Day Twenty-Four: Identity

On Veteran's Day, 2001 I was at a church event. I left my wallet in the car. Driving home from the event I noticed that my car was REALLY cold. I looked back and saw that the window on the back door, passenger side, had been broken. Shattered and all over the seat and floor of my car.

Crap! Why would someone "bust the window out my car" on Veteran's day?!

Then I thought to check under the seat. That was where I always left my wallet.

It was gone.

Vanished.

I started to cry.

Once home, my mom calmed me down and we called the cops.

The police officer came out, looked my car over and told us the obvious. Someone had broken into my car and stolen my wallet.

Really?

I didn't know that. We filed the police report and as soon as the officer left my mom and I went inside to start canceling stuff. At the time I had a credit card and a checking account. We canceled both.

It was a few days later that the gravity of the situation really hit hard. There was a lot of drama and anger but the summary of the story is this: my identity had been stolen. From the time it was stolen until my mom and I canceled it, my credit card had been used at a local mall for a couple thousand dollars. Merry Christmas thief!

My drivers licence had been used at the local bank, where I regularly banked and had gone to high school with the teller (teller #11) that did all the transactions, to cash some stolen checks in my name for a couple thousand dollars.

The story is much longer, but I'll spare the gory details. Lots of talks with debt collectors, police, banks and a nasty situation that took almost a year to figure out.

My identity had been stolen. My 21 year old credit had been ruined.

The bank, I think, eventually fired teller #11. I think that they figured she was in on it. No one could ever figure out why I was a target, but the cops thought that whomever broke into my car new me well enough to know that I was a super dummy and left my wallet in the car. My aunt, an attorney, wrote some nasty letters to credit agencies threatening them if they wouldn't leave me alone.

I don't remember exactly, but in the end, I think it was close to $10,000 dollars of theft in my name.

Hopefully, knock on wood, since it happened to me once, it will never happen again.

Good thing I no longer have a credit card.