks me that I even have a social security number, or have to fill out forms when it's not my fault for getting hacked in the first place. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. >:(
Beanthai.....I just got a similar letter about 5 days ago from my credit union saying the same thing so I too did the whole fraud alert, FTC notice, etc. You're right, what a PIA.
I got one recently from the state of Ohio... I'm one of the lucky tax payers whose info was stolen on a hard drive from the back of an intern's car... wtf?
They're offering free protection. Has anyone taken up one of those protection offers? Worth it?
They're offering free protection. Has anyone taken up one of those protection offers? Worth it?
I did for the above incident and I'm glad. I just got notified this morning that someone accessed my credit report.
Tomorrow I will be trying to take care of the situation more by calling up the 1 yr service protection. Thanks for the replies all!