r/IdentityTheft

Hi everyone,

I would like to hear from people who had a similar experience with Bank of America fraud claims.

My situation is generally this: my phone number was taken over through what appears to be an unauthorized port-out or SIM swap. After that, a new Bank of America account was opened under my name, money was transferred from my existing account into that new account, and purchases were made from that new account. All of these happened in the midnight.

In the morning, I immediately went to the bank and reported the activity as fraud, but a few months later, they denied the claim and later denied the claim I appealed. I actually had two claims related to the same fraud situation. This is one of the two. The other claim was related to my existing account and it was approved, while this one was not.

The explanation I received basically said the activity was authorized by me or by someone with my authorization. My concern is that I have not been given the specific records or facts that support that conclusion. I am starting to lose patience because the claim denial and appeal denial do not explain the specific basis for Bank of America’s decision, so I have no idea what is happening on their side.

For anyone who has gone through something like this, what steps helped? Did you file complaints with the CFPB, OCC, FTC, police, your phone carrier, or anyone else?

Hello everyone. My father has completely taken over my social number since 2002 which is a year after i was born. I went to buy a truck and when they did my credit check only his name popped up. Me and my father share the same name, him being Sr. me being the second. I dont exist in any financial institutions eyes due to the fact that the only info of mine is my social number the rest all his from his DOB to his address and spouses name. I have not seen nor spoken to this man since i was three years old. Ill be 25 next month and am just now finding out about all of this. As i did my credit report ordering i also found out he opened a mortgage account using my social. Aside from this he also used my social when arrested in california and its caused me to fail background checks (didnt find out about this until i went to purchase a firearm and fdle informed me of it). Hes also used it when he caught a dui when i was 8. My question to you guys is how do i separate my identity from his, who do i need to talk to to get both the identity theft, fraud and criminal charge off my record that he put on and how do i stop it from happening again because judging off the research ive done, social security definitely will give me a hard time about getting a new number. Any and all afvice would be greatly appreciated as i want to fix this now so i can actually live a fruitful life without the hinderance of a deadbeat pos father and his problems in the way.

I am writing this out of total desperation. My legacy account was stolen years ago following a data breach. Recently, I discovered that the hacker is using my name and this email to spread military propaganda and create fake professional profiles.

I am a Google One member. I reached out to support, but they keep sending me "recovery links" that require a login. How can I log in if the hacker changed the recovery email and phone number 10 years ago?

I provided Google with hyper-specific data: my ISP , my city, and the exact residential addresses where the account was created and used.

LinkedIn's Trust & Safety team just performed a manual review of the same data. After I submitted my government-issued ID and a video selfie, LinkedIn officially verified my identity and deleted the fraudulent account.

Google Support (agents Jin and Dana) refuses to perform a manual review. They told me to "just leave the account," ignoring the fact that my legal identity is being used for potential crimes.

It is unacceptable that a competitor like LinkedIn can verify a user's identity via ID and ISP logs, while Google—the company that "specializes in data"—claims it's impossible.

Has anyone here managed to get a human at Google to actually look at ISP logs and ID verification? Any advice on how to force a manual review before this becomes a legal nightmare?

#GoogleSupport #IdentityTheft #GoogleOne #SecurityBreach #GDPR

Hey i’m pretty sure this is the right place but sometime in january i got a notification from credit karma that a hard inquiry hit my account. The next day i called them and they said they had already marked the application as fraudulent and disputed the application. 7- 10 days later my credit score went back up to what it was originally. Unfortunately i just got another one and will call them again first thing in the morning but im not sure what to do. I’ve been reading posts and see a lot about freezing credit but im not sure at all how that works.

Should i change my ssn?

What exactly does freezing my credit do?

is there anything i can do? It stresses me so much and im not sure what to do besides call credit karma again.

As a new reddit user, I just created this account a month ago. Three days ago, I was messaged by someone claiming that a malicious link was sent by a guy with the same profile picture, the same nickname and a similar username as me, which caused problems with his/her account. He/She sent me the account of that guy, which can no longer be found. It is confirmed that that guy does have exactly the same profile picture as me and the same name, and the username is jelfines.

💀I'm afraid. My profile picture is a casual screenshot I took before. I don't believe anyone would coincidentally use the same profile picture as me. And, "jelfines", how could someone come up with such a username except deliberately impersonating me?

I have no idea how to do.

My credit reports reflected a change of address to an address that is not mine, and was tied to the fraudulent credit card opened and used in my name. I am still waiting on the card application and credit card statements.

I searched the address and found an LLC tied to it. I also found the full name of the individual who lives there - and their LinkedIn / Facebook, where they promote that they work at this LLC (along with the BBB) This is all publicly available information.

Is this information worth giving to the police who are investigating my police report? I know this necessarily doesn’t prove anything, but might be worth looking into, no?

So I (25M) have had my social security number reported to be used multiple times. I now have to go through extra steps every tax season.

The first time it was used to get a job somewhere when I was 16. The next time, I was 18. Since then, I’ve had to get a number each year for filing my taxes properly. Now, I’ve just gotten another piece of mail from the IRS reporting it may have been used for employment again.

It said it shouldn’t affect me, but I don’t understand how it is being stolen. I only use it on official documents, I don’t text it or email it to anyone ever, and my social security card is locked away with important documents.

When I was 18, I tried to get info on whoever used it, and was denied in order to “protect the individual’s identity.” (That really pissed me off)

Is it being sold, or is it just out there now since I was 16 to float to whoever needs it?
Who would it be used by?

