Guido the Enforcer

Yesterday morning just before we left for church, we got a phone call. It was fraud alert. Yes, Calvin’s identity has been stolen AGAIN. This is the fourth time. Cal’s social security number must be popular—it keeps getting sold over and over again.

We found out about the fraud because a couple of months ago we got a Capital One Visa card. And, providentially, Identity Thief Number Four chose to open a Capital One credit card. Capital One thought it was odd that Cal was applying for a second credit card from an address in Detroit, so they called us. Capital One is now denying Identity Thief Number Four a credit card.

Later today, we’ll find out if ITNF has opened other credit cards in Cal’s name. Then, we’ll call the police in Detroit and they’ll tell us that ITNF has rights and they can’t help us.

Hmmm. We still have some friends in Connecticut. I wonder if anyone there has a cousin named Guido the Enforcer who will help us. After all, this identity thief is not nearly as clever as the last one. ITNF actually gave Capital One his home address, instead of a PO Box. I’m sure Guido can convince Capital One to share ITNF’s address with him.

Anyone out there have a cousin named Guido?

Web Spiders and Louboutin

Over the last month, I’ve been getting a truck load of blog spam. I know, I know, I could add a word verification. But I really hate those. When I see the random combo of numbers and letters, my brain turns the random assortment into real words. “Nmrado” becomes “random” when I type it in. (Yes, this is a great skill in Scrabble and Boggle. Not so much otherwise.) I’ve been known to get an “incorrect” so many times that I thought the system was rigged against me. Now I type those things in with only an index finger so my brain can’t fix it.

The odd thing is that the blog spam comments are only on one blog post. Now I’m sure there’s a sophisticated computer-tech reason that would explain it. Like the HTML code has an embedded 404 compiler error. (Yeah, that probably makes no sense. But I think imps run computers with their evil black magic anyway, which is why the computer always crashes before I remember to save my document on days when I’ve made impressive progress on my novel.)

Anyway, the real reason the post is spammed is that it’s titled “Bob the Criminal Strikes Again.” And the topic of the post was identity theft—someone (Bob the Criminal) filed a fake tax return under my husband’s social security number and tried to get our money. (BTW, the government still hasn’t fixed the problem. But that’s another story.)

So I believe that some criminal syndicate has an evil web crawler (known as web spiders—I love bugs— though not mosquitos or cockroaches, which are pure evil disguised as bugs) searching the web for vulnerable people. And the spider added my blog post because it decided than people who’ve been victims of identity theft are more likely to buy knock off Christian Louboutin shoes or Coach bags because they’ve had their funds sucked dry. But here’s the thing. I really don’t want to wear knock offs of $3000 shoes. (Are the real ones comfortable? Or made out of gold?)

Okay, I just Googled a pair of $3000 suede crystal encrusted open-toed pumps. And I was all prepared to hate them. But, um, they’re really pretty.

Maybe those spiders know what they’re doing after all.  (They're from the Neiman-Marcus website.)

It's Monday. Call the IRS.

Everyone has a routine of some kind. Get up, go to work, etc. My husband Calvin has that routine. But he has something special that most people don’t share. Part of his routine is “It’s Monday. Call the IRS.”

In case you don’t remember or missed the post back in January, someone (may a hideous pox be upon them) filed a fraudulent tax return with my husband’s social security number. Thankfully, we filed early in January so as the IRS was processing the fraudulent return the real return came up and they froze the returns.

No one notified us. We found out when our applications for college financial aid (we have three kids in college) were unable to be processed. We made phone calls and discovered the issue.

Naively, we figured that we’d get it taken care of. It’s been nearly ten months. We filed tons of documentation. Nada. Every time Cal calls, some agent gives him a “story” and a promise. The promises are empty. “Oh, Mr. Keller, when you called last…well, it looks like Mr. Jones filed the wrong paperwork.” Once, our fraud complaint was filed as a “change of address.”

Cal is now building a “folder” documenting his interactions. He used to ask for the agent’s name—they give fake names like “Miss Smith.” I’m not surprised they don’t want citizens to know who they are. Now he gets their badge number.

Our goal is to get this resolved before we file taxes this January. In the meantime, it’s Monday. It’s time to call the IRS.

Identity Theft, the drama continues

If you were reading my blog back in February, you'll remember that we had yet another experience of identity theft. In this occasion someone filed a false income tax return under my husband's social security number. (Click here for the whole story.)

Well, we still haven't gotten our tax return--we filed in January. And several new insults have occurred. Be warned this could happen to you too.

The latest thing we discovered (after my husband produced a driver's license, US passport, etc., to verify who he was) is that the thief gets to dispute it. After Cal proved his identity, then the IRS sends a letter to the thief giving him three months to prove that Cal's social security number is really his (the thief's). After those three months, The government sends the thief another letter, and the thief has another three months. After those six months (or more given the government's slow methods--we've been told to expect a year's wait) have passed, then they can begin to process our tax return.

Oh, and by the way, when we first reported the identity theft to the IRS and filed all the legal paperwork (affidavits, etc.), we discovered a month later when Cal checked up on the paperwork that the IRS agent made a "mistake." Instead of filing our claim as "identity theft," the agent filed it as a "change of address." Oops. Sorry.

Just when we thought that we understood the onerous process and were making progress, Cal got a letter this week. The Social Security agency sent him a letter saying that his social security number of 000-00-0000 didn't match their records. Really?! Imagine that. I'm not sure what that means. Except we won't be getting our tax return this year. Maybe next. I wonder if the government will pay us interest...

