ID THEFT VICTIM STORY
One day, I'd brought a friend home from school and was in the car with my parents when we stopped for the mail. I thought I saw a piece of mail with my name on it, but my mother said I was mistaken and refused to let me look. I didn't think any about it, although I was certain of what I'd seen.
I found out after I graduated that she had two credit cards in my name which both had large balances. I was furious, and I confronted my mom about them. She told me that she was building up my credit for the future. Being young, and not really knowing too much about credit, I believed her.
I knew about the cards, and worried about them for a couple of years, but since she was paying the balances on time, I said nothing else. She was my mom after all.
After she quit her job, she opened a small business which made very little money. The cards became delinquent since she no longer had the income to pay for them. I didn't find out about the delinquent charges until I started receiving nasty letters from lawyers threatening to pursue legal action.
I have been slowly managing to get some of the charges removed. At least one of the accounts is still open and past due. The other one is in the hands of collection agencies who wish to pursue charges for bad debt. I'm still working on them.
My mother denies any knowledge of cards in my name or stealing statements from the cards I currently use to make charges for her store. She still claims that it's because of her that I have any credit at all, but I recently tried to buy a home only to discover that I can't get a home loan due to the fraudulent amounts I owe.
