I think it was 14 years ago, my ID was hacked. A whole bunch of accounts had been opened and CC cards applied for, by "me" at an address in Florida. Turned out that for almost a year, they were all used lightly, but normally. An occasional deposit in a saving account and checking account, checks being written out, CCs used, but all for small amounts. No flags raised. Then they ran all accounts heavily into the red in one month. I get a call about the overdue balance on my Amex card. I didn't own an Amex card. I also didn't have a phone # in Fla, charge account a ab auto parts place, etc. Called the credit bureau, and managed to get all wiped clean. Turned out that my info was gleaned from a savings account at Peoples that my mother had opened for me when I was a toddler. I still put some money in that account every year, but the balance was never over a couple grand. Peoples had recently gone public, and in the process, was audited. A bike messenger carrying a load of paper work from A to B in Manhattan claimed to have been rolled. Because only a handful of folks whose financial info was in the package were hit, police thought he was actually skimming random documents out of the bags and selling them. Never learned the resolution on that, but going through the process of cleaning up my credit was a major pita.
