Angie's identity was stolen, leaving her bank accounts empty and her mortgage unpaid. The thief also drained her 401(k) and maxed out her American Express card. It took her six months of calls to banks, credit bureaus, and the IRS to fix it. Identity theft affects up to 9 million Americans yearly.
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Angie didn't discover that her identity had been stolen until the bank informed her that both her checking and her savings accounts were empty and that her home mortgage payment had been returned due to insufficient funds. Several days later, she discovered that the thief also borrowed money from her 401(k) and maxed out her American Express too. Over the next 6 months, Angie spent hours on the phone with her bank's fraud department, sending all sorts of documentation to various credit reporting agencies to correct her credit history while also filing reports with the police department, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Motor Vehicles. According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the U.S. As many as 9 million Americans have their identity stolen each year. That's 7% of all U.S. citizens over the age of 60.