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More Identity Theft and Cancelling Credit Cards

July 3rd, 2018 at 07:33 am

DH got a letter from the IRS today saying that someone had used his social security number to gain employment. They don't give out any specific information because apparently their system doesn't keep track of who used it, just that it was used somewhere that didn't jibe with their information on him, i.e. someone from a different state while he's earning in this one. They really ought to track that better.

This is not the first time this has happened. It happened back before we were married in the early 90's. When DH lost his job due to injury and had to file unemployment it was something that popped up on his list of jobs. It got taken off at that time. It was someone working a job in surprise, surprise, California who was an illegal immigrant. It's probably the same situation this time. Irritating.

So I've taken care of my side of things, setting a fraud alert on my accounts and pulling all three of my credit reports and going over them, since all my stuff is linked to his. My stuff is all correct. I don't think this is related to the fraudulent credit card use last month, but we just don't know. DH still has a fraud alert from then, but he needs to check his SSA account and pull his credit reports as well. All of it can be done easily online, thank goodness.

I cancelled our AMEX cards today. I had been planning on it anyway, but this letter spurred me on to get it done. They did not want to let me leave, but were very polite. I just kept saying no that I wanted to cancel and that I didn't want any other perks or cards. Honestly, after the supreme court ruling on what they can do with their business practices, I don't think I could ever use them again anyway.

I know we still have to cancel the Master Card. Baby steps. It is hard letting go of our credit. I know that it is the direction we really want to go in, but I didn't think it would be this hard to give up the ones we don't even use. It is psychological. It did feel good cutting up the AMEX cards, though. DH is the primary card holder on the MC so he will have to take care of that one himself.

Then the question will be do we want to do the Costco Citi card or the Alaskan Air Visa. Since we are only spending cash at stores now, we don't really need the Costco card. But I do want to get my cash rewards from it. And it doesn't look like DH will be going back to work in Alaska again (things look promising at work), so keeping the BoA is probably not necessary, except it is our oldest card and we will be wanting some credit history at least until we buy a new house and something for the auto pays to be on at places that don't accept debit or electronic checking. Plus for hotels and car rentals on future vacations. I know what Dave Ramsey says, but I'm not sure I want to make my life that difficult. They would be rare exceptions for credit card use and actual payment would be with the debit card, just using the credit card to hold things.

I am looking into Identity Theft insurance. We can get the whole family insured for $145 a year. This problem can get much worse and they will deal with it if it does. I know my daughter's info was breached because her high school sold all the information from the kids without permission to a company and then that company was breached, so it would be good to do all of us. I wish we didn't live in a world where this stuff happens, but we do.

3 Responses to “More Identity Theft and Cancelling Credit Cards”

  1. CB in the City Says:
    1530618739

    I'm curious, does DH have a common name?

  2. Smallsteps Says:
    1530621037

    I do not understand WHY the IRS or SSA fails to follow through on this. It should be an easy letter to employer saying we need conformation of this person. Failure to address this should be sent investigation to fine the companies that are employing someone using a stolen ID.
    Maybe if E-verify system was required. it is a shame that we now hove created a whole new industry of ID protection products to add to OUR budgets.

    I read an article where the SSA has hundreds of thousands of false or mismatched SSNs that taxes are being paid in but they do not address it. The SSA is just happy that all collected is never to be paid out, so it is money helping save off the system going broke. If they thought the mistake was real they would want person/ employer to have payments correctly accounted for. I guess this is a perk of illegal immigration.

  3. rob62521 Says:
    1530715167

    I'm very sorry this is happening. And what a horrible thing about the high school selling the data. Grrr!

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