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cheryl000 · 09-04-2006, 05:14 PM

I was wondering if anyone out there has been a victim of identity theft. I am doing a term paper and I want to include a part about someone who was VERY negatively effected by it. I was a victim of it last year. If you have a story I would like to use it for my term paper. You can also share it here if you would like. I think it would be helpful to also include how you think it could have possibly happened.

My story is that I was just looking at my checking account online and I noticed a weird charge for $60 on there for a website downloading stuff to a cell phone and I didn't even own one! I contacted the company and they were VERY nice about it. They told me that the person who did it had enough information about me like my home address, account number etc. They were nice enough to put the money back into my account and they even emailed me the IP address of the person who placed the order! I don't know how the person got my information, I'm thinking possibly from the internet.
I was so excited because I figured we had a chance of catching the guy with the IP address. So I contacted the police who came and filed a report. A few days later I got a letter in the mail saying that it was out of their jurisdiction because the IP address resolved to New Jersey. I called the NJPD and they said I would PHYSICALLY have to come there to file a report! Of course being in the military I couldn't travel all the way to the other side of the United States!
I had so many bad feelings from this experience. I wanted to catch the guy and teach him a lesson but I felt like the government's laws (that I helped protect while serving) failed me. I also felt violated and scared... some stranger knew all of that information and I hated the fact that he knew where I lived. What other stuff could pop up? What if other companies weren't as nice? I put my credit report on fraud status incase anything weird came up I would get a phone call, but thankfully nothing happened. I know I was very lucky, this happened to one of my friends and the person went to Target and ran up $600 on one of her credit cards with cds and cell phone cards. (I think the person used Target because they don't check ids.)
Anyways, my objective of the paper is to let people know what it feels like to be a victim in all of this. There doesn't seem to be enough to protect us. There should be a federal agency for this crime and the state you live in shouldn't matter when you try to press charges. I have heard of people not being able to get cars and houses because of identity theft. I want to show the criminals that do this what it feels like and we are people, not just names and numbers that own accounts! I would be VERY thankful for anyone's insight!

09-04-2006, 05:14 PM	#1
cheryl000 YT 1000 Club Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: none Posts: 1,495	Identity theft I was wondering if anyone out there has been a victim of identity theft. I am doing a term paper and I want to include a part about someone who was VERY negatively effected by it. I was a victim of it last year. If you have a story I would like to use it for my term paper. You can also share it here if you would like. I think it would be helpful to also include how you think it could have possibly happened. My story is that I was just looking at my checking account online and I noticed a weird charge for $60 on there for a website downloading stuff to a cell phone and I didn't even own one! I contacted the company and they were VERY nice about it. They told me that the person who did it had enough information about me like my home address, account number etc. They were nice enough to put the money back into my account and they even emailed me the IP address of the person who placed the order! I don't know how the person got my information, I'm thinking possibly from the internet. I was so excited because I figured we had a chance of catching the guy with the IP address. So I contacted the police who came and filed a report. A few days later I got a letter in the mail saying that it was out of their jurisdiction because the IP address resolved to New Jersey. I called the NJPD and they said I would PHYSICALLY have to come there to file a report! Of course being in the military I couldn't travel all the way to the other side of the United States! I had so many bad feelings from this experience. I wanted to catch the guy and teach him a lesson but I felt like the government's laws (that I helped protect while serving) failed me. I also felt violated and scared... some stranger knew all of that information and I hated the fact that he knew where I lived. What other stuff could pop up? What if other companies weren't as nice? I put my credit report on fraud status incase anything weird came up I would get a phone call, but thankfully nothing happened. I know I was very lucky, this happened to one of my friends and the person went to Target and ran up $600 on one of her credit cards with cds and cell phone cards. (I think the person used Target because they don't check ids.) Anyways, my objective of the paper is to let people know what it feels like to be a victim in all of this. There doesn't seem to be enough to protect us. There should be a federal agency for this crime and the state you live in shouldn't matter when you try to press charges. I have heard of people not being able to get cars and houses because of identity theft. I want to show the criminals that do this what it feels like and we are people, not just names and numbers that own accounts! I would be VERY thankful for anyone's insight!