I found out my identity was stolen back in january 2000. I didn't have any company calling me. I called my bank to varify my SSDI check was there before I went shopping. It wasnt. I called my local Social security office and asked my worker where my check was. Boy was I surprised when he said - You're not getting one we don't give SSDI to convicted fellons presently doing time. I said what?! and he said records show that right now I was sitting in a chicago prison for drug possession.

I started laughing and told him boy did Y2K get his computer. And had him look at his caller ID and varify that phone number was in the phone book as a local number so I was definately not in another state over 2000 miles away.

After asking me lots of questions that only I would know the answer to and they did not include debit card numbers and so on. I asked him if he wanted that info to and he told me no never say or confirm things like bank acounts, debit cards and so on. There are scammers that call people stating they are preventing an Identity theft and get the person to confirm the numbers and so on and then before the person can cancil anything they have someone at an atm with a bogus atm card with my number on it and are taking money out of my account while the other person is keeping me on the phone varifying the information. The only people who I would ever get a call from for Identity theft is the police if they captured someone who happened to have my credit cards on them or if my SSI check didn't come. And they don't call on weekends. Scammers call on weekends so they have the weekend before you can call your bank and so on because very few banks have saturday hours and no bank in the USA has sunday banking hours. You can reach automated lines on weekends but face to face and with a person not a computer that has to be M-F and sometimes Saturday. The only other way would be my recieving written credit reports from three specific credit companies Equifax is one of them, north something and another one I can't remember Sellitsafe was not one of them so if it is for real it is a new one. anyway after lots of red tape it turned out that a woman posing as me was arrested for selling cocaine and possession of pot and she had been found with all kinds of stuff in my name. she finally came clean and confessed she was not me when I released my mental health records containing my hospitalizatioons. The cops in chicago started proceedings to have her committed to a mental health unit for an evaluation. She decided very quickly she did nopt want to be me anymore.

It took about 6 months to a year to get everything straighted out. in the process I had to call all my credit card companies and the three credit beraus to have my name "flagged" which means that anytime anyone applies for a credit card or creditline anywhere in the USA I have to be notified and approval is not sent to the person applying until I supply certain information that only I know. And that information does not include any numbers, relatives names and so on. I have gotten many calls over the years from people wanting me to varify my debit card and SS number and so on. The latest one was a person posing as a DELL finance center wanting me to authoirse their taking a payment over the phone from my bank account. then they repeated some numbers of my ss number, bank account and debit card. Some were right and some were wrong but to each one I said Im sorry I cannot give that information. Finally to get them to stop calling I agreed to a wrong number and then I called my local police and the person was caught in maine trying to access the account with the wrong numbers.

No matter who calls be it some credit company or not I don't varify bank account and debit cards and so on over the phone. When anyone asks me to I report that person immediately to the local police.

I also recieve monthy credit reports that itemize any purchases made on my credit cards and I read them. If I don't recognize something I report it to the credit company and the store that I have the credit card from.

I have also had my name "flagged" so that anyone applying for any form of credit, ID cards and so on in my name I recieve a call as does the police in the area that the person is applying.

I als shread all reciept, bills and so on. here many people have been caught committing identity theft and how they did it was by dumpster diving, taking bills and junk mail that contains the persons name saying they have been preapproved for a credit card. so now Shreaders are on all the department store shelves for as little as 20 dollars and I bought one and use it. no matter what it is it goes through the shreader before going out to the garbage dumpster. They even have free shreading days here for bulk shreading that goes on in local agencies and parking lots. and I have used that on occasion when my shreader has been down or I needed a new one.

With these steps I have had no further problems with identity theft