Reverse Phone # Lookup

[Brentbba]

Anyone here have an account or know someone in law enforcement that can look up a phone number? Long story short, my identity has been stolen and a small loan was taken out back in June that of course went to collections and the collectors letter was the first I knew of it. My one credit bureau monitoring didin't catch it because that one bureau didn't have the reported delinquency. In fact only one bureau of the three had the info. Credit was intact at the other two! If you really want to know, Transunion had the info. Experian and Equifax did not. My one bureau monitoring was with Experian that I got for free while I was an employee. Makes me wish I'd have signed up for the free three bureau monitoring and reports product offered to employees for free while I was there! The thief had my name, address, birth date and SSN! Scary. Only data breach I've been a part of recently was the Anthem Blue Cross one awhile back. Wife's FICO, etc. is ok thankfully.

I've already placed fraud alerts and credit freezes with all three credit bureaus, filed a police report and filed a complaint affidavit with the FTC as well as sending all this info to both the debt collector and lender letting them know that I'm a victim of identity fraud and the loan isn't mine and is fraudulent. Copies of the affidavit, police report etc. are on their way to all three bureaus as well. I've disputed the info with Transunion too. Now we wait for the lender to investigate internally and that'll take up to 30 days. I've already sent them a demand to retract the reported info to Transunion. I'm not worried about freezes at the bureaus on my account. No plans for any new loans, CC's etc.

In the mean time the collector gave me a little info from the application including a phone, business phone, email, etc. The business phone is from my employer about six years ago! Email address is an alias @outlook.com address. Local phone is in the Lake Forest/Dana Point area based on what I can tell w/o paying one of the shlock reverse look up websites. Not about to give any of them my CC info. Sheriff that took the report said I'd be hearing from the investigations unit in about 10 days. Right...for $3900? At least that unit, if they really do investigate, can look up the number for the owner, assuming it's legit. Collector gave me an ABA routing number, presumably where the funds were sent. It's a bank in Tennessee. I called them and they don't have an account in my name, obviously!!! They couldn't tell me any more with only the last 4 digits of the account number the collector shared. If that's really the bank the funds were sent to, a decent investigation can find out who opened the account, assuming it's legit. Probably opened under fraudulent info too! Lender is an online lender. Sounds like a payday type low loan amount huge interest rate short term loans. It's an unsecured loan, meaning they lent the original $2600 based on MY good credit.

I've already spent hours just doing all the reports, freezes etc. In the mean time from June until now my FICO score has dropped 150 points! From one delinquent account!

 

[FJRanger]

Bastard thieves! That's good info regarding Transunion, I was told credit freezes are the only way to protect yourself... For the most part, small credits/loans like the one they hit you with are often not even verified AT ALL Nothing else to add other than what I wrote in the pm, sorry.

 

[Brentbba]

Thanks Nathan! Yep - this one was an unsecured loan based on completely false info all done online. Lender does not have physical locations so this loan was purely based on false paycheck info and my good credit. Only thing thief had which was good enough was my personal info - where from or how I have no idea unless it was from the Anthem data breach. If they find it's local, could be from a local company with my info that an employee has stolen. We think that's what's happened the two times we've dealt with credit card fraud.

We're both super protective of our info. We shred everything at home and all of wife's old business records go to one of the city sponsored shred days.

Regarding TU - could be that the lender only gives info to them and not the other two. Experian is by far the largest of the three credit bureaus. They dwarf both TU and Equifax...not to say that info is anymore or less accurate at any of them.

All I know is that this'll easily take a few months to clear up. So long as lender and or law enforcement follows the trail of the money, it'll never lead back to me or anyone I know. Unfortunately having truth on your side isn't always enough these days!

 

[Brentbba]

Well, got an email back from the 'lender' this morning telling me they've reviewed my claim and they said 'your claim is considered complete.' WTF does 'considered complete' mean!? They say they notified TransUnion and two smaller credit bureaus I've never heard of about the claim. Again, WTF does that mean outside of who they reported the delinquency to in the first place - explains why Experian and Equifax didn't have the info. Are they asking the bureaus to pull the loan info and default completely? That's what should happen! I guess I'll need to pull another TransUnion credit report in a week or two if not call them, giving them time to process the communication from this lender. I already had a dispute on record at TU on this loan. Guess I'll need to file a dispute formally with Clarity and Telecheck just to cover my bases too! If done right, there should be NO record of this at all on my report.

