Friend found out he was somehow $30k in debt from accounts he never opened
Was catching up with a friend of mine from high school. He was telling me about some debt he was in from people stealing his identity, this shit is super scary. He got a weird letter about a payment he missed, thought it was a scam at first but then he checked his credit and saw a bunch of accounts he didn’t recognize. Credit lines and loans and other stuff that had apparently been opened using his information. Some of it had already gone to collections.
The craziest part is he had no idea anything was happening. He thinks it might have come from some old data leak, possibly work related, but he’s not even sure. Somehow whoever did it had enough of his personal info to pass whatever checks these companies were doing. How is that even possible? Like can someone really just steal everything like phone number SSN and other leaked info and start opening accounts without you noticing until the damage is already done? He’s dealing with police reports, fraud departments, credit freezes, disputes, and all that now, but it looks like it’s going to be a long mess. Crazy shit, how would you protect against something like this?