In further proof that identity theft can happen to anyone, foreclosure counselor Robert Mitchell, whose job partly entails telling people to vigilantly check their credit reports, was victimized late last year. Mitchell told the Charleston, SC, Post and Courier he was denied a loan due to an unpaid utility bill, which lowered his credit score considerably.
This bill was for an apartment in Georgia that Mitchell had never seen, let alone lived in. However, someone who had his or her hands on Mitchell’s Social Security number got free electricity for about two years. Then the person took off and left Mitchell to clean up the mess. He had to go through the tiring process of proving he had never lived in the apartment, supplying identification, proof of residency and a police report – and the utility company was forced to eat the cost of two years of power service.
After discovering the identity theft, Mitchell said something that many others in his position have uttered in the past, “You read about this sort of thing, but you never think it’s going to happen to you.†He now checks his report often, just as he advises his clients to do. Instead of just being vigilant now to prevent identity theft from happening in the first place, he’s now worried that the thieves that already have his Social will try to use his personal information again.
When you buy health insurance or car insurance, are you really thinking, well, this year I hope to get sick or get in an accident? Of course not. But you know that you need to be prepared just in case something happens so that you are not caught off guard with a huge financial burden. The same should be said for identity theft. You may not think it’s going to happen to you, and you certainly hope that it doesn’t, but you need to be prepared for the off-chance that it does occur.
The odds are that it will happen, if not to you, at least to someone you know. In recent years, the number of victims in this country alone has hovered around the 10 million mark. Plus, there are probably hundreds of people that have already been victimized but just do not realize it yet.
When you pay your health policy, or your auto policy, consider purchasing identity theft protection to give you peace of mind. Most companies now monitor many databases, not just credit one, and their sophisticated technology can pick up on pre-warning signs of identity theft and things like fraudulent utility services.
Checking your credit report at least once a year is a good start, but an identity protection service can go much further. Most even monitor your credit on a day to day basis. That way you can cut off the identity thieves at day one instead of 730 days after the fact.