Slice of Life # 61 ~ Grand Theft __

Have you ever had Identity Theft?  It is amazing how easy that can happen to us.

Back in 1997 I was working in the Student Services offices of DeVry University-Phoenix campus.  One day as I was helping new students get checked in and such I meet a girl with the name Ann Dillon.  My name then (before marriage) was Annette Dillon.  It turned out that we lived in the same apartment complex, banked at the same bank and went to the same school.

I first had problems with getting her email, as the schools assigned email addresses were done such that we would both have the same one, so instead of her doing anything about it, I had to request a new email address.  You would have thought since I had been going there longer it wouldn't have mattered and she would have been assigned something different.

I then would every now and then get her mail in my mail box and would then take it over to her apartment.  Then I moved to another apartment complex the following spring and things seemed to clear up.  Until July 1999 I was getting ready to go on my mission and was getting a debt card for my credit union account.  They told me they couldn't give me a  debt card because I had an outstanding balance from a Wells Fargo credit card on my credit report.  Now I did bank at Wells Fargo, but I never had a credit card with them, so I go down to the credit bureau office in Provo, UT and get a copy of the report and file a complaint. They also told me to check with the bank, so I went around the corner and talked with someone who was so rude and had me in tears and told me it was my fault and that there was nothing he could do for me.  The Credit Bureau said it should take 2 weeks to clear up which was pushing it for me leaving on my mission.  I try calling in two weeks to find out if it was all taken care of and they said they didn't know what I wanted to do, I was so mad!  I told them what had all the paper work I had filled out two weeks earlier was for.

My mother and I then went to Wells Fargo with a copy of the offending information.  This time we talked with the Assistant manager of that branch and she was so helpful, I told her what happened two weeks earlier and she then told me that the man that helped me then was no longer with them.  She looked at the info and found out that the credit card that was on my history belonged to the "Ann Dillon" that I had gone to school with and such.  For some reason when the bank filed the info with the credit bureau someone was lazy and said oh this must be the same person, lets just stick it on her info and not the right person.  This manager at the bank stayed an hour past closing getting it all worked out and correcting the mistake and giving me info to take back to my credit union so I could get a debt card.  We sent the lady that helped us at Wells Fargo some flowers the next day as a huge Thank You!

I have not had a problem with "Ann Dillon's" info since!

More recently I have to give a big Thank You to Chase Bank for catching something before it hurt me very badly!

A few months ago I went and spent the day with my kids and a friend in Orem, UT.  I did my normal Friday/Payday shopping while I was there.  The next day at 8am on a Saturday morning Dan and I were talking about what to do that day, what I still needed to get done and such when I got a call from Chase Bank.  After verifying that it was really Chase and that I was who I was, they proceeded to ask me if I had my debt card on me.  I said yes.  They asked if I was in LA, CA the previous day, I said no.  They then verified the charges that I had made the previous day to make sure they were charges that I had made and I said yes they were.  They told me that someone in LA had tried to make a $300 purchases with my debt card info the day before but since it was at the same time I was making purchases in UT they declined their transaction. They then canceled my debt card and issued me a new one.

The following Monday when I looked at my account online (I check it almost daily) I noticed an ATM fee for checking the balance.  I called up the bank right away and in talking with them it looked like who ever had gotten my card info had tried to check the balance to see what was there on Saturday, but when  I told them I had not used the card since Friday since we had canceled my card on Saturday morning they credited back the ATM Fee.  Thank Goodness for technology that they were able to verify were the ATM fee was at.

I hope never to have to go through this kind of stuff again!