Truth 37 My own identity theft experience

If you have never been a victim of identity theft, it might be hard to understand just how traumatic it is. You might think that because you’re not on the hook for paying for fraudulent charges racked up by an identity thief, identity theft is not a big deal. The problem is that, while in theory, you aren’t responsible for charges incurred by an identity thief, in reality, it’s much more complicated. I know from personal experience.

About 10 years ago, I received a phone call from a collection agency. The woman I spoke with explained that her company was collecting on an unpaid phone bill. According to the caller, I failed to pay a rather large phone bill during a six-month span in an apartment in Chicago. In addition, the fees had been racked up more than two years earlier, and after the phone company had not been able to reach me to collect on the debt, this collection company had taken over. She was direct and authoritative. During her entire monologue, I sat quietly and just listened to everything. She ended by asking how I intended to pay the bill and listed a few options.

I asked what I thought was the obvious question, “So, does it matter that I have lived in California my entire life and never had an apartment in Chicago?” Her response indicated she didn’t believe me. She asked me to verify the social security number, and I confirmed that it was mine. She then said, “Well, sir, it appears that you did open a phone account in Chicago.”

It’s been 10 years, but this conversation will be burned into my memory forever, as it was at this point that I first discovered that when it comes to identity theft, you are 100% guilty until proven innocent.

As we talked, I grew frustrated, and the collector became aggressive. Finally, she said she would be assigning me to another agent, and I could dispute the charges with this person.

A couple of days later, I received a call from another person who asked me to explain my side of the story again. I explained simply that I was born in California and had lived in California my entire life. While I had visited Chicago a couple of times for business, I was certain I would have remembered living there for six months in an apartment. Again, the caller implied strongly that I might have forgotten that I lived in Chicago since it had been a couple of years ago. Finally, he gave me an address, to which I was to send copies of utility bills from the time period in question. While frustrated, I agreed.

In the meantime, I ran a credit report just to see what was happening. Sure enough, this phone bill was on my credit report showing that I was a deadbeat. I spent the next few weeks gathering copies of utility bills, which was no small task. After sending those copies, I went for nearly three weeks without hearing anything despite leaving repeated phone messages.

Finally, the collection agency called and said that the utility bills I sent were for the wrong months and that I needed to get copies of the bills from the previous month. Again, I spent several weeks tracking down copies of the bills they needed, and again, I didn’t hear back from the collection agency for weeks. Then they called back and said the copies I had sent weren’t legible. So, begrudgingly, I sent a third package of bills and again waited for a response that never came. After weeks went by, I called the company’s main line and did reach someone who told me that my account had been handed off to another collection agency and that I needed to call them.

After multiple attempts to reach anyone at the second company and as I neared the one-year anniversary of this whole mess beginning, finally a real person gave me a new number to call and a new case number. When I called that number, it went to a voice mail system and again, I began leaving messages. Finally, when the second company called me back, I was told that I needed to send all the same bills I had sent to the first company. So I sent the bills again, along with a letter explaining the whole situation.

Weeks later, I received another call from the second collection agency saying that it hadn’t received the copies of my bills, which I’d mailed to them. This time, the agency asked that I fax them. Two weeks later, I still could not verify that the agency had received my fax.

At this point, I started leaving several messages a day, and in another week or so, I received another call explaining that again the agency had not received my fax. This was about the moment that I swear I heard something in my head pop. I hung up the phone, wrote a short letter that simply read, “You will receive this fax every 15 minutes until I receive confirmation that you have it.” I gave the papers to my receptionist and asked that she continue to send the 13 pages via fax to them every 15 minutes until I told her otherwise.

After several hours of faxing the same documents repeatedly, we received a fax that simply read, “We have received your fax. Please stop.” While my identity theft issue was not over, I at least amused myself that day and felt that I could chalk one up for the little guy. It took another month before I received a call saying that my case had been cleared, another three months before I got something in writing, and another two months for me to contact all the credit bureaus and have the collection taken off my credit report.

In all, I spent almost two years working through the process, wasting untold time in the whole ordeal. I did manage to clean up my credit, but the process was absolutely ridiculous and, more importantly, it was clear from day one that I was the one on trial and was definitely guilty until proven innocent. What makes this story more ridiculous is the original phone bill that started this whole thing was for $600.00. That’s right. It took two years and all that effort to resolve a single collection of less than $1,000. With my own experience fresh in my mind, I can only imagine the nightmare that many people have gone through when their identities have been stolen and a thief racks up thousands of dollars in debt.