In 2002 I decided I wanted to build a pool at my house so I could escape the Florida heat during the summer. I was also having a child and wanted to make sure I could teach my daughter how to swim at a young age. I found a pool builder and contacted a mortgage company for a home equity line of credit. I used a local lender who was a family friend and gave him my information over the phone and we set up a date for him to come to my house to fill out the paperwork.

A week later, the lender came to my house and we sat at my kitchen table to go over the line of credit paperwork. The first thing out of the lender’s mouth was “what’s going on with his credit report?” I told him my credit report should be fine and he said “check this out” as he unfolded my long credit report. Luckily he was sitting because otherwise I would have fallen.

My credit report showed nearly 2 dozen non-sufficient funds (bad check) entries. I was surprised because I use a check card and rarely write checks. I was also embarrassed because the lender, who was a family friend, obviously thought I was responsible for the horrible credit report. Being an experienced police officer, I checked the credit report and noticed something suspicious. All bad checks were issued in December 2000. The first bad check was issued at a women’s clothing store in the city where I live and the rest were issued at stores throughout the state of Florida and Mississippi. It looked like someone was writing bad checks as they traveled from the city where I live to Mississippi.

My credit report listed many collection agencies that were trying to collect money from me. The strange thing was that I had never been contacted by any of these collection agencies. Why didn’t these collection agencies call me or write me letters demanding money? I called all the collection agencies and found out that the person who opened the bank account in my name had changed my last name by changing 1 letter and they used a Mississippi home address. The suspects used my correct date of birth and social security number.

I called the bank where the account was opened with my information and because it had been 2 years, there were no paper copies of the checks. All controls were now on microfilm, which meant we couldn’t get fingerprints. I was hoping we could get a printout of a check because we could possibly get a fingerprint from the suspect. I called all the collection agencies and quickly learned that being a victim of identity theft is a nightmare. I had to fax or mail copies of the police report to all the collection agencies and made hundreds of phone calls. Many of the people at the collection agencies were rude and didn’t want to deal with me because they are only interested in collecting money. It took 2 years of hard work to finally clear my credit report. A fraud detective where I work started investigating the identity theft, but nothing was ever found because this all happened 2 years earlier.

About 6 months after I discovered the identity theft there was a break in the case. I came home one day early in the afternoon and one of my neighbors said that she wanted to talk to me. What my neighbor told me was almost unbelievable. She told me that the day before she had come home for lunch and that she was sitting in her car parked in her driveway. She watched as another neighbor from our street drove up to my house and parked in front of my mailbox. We have mailboxes on the sidewalk in front of our houses where I live. This neighbor leaned out his car window and opened my mailbox and started going through my mail. The neighbor who told me the story said that she did not know if she had had any mail stolen. She watched as he closed my mailbox and headed to his house.

I live on a quiet cul-de-sac where everyone is very friendly and it is common knowledge that I am a police officer. There is also another police officer who lives in the same cul-de-sac. My neighborhood is called “Copville” because a lot of police officers live there.

What struck me most was that the neighbor who was seen checking my mail was what I considered a friend. This man was married with 2 children who played frequently at my house. I had even allowed this man to play on my Police Department softball team, where he was the only person on the team who was not a police officer. This man was a handyman and had been inside my house installing toilets and doing other odd jobs. I had lent and given so many things to this man over the years because he and his family often had financial difficulties. I was so angry that I was afraid to grab this man by the throat when I saw him.

I thought about facing him but decided on another path. I called the United States Post Office and asked to speak to the Postal Inspector’s office. My neighbor had seen this man go through my mail, so I felt the best route was to report this to the Postal Inspector. I was told that the United States Post Office would send me a package to fill out and report the mail theft. A week later I received the package in the mail and filled out all the forms. I sent the package to the United States Postal Inspector’s Office and nothing was ever done.

I did a background check on my neighbor and discovered that he had been in prison for dealing in stolen property. He had several arrests that included drug charges. I then looked into my neighbor’s wife and discovered that she had previously been arrested for writing bad checks. I couldn’t believe that these people who lived in my cul-de-sac were criminals. It was then that I realized that we don’t know our friends and neighbors as well as we think we do. This man and his family moved out of state 1 year later and I haven’t seen or heard from them since. I have a feeling they moved because they may have felt that I was suspicious of identity theft. I never confronted them, but let them know that he had been a victim of identity theft.

Now I check my credit report 3 times a year and you should do the same. I use Equifax to check my credit report and it’s pretty cheap. Investigate your report and take action if you see anything suspicious. I hope I never go through that nightmare again and I hope you don’t either. I use a shredder to shred my important documents and I also use a PO Box for my mail.