Identity Theft

I've had a run-in with identity theft. Someone got hold of my checking account information, printed up business checks, wrote one to "cash" for a large amount of money, and it was deposited in an ATM in Hollywood. The bank flagged it because (a) it was out of sequence (the number belonged to the next group of checks I would order and was about 150 checks higher than the number I'm at) and (b) the signature didn't look right. Amazing. Someone or something actually compared signatures.

I've taken care of closing the account and I'll be going off to file a police report. The bank would not give me the name of the account into which the check was deposited. I wonder if I can get a subpoena for that? I wonder if the police will? I'm concerned about what other checks might have been written or if I will find other things have been done in my name. This is going to be incredibly inconvenient until it is all straightened out.

I'm going to assume that whoever got my routing number worked at a place where I paid by check. The other possibilities are just too disturbing to me.

I'm glad the bank caught it and returned my money to me--I would have had checks bouncing all over the place. This is the third time we've had the experience of our banks catching fraud. The first time was when Michael's ATM card was stolen and we didn't know until the bank caught some large purchases all in a short period of time. The second had to do with one of Len's accounts. I've had a much worse time correcting things when the bank has made an error.

I am bummed out by this. There's a definite feeling of being violated, much like when we had a B & E at the house a week before the Northridge earthquake. The earthquake was much easier to deal with.