[martin_fierro]

I don't have any personal experience with identity theft, but check out the websites for your state's Attorney General and that of the state where the false account was created.

And be prepared for a looong, hard battle. You're gonna hve to be the squeaky wheel to get results.

[IFly4Him]

Maybe I missed a posting step...

I thought selecting "vanities" would post this somewhere other than News. Please move this post out of the forum if necessary. Sorry.

[jude24]

Get a lawyer....

[Mark]

What a coincidence. I just read about this subject in our local paper today. Good tips. Here is the link:
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~1354493,00.html

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Send a Cease and Desist letter to the collection agency by certified mail with return receipt. You don't have to deal with them. Deal only with the outfit that claims you owe them money.

More information on FDCPA and bogus debts can be found here. You may be able to handle it without hiring a shyster.

[foto]

GO to the credit reporting agency that reported the problem and tell them what happened and ask for an investigation. Send written reuqests and keep copies and use registered return receipt for everything you send them. Fair credit reporting act requires them to investigate within a reasonable period of time and if they don't it gets wiped. Usually thirty days or so. See what they can do for you and definitely deny you owe anything. If you end up paying the bill, even a reduced amount you are basically admitting you owed the money and the mark against you can stand. Hope it helps. As someone earlier said, your local attorney general or consumer affairs division can give you your best advice. May also want to pick up a credit repair kit from officemax/staples in their do it yourself legal form section, includes form letters, addresses etc and basic info on cleaning up credit.

[Rum Tum Tugger]

You don't need a lawyer.

Virtually the same thing happened to me about six months ago.

I decided to refinance my home mortgage. The mortgage company ran a credit check on my wife and I and found two accounts for local and long distance telephone service in collection in a city that my wife had lived in when we met 12 years ago.

We believe that my wife's social security number was stolen by a sales clerk at a department store when my wife visited that city about 3 years ago and reactivated her credit card at that store. About 4 months after reactivating the credit card, someone got local and long distance telephone service using my wife's social security number. The total amount in collection was about $1,000.

I reported the identity theft to the police in the city where the telephone service had been installed.

I contacted the collection agencies and got the fraud package as you have done.

I completed the fraud package in detail with ample proof that my wife had been living in Florida for the last 12 years. I also sent copies of the fraud package to the three major credit reporting agencies.

It took about two months for the whole thing to be cleared up and for the credit reporting agencies to correct their records.

While talking to the collection agencies and the police, I got the impression that this sort of thing is rampant. The bottom feeders in our society are very active.

Just do what I did and you should be OK.

BTW, because our credit was otherwise impecable, the mortgage company went ahead with the refinancing before the collection agencies had acted on our fraud package submission.

[Johnny Crab]

You may want to check here:

http://www.law.uh.edu/peopleslawyer/

I had "problems" that needed correction and got excellent advice. A co-worker has had your misfortune with a cell phone fraud and has also seen a few other "selfs" pop up in Texas...good luck.

[arjay]

Go to www.clarkhoward.com. He says on his radio show that he has information on what to do.

[SCalGal]

Another source is the FBI's Bunko Unit

[RJayneJ]

I've been through it, and it took me almost two years to finally get it all straightened out. While dealing with the credit report folks, there was three that I dealt with. Each time I thought I had all of the erroneous charges taken off, it would turn out that only one or two would come off of my report and I would have to start over again. I finally started writing on the letters they sent me that it was not a charge that I made.

The best advise that I got was from other Freepers. When I started out there was about a dozen accounts that were not mine. The advise I got was to tell them all that if they didn't stop harassing me about charges and accounts that were not mine that I would have no other recourse than to sue them, as this was very upsetting for me, and they would have to produce in court the evidence that they thought they had to continue the harassment. Believe it or not they all started dropping me as a target. I knew they had no evidence, and I wish I had asked my Freeper friends sooner.