Identity theft can destroy your credit rating and wreak havoc on your health

We’ve all seen the stories of how so-and-so was a victim of identity theft and the awful consequences they encountered.

In case you didn’t realize it, it can tear up your credit rating.

I know – from firsthand experience.

Some years back, I went into a car dealership to buy a car. The finance person, upon pulling my credit report, announced that there was no way I could get a car loan.

He showed me the report and pointed out that I had a charge-off of over $8,000.00 appearing on it.

The report stated that I had defaulted on a loan with a company called Commercial Credit.

I contacted the credit bureau, in writing, to dispute the report.

I got my response some 3 weeks later, stating the credit report was accurate (don’t they always say that?). They even included a new (and somewhat different version) copy of my updated credit report.

Fortunately, the report now listed the address of this company.

Calling this company, I was advised that they had absolutely no record of anyone by my name having had an account with them. Considering that they were located in Baltimore and I lived in Kentucky at the time, this seemed reasonable to me. (I had never even visited Baltimore at this time)

Communicating with them by phone and in writing, I was advised that any changes to my report had to be initiated by their home office in Texas.

Another round of phone calls and letter writing took place. Finally getting a response from the person “in charge of these things” I received a copy of a really strange looking form that had been sent on my behalf to all 3 credit bureaus.

During our conversations, we had come to the conclusion that the only way this could have occurred was if someone had gotten my social security number and used it to get credit with the finance company. Then – they had just disappeared after getting the loan.

It took me 7 months to get this removed from my report.

This all doesn’t sound so bad, except for one thing -it wouldn’t go away!

About 3 years after this happened, the company was bought out by Associates Financial. The first thing they did was to go through and update all the account listings they had on file.

You know what’s coming, don’t you?

Yep – same thing all over again. Only now I’ve been reported as having an $8,000.00 charge-off with Associates.

Luckily, I had retained copies of all my old correspondence. This time I was able to clear it up in just 2 months.

As if that wasn’t enough – fast forward another 3 years.

They’re sold again. This time it’s Citifinance. Same dance again. Same 2 months to clear it up.

That brings us up to today.

Awareness of the problems of identity theft is finally growing. You now have the means to fight back.

But it’s still a tedious process. Yes – you can place alerts in your credit file. And then renew them. And renew them.

Or, you can take our recommendation to stop it from happening in the first place.

If Lifelock had been around when I first went through this mess, I would have had it stopped in its tracks before it ever became a problem.

Yes, they charge you. But I have to say – this may just be the best 10 bucks a month you’ll ever spend.

Check it out for yourself. You won’t be sorry.

Click here to get more information.

Update

We just recently read a news report about Lifelock that should interest you – I know it sure interested me.

It seems that they’ve been sued.

Now, before you panic, here’s a question for you – Can you guess who has brought this lawsuit?

One of the credit bureaus has filed the suit.

The first thought that came to mind was   — What better endorsement could you ask for?

If Lifelock has upset the credit bureaus enough to make one of them file suit – they must be doing something right.