Identity Theft. Did Someone Just Clone Me?

I was driving home from lab one evening when my phone rang.  I normally don’t pick it up when driving, but I was expecting a call, so I answered:

Me: Hello?
Guy: This is Sergeant [Jones] of the SFPD, can I speak to Alan Marnett?
Me: (Quickly pulling car over and beginning to sweat) Speaking.
Sergeant: Mr. Marnett, SWAT just busted a house in south San Francisco.  On the kitchen table was a mound of cocaine and credit cards with your name on them – can you explain this?

Oh man.  The closest I’d come to a white powder was the series of hexapeptides I was synthesizing in lab… and there definitely wasn’t a mound of those.  That call marked the exact minute that my life became unnecessarily complicated for the next year and a half.  That was how I discovered my identity had been stolen.

Over the next week, I discovered four fraudulent credit card accounts and five unknown “previous” addresses.  The nightmare was in full swing.  All of the accounts had balances and it was now my word versus theirs.  One company performed a “fraud investigation” and determined that I was, in fact, lying.  A police report and 12 months later, it was settled.

Until they got into my bank account.  Six months and another police report later, the money was back in my account.  And I was lucky, not everyone gets it back.

As a grad student, I naïvely thought that I had little to offer thieves… a credit card or two with low limits and a tiny back account, surely not the stuff criminal minds dream of.  But that’s precisely it.  They’re like Walmart- low margin, high volume.

Lab is stressful enough- you don’t need to spend all day explaining that you are not responsible for the $3000 purchase of make-up from the home shopping network.

Here are a few steps that can make sure you don’t get cloned without your knowledge.

Take a look at your credit reports.

There are three main credit reporting agencies: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.

Once a year, you can obtain a free credit report from each one of these.  Since you will be asked to input sensitive personal information, be sure you go to the right site- not an imposter.  The TV sites will get you on fine print and you’ll be paying a fee without even realizing it.

Go to:
Annualcreditreport.com
If you’re paranoid (which is not bad!) you can verify this is the correct site by starting at the Federal Trade Commission’s site.

It’s surprisingly painless- takes about 10 minutes.  Check your report from all three agencies- they will all be free.  It is possible that fraudulent accounts will show up only on one or two of them.

There are various schools of thought on how frequently these should be monitored ranging from quarterly to annually.  Each one of the credit reporting agencies offers a monitoring service that will notify you of any changes to your credit (new accounts, new addresses, etc).   These are useful and provide peace of mind, but they’ll run you about $120/year (prices may vary).

Shred your mail.

It’s not that bad.  Only shred pages that have an address, credit card offer, name or account number on them.  It’s incredible what a good thief can do with a name and address.

Be aware of where you disclose personal information.

If anyone ever emails or calls you asking for personal information, refuse.  Unless you initiated the transaction with a reputable contact, keep your personal information just that- personal.

If you suspect that you may be a victim of identity theft The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has a list of actions to take.

There should only be one of you.  Leave the cloning to Dolly.