My personal experience with identity theft
Trust Me, Identity Theft Can Happen To Anyone
I was just getting ready to get off work, on the Friday before a long holiday weekend. Then I get a call from the Small Business Administration (SBA) asking me if I have applied for a loan from them for my business. I had NOT! Then it hit me. I have become a victim of identity theft.
In conversation with the SBA representative, I discovered that someone had applied for a loan in my name. And in doing so they had the following information:
- My date of birth
- My social security number
- The tax id number for my business
- My addresses for my home and work- they had reversed them, but they were correct
- They provided bank statements, to a bank that is not mine, of course, but had the business name on them
Now there were some errors on the applications, that caused the examiner to question it:
- Email address was not to my name or anything like my name
- Phone number for me and the business were out of state number from where the business was located
- Addresses were reversed
- Bank was not located in the same state as the business
According to the examiner they were 4 hours away from funding a $120,000 into the bank account of this person.
But the final examiner was alert enough to research our agency. She went to our website to verify names, phone numbers and email addresses. If she had not taken these steps, there would have been a fraudulent loan in my name and business name granted.
Come to find out they SBA had pulled my personal credit report about 6 weeks prior to this phone call.
SCARY! Right?
So, what to do?
First I needed to confirm that the person who says that they have all this information is really from the SBA and that this call is not a scam!
Second, I notified my homeowners insurance company because I have identity theft coverage on my homeowner’s insurance policy.
They were able to walk me through the process of freezing my credit will all three of the reporting agencies. A simpler process then one would think!
Then they had me sign a limited power of attorney so that they can notify the FCC and none of my information can be provided to get any of those pre-approved credit card offers for the next 5 years!
In addition, the SBA has notified the officials of another fraudulent application was received.
Earlier in the year, there was a claim made that I filed for unemployment. From my own company!
Both the SBA and the unemployment commission have had hundreds of thousands fraudulent claims, which are bogging down the system. They worked for 6 weeks on my application before I was even notified that anything had been submitted.
Id theft is a huge issue!
Imagine that they were given this loan for $120,000- would the person that got the money ever paid it back? I do not think so, and then this loan and the delinquency would be on my credit report!
I was lucky, this was found before the loan was funded. Even so, it took me about 2 hours to get everything locked down and the paperwork filed. But it could have been much worse.
If this happened to you would you know what to do? If not then make sure that you have identity theft protection so that you can get the guidance you need to walk you through all of the steps.
Contact Huff Insurance
Do you have identity theft coverage on your insurance policies? If you are not sure, call one of our experienced team members at 410-647-1111.