Idenity Theft Sucks!

That's it in a nut shell. If your identity is stolen, you feel violated and never truly recover. Oh, let me tell you from experience its a scary thing!

My story started a couple of years ago when we noticed money was moved from our joint savings account to my husbands checking account that neither one of us did. When a large amount of money is moved all by itself, you freak out.

After the money was transferred, the person on the other end wrote out an e-check to be sent to an address we of course have never heard of. Also, happening at the same time, I couldn't sign-in to my online banking website since my password wouldn't work. What!?!?

We contacted the bank to tell them all about the issues. It was discovered that someone had called the bank to change the password on our online banking, then transferred the money using MY social security number and name. It defiantly wasn't me. So, the next business day we went to the bank branch to change our account numbers. Oh, and they couldn't tell us the identity of the person who did this to us, but they did stop payment on the check.

About a week later, after we had swapped everything over to our new account numbers & new passwords my husband called me and told me it had happened again. I couldn't believe it! So, we went back to the same bank branch & had to explain to someone else what had happened. He laughed at us, like we didn't know what we were talking about! Um, this is serious and he was acting like it was all a mistake! I wasn't happy. Finally we got through to him because that very moment, it was being attempted again! So, it showed this fool that it wasn't us and it was actually some bad person out there doing this to us.

After the third attempt (and poor customer service), we decided to switch banks! It was such a hassle, aggravation and scary thing to happen!

We almost were free & clear without any issues since our bank incident, but on the Saturday before Easter I received a phone call from one of my credit card companies. The fraud department was calling to see if I wanted to transfer $5,000 from my credit card to a bank account that was known for fraudulent charges. Um, no! I told her what happened in the past and explained to her most likely who ever this was found my SS# & was trying to do some tricky business, again, with my information. Thank goodness for fraud protection!

So, I guess my lesson for today would be to protect your personal information as best you can. Its tough since everything is electronic, but just beware of where your information is going. I am always combing everything over with a fine toothed comb now just in case it happens again.

To this day, I don't know how my information was found or what was out there, but its out there and there is nothing I can do!