For 25 years, I lived in British Columbia, Canada, going there as a 20 year old to work on my Master’s in Criminology at Simon Fraser University. My initial intention was not to stay in Canada, but plans change and I ended up having my family and career there. I became a Canadian citizen and ran for political office, becoming the Chairperson of the third largest school district in British Columbia and championing the rights of children with special needs or who were at risk. I was fortunate also to be the Country Director for Canada for Save the Children Canada and travelled nationally and internationally promoting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. My reputation was solid. I thought. However, I had little idea what was going on in the United States with my social security number and its impact on my future life.
In Canada, we have social insurance numbers (SIN), and those are used in similar fashion to the US social security number. I used my SIN for 25 years in Canada and never had a need to utilize my US number at all. My credit was excellent, paid my taxes, worked hard, and never had an issue.
It all changed when I moved back to the United States, to Seattle, where I remarried and began for the first time in my life to have US charge cards, career employment, mortgage, and three credit reports that influence your life in ways that you never knew could happen.
It was a weekend where I was visiting my boys who lived in Vancouver. I went up on Friday and was going to go back to Seattle Saturday morning, but we decided to go to a movie. I put my bags in my car before the movie, and as soon as we walked out of the theater and I turned my cell phone on, the calls starting coming in. Security guard from the parking lot, security guard from the hospital up the street-they had found my business cards scattered, my empty wallet, and a myriad of other possessions in the parkade and on the street. My car had been smashed into and everything stolen. Little did I know this was a blessing that would reveal a travesty that was never on my radar.
Up to my son’s condo I went to call the police. Then I thought I should put a cancellation on my US charge cards that I had only recently acquired. First call was to Macy’s. They ask me what my charge card number is but of course I do not know. My card was just stolen and I am in Vancouver, not at home in Seattle, so cannot access past bills. Next question then is what is my social security number is, so I tell them. And this is where the nightmare begins and continues to this day.
It seems that someone else has held a Macy’s charge card for years before I even lived in the States, using my social security number but a different name. Never heard of her and had no idea how this could happen. Next was the Macy’s fraud department where they said they would look into it. I cancelled a few more charge cards and made my journey home.
It was suggested I look up the three credit bureau reports, which at that time I was not aware of, as I had never had US credit until moving back at age 45. What a shock I was in for. The default on loans, mortgages, charge cards was endless. Page after page after page. I was mortified. None of these debts were in my name, all in the name of the woman who has become the nightmare of my existence. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in arrears and the list so long it was hard to know where to start. Additionally as I began my investigation (thank heavens for my background in criminology), I found out she had also taken a Driver’s License out in Massachusetts, which she also had issues with. I was able to get that cancelled but must carry a letter in my vehicle from the State of Massachusetts, saying I am not her should I ever be stopped and accused of her digressions from when she held her license with my social security number.
From trying to track her down in Massachusetts, to finding out she moved to Oklahoma, the hours spent go into the thousands. Writing to all those companies to try and clear my credit report; calling the Social Security Administration to deal with the fraud; being assigned my own Secret Service agent who pursued and found her in Oklahoma; getting her bankruptcy stopped in Oklahoma and having the lead prosecutor become my best ally; to being on the verge of having her in court for fraud when she took off again back to Massachusetts, it has been exhausting. But it does not end there.
There are phone calls to our home from collection agents, which I have had stopped by the Oklahoma prosecutor who sends letters to whoever is my latest harasser. There are lingering defaults on my credit reports because I no longer have the impetus to continue writing, calling and pleading to get them off my record. There is the embarrassment of not being able to take out a simple charge card at a store because of these transgressions of another person. Of course, the irony is, I do not owe a penny to anyone and my husband and I have impeccable credit.
This week the icing on the cake arrived in my mailbox, addressed to “her” and now connected to my Florida address. The collection agent was kindly offering her a reduction in her latest default of $4,000 for a one-time payment of $900 which would wipe out her remaining debt on this particular bill. So a criminal is being offered to have over $3,000 forgiven on a debt she fraudulently accumulated under my social security number and then she would be off the hook for whatever purchase or loan this was for! Lucky her.
So of course I called the collector and told them my story and yes I am on file as not being the person they are writing to, as they see I have had to call many times before. However, there is not much they can do, but suggest I write another letter and maybe someone will remove my name and address and phone number from the file, maybe….
Whether you are a senior or a youngster, the advice I have to offer is make sure you are receiving your annual free credit reports and review them with great scrutiny, before you experience a lifelong sentence of being punished for somebody else’s crime. The saddest part of all of this experience is my dad, who passed away a few years ago, was living with us in Seattle for a year before one day he came to me and asked me if I was in trouble. I could not imagine what he was talking about until he revealed he had been diverting collection agents who were calling the house regularly trying to find me to pay up. It still makes me sad that he carried that burden which was none of ours to shoulder.
For questions or comments, please contact The Other Daughter, Jane Bloom, by cell 425-299-6020 or email: janeinthevillages@gmail.com , www.theotherdaughter.org