Surgery

After the craziness of pre-op, I wondered what surgery would by like. It was totally different. I have only nice things to say about the staff at Parkridge East. I don’t even have a bruise where the nurse put in the IV, and I was even dehydrated. (I’ve been known to have my whole arm bruise when I’ve gotten an IV before.)

After the surgery, the codeine was lovely. That night, my wonderful husband set the alarm to go off every 4 hours, so he could give me another dose of pain killers. (Yeah, he’s a keeper.)

The weird thing is that I had a very vivid dream during the surgery. Or maybe it was during recovery. I didn’t think you were supposed to have REM sleep with surgery.

There’s also one more important thing I discovered. When the anesthesiologist noticed that I was a migraine sufferer, she left and came back with a patch of scopolamine. According to her, migraine sufferers have a lot more problems with post-surgical nausea. So the patch deals with that. And I must say, the patch was amazing. I didn’t get a hint of nausea. I’m so thankful.

The only bad thing is that I lost my voice. Which isn’t such a big deal. Except that I got a phone call from American Express. Someone was making fraudulent charges on my credit card. Some loser/thief was charging hundreds of dollars of perfume, etc., on my credit card. I was very pleased the AmEx called me and told me that they were suspicious. Obviously, they know I’m not a big perfume user—in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever bought perfume. But the craziest thing was that I had to talk to a woman from India or Pakistan about the problem. Have you ever tried to carry on a conversation with a woman with a heavy accent while you have post-surgery laryngitis? It doesn’t go so well. There are a lot of “pardons” and “could you repeat that please.” But in the end, we solved the problem, And since it was AmEx, I’m not responsible for any of the faux charges.  Yay, AmEx!!!

At some point, it would be great if some member of the gov’t would do something about all the identity theft.

PS For all that are interested, I should get the results of my biopsy on Tuesday.

PPS If any of you would like to read the Amazon Experts Reviews on my novel, which so far has made it to the quarterfinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, here's a link.

Bob the Criminal Strikes Again

Do you remember those Citibank identity theft commercials from years ago? I used to think they were hilarious (though my family thought I was insane). I still think they're sort of funny, but then things have changed in the last five years.

A couple of weeks ago we received a notice that we needed to submit additional paperwork for our children’s FAFSAs (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). They wanted a data transfer from the IRS. Weird. But we tried, and the IRS notified us that our current address is not associated with my husband’s social security number—strange given that we’ve live here for five years. Cal and I swallowed and hoped it was a typo. We had an inkling where this might be going...

Five years ago Cal had his identity stolen. We didn’t know until we got a letter from the bank stating that they had frozen all our accounts. (Imagine mortgage, utility, & credit card payments bouncing.) I thought it was a mistake. It wasn’t. An illegal alien had bought Cal’s social security number. (According to the Social Security Administration criminals look through old employment records, copy the SSNs of former employees, and sell them). After buying the number, this particular alien set up a checking account with Cal’s SSN and wrote bad checks. And Cal was being held responsible. We tried to file a police report. No good. We aren’t allowed to know the criminal’s name. He has a right to privacy. (Yes, they told us this with a straight face.) Though his name was Jose Cruz (I have an interesting ability—I can read upside down and backwards, just as easily as forwards). And even though I read his address too, we couldn’t file charges because it was across state lines.

So the other day when we had the IRS glitch, I really, really hoped for a clerical error. Cal called the IRS. They wouldn’t talk over the phone. So he went to the IRS to chat—after waiting in line for three hours. It turns out that Cal’s number was stolen again. This time, however, someone was trying to get a tax refund with Cal’s number.

The IRS couldn’t discuss the faux tax return with us because Cal had to prove that he was indeed Calvin Keller who has had the SSN for 50 years as opposed to Bob the Criminal who’s had it for 6 months. Cal had to photocopy his driver’s license and passport and file an affidavit. In 30 days, when the IRS has (hopefully) processed the paperwork, then they’ll discuss the problem with us. And they’ll assign Cal a super-duper secret IRS pin number. Of course, the fact that someone in Michigan knew we’d get a tax return points to an insider job, but no one seems too concerned about that. So I’m not sure how helpful the super secret personal identification number will be...

In the meantime, our tax paperwork is frozen—and the kids’ financial aid paperwork is frozen. (A clock is ticking in the background for that. It’s our understanding that FAFSA issues must be resolved by the end of April.)

So now we have to notify our bank, all three credit report agencies, and the Federal Trade Commission. Doesn’t that sound like fun? It wouldn’t be so bad if I had any kind of assurance that the government or police were doing something to prevent this crime. But all we’ve gotten are shrugs. And as the IRS lady said, “It can happen to anyone.” And, obviously, it can happen more than once.

What about you all? Do any of you have identity theft horror stories?

Nota Bene:

Several people have recommended identity protection services. Unfortunately, these services, which we have used in the past, would not have caught either incidence of SSN abuse because though banks require you to submit an SSN, they are not obligated to verify it. And, of course, federal databases like the IRS are not available to these services. And it’s especially difficult to catch these criminals because while they are using Cal’s SSN, they aren’t using his name.

Identity theft is becoming a huge issue. The FTC has announced that they are now receiving 50,000 notices per week of identity theft. And stealing SSNs to get tax refunds is the new “hot” identity crime. These criminals file early in attempt to beat you to the tax refund. We filed in late January, and Bob the Criminal beat us, which is why the IRS documents had us living in Michigan.

Here's one more commercial.