TLDR; Check credit fraud alerts like it's a matter of life and (financial) death
Why would you steal a car with someone else's identity?
Maybe its obvious. Maybe its like in the movies where the chop up the car and sell it on the black market or eBay. Perhaps it'll end up on in another country giving joy rides to a rich prince. But what does one have to gain from stealing a 2017 Dodge Charger like this? You can't possibly tag it, right?
How I found out:
Last week I had an email alert from a credit watch company (free since I was in a breech). My password was expired and I was too lazy to reset it thinking it was probably something innocuous. Today I opened a letter from an Auto Loan company with a letter about my application and another couple of pages being my credit score results. Now usually I take this all as spam and toss it but my wife made me stop and think a minute. After recalling the credit alert I logged in to see all three credit agencies were queried for my credit report for financing at the same company the letter came from. Fortunately another company's name was listed to show where the purchase was from. It happened to be a card dealership in a suburb about 8 miles from where I live. My mind is spinning trying to piece together this weird puzzle so I finally call the dealership. Eventually they put me on with their lead finance guy, Zach. Zach asks questions like, what's your address, what's your date of birth, each match the person buying the car. I ask, well you had to have seen their driver's license, yes? He finds a copy of the imposter's DL but the photo and DL number don't match mine. I'm a bit more freaked out now. I asked what car was purchased "2017 Dodge Charger". If this imposter's going to be a d-bag criminal he better have gotten one with a V-8!
Of course the next thing I do is search "reddit identity theft" and find this lifesaving wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/identity_theft
It has been a big help, guiding me to credit freezes and tasks I wouldn't have thought of. Waiting now on a call back from an investigator at the Auto Loan company, a police detective from the suburb, and the dealership's finance guy and general manager. Wish me luck that I don't get fucked!
Submitted July 28, 2021 at 08:15AM by ScumPilot https://ift.tt/3zIyYlT