***EDIT*** so I will be pulling credit in the morning. I am now using extensive measures and protection through my identity protection insurance to give me any indication of things being “off.” Thank you for your answers, and hopefully it was actually nothing but a change of address that caused the alert

So I'm in a tough spot and was wondering what you all think, I feel like I'm going crazy rn

So a few days ago I received a letter from the IRS, a CP2000 letter saying I didn't report all of my earnings for 2023, it lists the amount and the place of employment, somewhere that I have never worked in not even a day in my life BUT this also happens to be where my mom & sister had been working for the past couple of years. I honestly still want to believe it's just a coincidence that whoever stole my social security number just happened to work at the same place as them

I went into my IRS & SSA online portals just to check everything because up until this point it just lists that apparently I didn't report all of my income for 2023.
You can check your employment history and it'll also show you all of your W2s and for 2023 I have a W2 from that place that I've never worked at but with my sister's name 🙃 I also checked 2024 & 2025 and now it has my name although it's incomplete, I have a hyphenated last name and they only used 1 of my surnames, when I actually use my full complete hyphenated name at my jobs

I did ask them(mom & sister) but they keep denying it, but I mean that place is a small workplace and my sister doesn't have a common name, I mean what are the chances that coincidentally this mystery person stole my social security number used my sister's name and then decided to use my name. I didn't accuse them of anything I just did show and tell them that this is the information that the IRS & SSA has

They had also asked me before to let my sister use my social security number to work but I said no because of my taxes & because even if I agreed I thought no we're gonna get caught & you're not supposed to anyways

It's just a tough situation

*edit: i meant to say i checked 2024 & 2025

My Original Post
If you take anything away from this, stay FAR away from Barclays. They will do nothing to help you.

Almost a year later, and I'm still fighting Barclays related to an identity theft issue.
January 2026, they sent me a piece of mail admitting that my account was fraudulent and closed my account. The credit bureaus also deleted the negative mark. However in March, they continued to send me debt collection emails. I called their fraud department and it was inconsistent with what the mail they sent me stated. In May, they send me ANOTHER generic "Our investigations have concluded this account is valid"

Barclays is the worst company I have ever worked with, and I didn't even sign up for their card....
If your Barclays card ever has an issue, take this as a warning that they will actively screw you over.

I recently purchased a new phone with a new number I'm receiving weird phone text messages from debt collector companies saying that I owe 37 dollars under a relatives first name they sent me a account number and a license is this suspicious activity how would they be able to get my number in the first place

I don’t know what else I can do!!!!! Somebody is using my social with a different name/address so all the accounts and loans they have don’t affect me directly but I do receive the alert. I was able to close some of the accounts under the persons name since I was able to prove ID THEFT but it’s just keeps happening RN it looks like the person is trying to get a car loan and idk what to do

I filed a police report
SSN is locked
All my credit files are frozen
What else can I do????

Has anyone come across this? Today my email was flooded with emails asking to verify subscriptions etc… a lot from Slack & EA gaming but also just a bunch of random ones. Then I received a text from best buy regarding an order. I checked my email again & someone had used my name, email & phone number to place a pickup order for a laptop. i have never used my best buy account to purchase anything so there shouldn’t have been any cards attached. When i looked at the payment information they had used my dad’s card. I called best buy & they cancelled the order. Shortly after, I received another text for another purchase so I checked my email again & they had tried to place another order for a laptop. I don’t know how they would know my information or have access to my dad’s card. & why would they make it a pickup order under my name?

hi, my mom is 75 years old and lives across the country from me. For the last six months she has had identity fraud. It all started. But it was hacked and in the last six months, almost all of our credit cards have been hacked and been charged, money was taken from her bank, and she's almost about to be homeless because of the lost funds. I got her another iPhone and then it was also hacked, then a couple weeks ago she bought a third bone iPhone 17 and now it is hacked. We just don't know what to do

she tried to tell the AT&T store, but they couldn't help. Canaan Apple Store do she call from Apple over the phone? She is elderly and gets confused with login information, passwords, apps, or even websites that are a scam but look real. qI told her many times that she can't be saving passwords on her phone but due to her being older, she says this is the only option I'm desperate what can I do? Who do I call about the fraud, they identity, theft, the iPhones, etc., etc.?

My husband recently found out someone opened an account in his name and somehow got approved for a $15k loan before we even knew anything was wrong. We only found out after letters started showing up and his credit suddenly dropped. The whole thing has been a nightmare dealing with banks, fraud departments, freezes, reports, and trying to prove he wasn’t the one who opened it.

I have no clue on how they got this much personal information. Full name, address history, phone number, probably old leaked information too. Identity theft barely even looks like “hacking” anymore. People can piece together enough information from exposed data to cause serious damage. I’m worried about myself and other people close to us too if someone had enough information to do this to him, I keep thinking how exposed the rest of us are too. It’s scary realizing how much personal information is probably sitting online without people even knowing it.

Besides the usual advice like freezing credit and changing passwords, what else are people actually doing to reduce the chances of this happening again? We genuinely cannot afford to go through something like this a second time.

Just a heads up: I just received a very official-looking email titled “Notice: Updated Social Security Administration Statement.” Please proceed with caution. When I hovered my cursor over the “View My Statement” link, the domain appeared to be based in India. Additionally, “Dear Valued Customer” is a dead giveaway. Always go directly to the official SSA website and never click on links in suspicious emails.

https://preview.redd.it/u5esbl9oud0h1.jpg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89c9d3c4b30032fbbba21c29df0511a9a488888d

So I just left the hospital, I was supposed to have my first mammogram. While I was checking in the nurse told me in their system they have me as AKA another person with the same first name but a different birthday. They had never seen this happen before.

Any ideas what happened?

That free café Wi-Fi is basically broadcasting your passwords to anyone who knows where to look Public networks are unencrypted by default. Use a VPN or your hotspot for anything sensitive. Convenience isn't worth a compromised account.

#WeeklyCyberTips

#CyberSecurity #DigitalPrivacy #InfoSec

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