We’ve all heard the horror stories. You go to use your credit card at the gas station and it’s denied. Too bad you’re almost out of gas, you have no cash, and now your credit card doesn’t work. Your day is about to get a whole lot worse when you find out your card is maxed out because some criminal stole your identity.
Do you remember the good old days when you used to be able to put your outgoing mail in the mailbox? All you had to do was raise the little red flag and the mailman knew your mail was ready to be picked up.
Drive through a neighborhood these days and you won’t see many red flags raised. That’s because a red flag now might as well be a red arrow pointing to your mailbox saying “please steal my identity.”
Identity theft is growing every year. There are lots of different ways for criminals to steal your identity, but the end result always has the potential to damage you financially. This is the story of one of our clients whose stolen identity forced him to protect himself by filing for bankruptcy.
Living on the Edge
Our client didn’t have the greatest credit, and his cards were almost at their limit. At least he was managing to keep his head above water by making the minimum payments, but it was a monthly struggle.
But then his identity was stolen. Before he could realize what happened, his cards had reached their maximum and the little bit of credit he had left to live off of was gone.
He began the painstaking process of trying to prove that the charges were fraudulent. Eventually, after jumping through countless hoops when dealing with banks and credit bureaus, he was able to erase all of the illegal charges.
However, the damage to his financial situation had already been done. Before he was able to get the charges dismissed, he began falling behind on payments he could no longer afford. This snowballed into a financial situation where he had no choice but to look for ways to eliminate his debt.
File for Protection
After coming into our office, he immediately hired us to begin work on his bankruptcy. We were able to quickly file his case, and we eliminated all of his credit card debt. As soon as his case was over, he began working on rebuilding his credit. This time he even paid extra for identity theft protection.