ID theft victim receives $345,000 bill

The problem

Michael Weatherford starting getting medical bills a year ago.  But since they were from an Ohio hospital and Weatherford lived in South Carolina, he simply threw the bills away.  That is until a bill collecting attorney called him and told him he would go to jail if he didn’t pay his bills.  It turns out Kenneth Marshal used Weatherford’s stolen driver’s license to get medical care for almost 5 years before anyone caught on to the tune of $345,000!

The proof

http://www.myfox28columbus.com/shared/news/features/top-stories/stories/wsyx_id-theft-blamed-massive-osu-medical-bill-23065.shtml

The solution

Weatherford’s info was stolen in a robbery, so its hard to fault him for losing his information to begin with.  But the minute that happened, he should have realized that he was at an incredibly high risk for identity theft and stalking.  Everyone, even if they have never been robbed, should be using identity and credit monitoring like Identity Guard.  I have recently started using them and they let you know about anything that hits the public records in your name.  Just last week they let me know that my name had been associated with an address I had never heard of.  It turns out an old partner had listed me on a commercial building lease, and it could have cost me money if had defaulted on the lease.

 

You can bet I rectified that in a hurry.

 

That kind of protection is invaluable and something that everyone should have, even young children.  Remember schools often use social security numbers as identification  and often don’t secure them very well.  Thieves can then use kid’s SSN’s to open credit cards and sign up for utilities.  Protect yourself and your family now with this affordable and comprehensive service, try it for free for 30 days: Identityguard.com

Weatherford should have also realized something was wrong the minute he got a bill from a hospital he had never even heard of.  Take what you get in the mail seriously, don’t throw everything away immediately.  Often times the warning signs of identity theft are there and we choose to ignore them.  Pay attention.

Yours in privacy,

Chris Peterson, Freedom Writer’s Publishing

PS: I don’t recommend services I don’t believe in or use myself.  If I haven’t used something but think it might be worth your while, I’ll pass it along or let you know that its just an advertisement.  My goal is to protect you and sometimes that is recommending services or resources that cost money.  As always, I want to know what your thoughts and experiences are with these products, including mine!