Latest Victim Of Idenity Theft: ME!

[MickeyD]

Damn that *really* sucks.

I've had a few incidents involving identity theft. The last two have involved Cingular. The first time they called me to tell me they were shutting off my phone since I hadn't paid my "other" bill. The second time, they didn't even call me, and I only found out because the account went to collections and the collection was reported on my Equifax report. After the first time it happened I bought myfico.com's "Score Watch" service, which monitors your Equifax & sends you an e-mail when your score rises or drops.

Also, http://annualcreditreport.com
lets you check your report from each of the three credit reporting agencies for free once a year....personally I use it to check one report per quarter.

The irony is that I found out about the latest fraudulent account going to collections the day before I bought a new car. So BofA denied my car loan (even though they financed my last car) and the place that gave me a loan charged me a ridiculous interest rate (and except for the fraudulent account, I have pristine credit.)

I understand how frustrating it is....and it *always* seems to happen to me during the most inconvenient times possible....exactly when I *don't* have hours to spare dealing with all the sh*t.