Have they absolved me of the liability? Have they reported it in such a manner to the three bureaus they list asking that it be removed? Just as importantly, have they withdrawn the claim from the debt collector? I've asked for the later in writing from them so I have it in my file that the debt collection action has been withdrawn. The debt collector suggested I get this in writing to them so the file wouldn't come out of their fraud file after 30 days for follow up collection.

At least the lender acted quickly on the claim given all the info, police report, FTC complaint, etc. Given that they are an online unsecured lender, I bet they are a target for this low dollar activity and deal with fraud claims all the time. We'll now see if local Sheriff takes any further action to try to find the thief. Money transfers always have a trail, but I'd bet the account it was sent to in Tennessee was set up with fraudulent papers as well.

We all think this will never happen to any of us.

I 'only' had one bureau (Experian) monitoring service and that didn't work because the lender obviously doesn't report to Experian and neither they or Equifax picked it up. With credit monitoring, you get an email notification of activity, like a new loan. If you'd just done something, it would be validation and no alarms would go off. In my case, I'd have been able to act immediately to file a fraudulent claim before the loan went to collections and damaged my credit score. Given that Experian cancelled that when I ended my employment there, I'm now seriously looking at signing up for the service that, at a minimum, provides three bureau monitoring, if not monitoring and unlimited credit reports. I've always recommended at least the three bureau monitoring and didn't listen to my own advice! The 3B monitoring is less than $10 a month. Used to be like $4.95 awhile back. Will have to check on it's price now. I know exactly what the bureaus pay each other for the monitoring service as I used to book that cost at Experian!!! Will also check the current price for the 3B monitoring and reports. That used to run around $14.95 or so years ago. Someone has my info, so I think one or the other is a very prudent move at this point for the next 6 months to a year.

Damn, I've probably got in excess of 20 hours of time invested in getting this resolved so far. I'll cooperate completely with the OC Sheriff if their investigations unit does contact me.

Just for anyone curious, as I stated above, I have placed a fraud alert with all three main bureaus, and was able to do an online credit freeze with Equifax and TU. The Fraud Alert is free. A Credit Freeze here in CA runs $10 per bureau, but they all state that they'll consider waiving the fee with proof of a police report. I did pay TU and Equifax online when I set up the freeze and have asked in writing for them to waive the fee. Not real worried about $20-30 tho! The one with Experian wouldn't go thru online so I sent the request in writing. Will be following up with them on that! Fraud alerts are just that, an alert. They expire in 90-120 days. Lenders can still pull info and process things but will see the alert for potential fraudulent activity. A credit freeze is a little more drastic. Lenders, etc. can't see any of your info without you lifting the freeze and I believe they are good for at least 7 years. I have PIN numbers from Equifax and TU to lift the freeze if I ever apply for a loan, new credit card, etc. You can lift the freeze temporarily or permanently. As I have no immediate or foreseeable need for any of that, a freeze is fine with me.

Sorry for repeating a lot of this info. It makes me wish I'd taken advantage of the free two years of monitoring/reports Anthem offered when their breach occurred. Hindsight! It was with a secondary company and not one of the three main bureaus, so I didn't do it. Anthem cheaped out on the coverage for their members after that breach.

I'd urge any of you that have read this far and are ever affected by a data breach, and hopefully you never will be, to TAKE ADVANTAGE of whatever is offered to help you monitor your credit. My FICO score was just a few points under their maximum score! It dropped a full 150 points as a result of this one loan default. That's some pretty serious damage for someone with otherwise excellent credit for decades. We'll see how long it take to get back up to where it was, if it does. It should if this mess is retracted in full. We have a Discover card that gives us our FICO score monthly as part of being a cardholder so we'll be watching.