7 points about identity theft

Recently, I discovered that another person was using my social security number ... and if you've ever wondered what kind of personal hell that can unleash on your life, here's a brief summary of what's transpired thus far in my quest to reclaim my own identity.

1) Discovery: In my case, I received random emails from my bank about transactions that I never made. I thought they were "phishing" emails at first, but when I read the source code, I saw that there weren't any links embedded in them, and therefore nothing a phisher could use to collect info. The emails looked legit.....just not the transactions. I called my bank, and found out that someone else had opened a new account using my number.

2) Pursuit: You would think that the discovery would be enough to apprehend my intruder. Not!! While the emails I've gotten from my bank have enabled me to piece together the name and account number of my intruder....and googling his name gave me his locale...I've been completely unsuccessful thus far in getting my bank to apprehend him. Why? This leads me to point #3.

3) Proof: Despite the many years that I've had an account at this bank, the burden is on me to prove my own identity. The bank will ask you to sign a W-9 form and show proof of your social security number. But it doesn't stop there....that's just the beginning. Even when you provide the proof, they still want the other person to have ample time to do the same. In fact, they're probably being more fair to my identity thief than they are to me.

I've made several visits to a branch office and showed them the following as proof that I am "me:"

* my original Social Security card, complete with my teenaged signature
* over a decade of W-2 forms
* my driver's license
* my passport
* the annual mailings from Social Security that show how much money would be in my social security fund when I retire, if it wasn't already spent in Iraq...

4) Harrassment: After providing all this evidence, I received a letter from my bank saying that I had three weeks left to prove that my Social Security is mine as opposed to the guy who just opened an account. It demanded that I provide another signed W-9 form as well as a new form that I didn't hear about earlier: form 7028 from the Social Security administration. If I don't convince them that it's my number and not his, they will strip my social security number from my bank account. Hey, no big deal...

5) Phone labyrinths: If you have your identity stolen, you'll spend a lot of time making phone calls and trying to navigate through phone prompts to get you to the right person who can help you solve your problem, or at least make you feel better for five minutes. Other times you'll get a robot. And you'll experience just how much voice-recognition software has improved, or hasn't improved, in the past few years. For example, the robot at the "free annual credit report" number is doggedly persistent and will not connect you to a human, but this robot also has a listening-comprehension problem.

6) Sales opportunities: My bank has used every phone call to try to sell me their $12.99-per-month identity theft program (just $155 per year!). Apparently they might be more helpful to me if I paid them to contact me the next time someone uses my social security number to set up a new account.

7) A visit to Social Security: If you've never done this, you're in for a surprise. I thought I'd be standing on line with a few retirees ... instead, I was sharing a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"-style institutional waiting room with over one hundred SSI recipients who were low on their meds. Try not to make this visit if you can avoid it.

My saga is not yet over. My bank tells me that my intruder has till the second week of July to prove that my number is actually his number. So far -- and not surprisingly -- he hasn't responded. When the deadline passes, they will "zero out" that number on his account. But will they pursue him?