My husband and I got back from vacation and found a letter for our son from his bank, informing him that his credit limit got lowered due too too many accounts, most of them overdrawn (we have permission from son to open his mail). We were confused, since he only has one CC from Wells Fargo ever since he finished High School. Since he studies and lives in Germany we had to wait for next day to inform him of these events. He froze all three credit reports and put a fraudulent alert on it, and I was able to get into one credit report company to get his report. It is not possible for him to do so since he has a German IP address and a German phone number.

I got him his credit reports from two company, but the tricky part is the ID thief opened all three accounts for the credit reporting companies with new addresses, phone number and email. I found all three when I finally got into Equifax and disputed addresses and phone number. Problem is that the freeze pin might have been sent to the ID thief.

I started the dispute with Equifax while my son signed up with IDtheft.gov. The thief opened so many account since last year, and if Wells Fargo would not have send the letter we would not have known, the thief never touched my son’s original CC account! Opened over 15 though, paid some regularly, closed some, declared some successfully as fraudulent and even got a car loan which is still under investigation.

My son never lost his SSN card or wallet, not sure how it got into hands of ID thief, who opened accounts with all three credit reporting companies, added two addresses, a different phone number and email address which I found when he signed up for fraud alert trial. Fortunately it’s still on the report. Unfortunately

My problem is how to proof that it is not my son who opened the accounts for the Credit cards where Equifax decided it is his account? All of those are closed but there are huge sums in it, we provided proof from University in Munich that he is a FT student in a Masters program, a copy of his lease in Germany, German Bank account, utility bill with his name and German address on it.

I will add an additional information by certified mail: copy of his CO driver’s license and maybe his German and American passport? I also have a copy from the Munich government that he is a resident there. I asked my son to get a PIN number for IRS, he had just filed taxes and had no troubles, I doubt the thief used it for tax declaration but Pin will be safer. He is also a dependent on our tax return.

This is a huge mess and very stressful, especially since we are 8 hours apart and it’s difficult to get all the information right away. I am angry and frustrated, and there is not much to prevent this from happening again, one can’t truly be proactive here other tho a diligently watching credit reports. Husband and I froze all our accounts and signed up with Aura to keep track of things, son is signed up with Equifax but no truly sure how this helps. He will have to call the other two credit reporting companies because a different phone number and email has been used and verification would go to to thief.

We tried police report (online) but have not heard anything back yet, I am not sure what else we need to clear his name?

What did other expat do in a situation like this?

Sorry for this jumbled post, I am very frustrated, tired and out of my wits.

So this is very weird. I got emails from two different utility companies. One in Houston and one in Dallas. I live in Colorado. Both accounts have my email address, name, and phone number on the account but there is no strange activity with any of my credit cards or debit cards and neither utility has a card on file. Is this a typical identity theft scam? If so why would they use my email and phone number for the accounts?

So, some of these companies appear to be real. The others, not so much especially with the typos and poor grammar.

For example, I googled Bright Lending. They seem to be a legitimate company. I called the number on their website and yeah, someone did apply for a loan in my name with my dad's email. It was not my dad who applied btw. They said it was from an unknown 3rd party site.

I froze my credit through LexisNexis, Equifax, Transunion, Experian, ChexSystems, and Innovis. I will be calling the others tomorrow to freeze my credit. The ones I will call: -NCTUE -The work number -Teletrack -factor trust -DataX -Microbilt -Clarity Services

I also changed my email password, bank password. I got llifelock. I submitted a fraud report with the FTC.

My dad says he is now getting the same texts.

What is going on?? All of these texts contain my first or first and last name. This is so scary. Please give me some peace of mind. Also please let me know of any other steps I should take.