Identity Stolen in Real Life Too! WTF!!!

Wow, I can't believe what bad luck I've had with this whole identity theft thing both online with the blog and in real life too! I finished my 2011 tax return and tried to efile it last night. Only to have it rejected saying a return has already been filed with my social security number!!! Unbelievable... Apparently there are criminals out there who steal people's social and try to get their refund, or apply for unemployment benefits with them! I mean think about it, if you get a few hundred numbers, you could potentially make millions while the government is too slow to react. I don't know how people do this or get away with it but it has been done with mine! It's really infuriating to think that there is not much you can do once your identity has been stolen. Sure you can file report with the FTC and with the police. And you can monitor your credit reports or put a freeze on it which I am doing. But if someone were to open an utility account or something that doesn't require a credit check, you will never know!! They could even be getting a job under your social and it will look like you did not claim all of your income! The thing that makes me really really mad is that I am pretty much 100% sure that my info was stolen when I was going through the mortgage loan process for my condo. Because when I first found out my info was compromised was a few months after I bought it (Directv called me saying I owed them close to $1000 for an address that was not mine), and I had not applied for anything else for a long time before or after that. So it had to be that time when it was stolen. And there was nothing I could have done to prevent that!

Anyway, so I called the CA tax franchise board today and found out that luckily they had not sent out a refund check to this fraudulent individual from Compton (yep, that's the address they provided). So now there is a hold on my account, I had to fax the tax board all kinds of documentation, and will have to mail in my tax return instead of efile. It will take way longer to process than normal, and my account will be flagged for the next 3 years so I will potentially have more issues. What a pain!!!

My federal tax return is ok though, thank god. It's painful enough to just deal with California. When I first found out my social has been stolen last year I had informed the IRS so they sent me a special number to file with my return every year.

Anyway, I am ranting, but it just makes me so mad! I am expecting a large refund from California, but I probably won't even get it till like March or April!

But hey, lesson learned, always file taxes early to beat any impostors! Lol how sad... Sigh... So this was what I spent all day doing today! I hope this never happens to any of you.