The last 24 hours has been rather hectic. It all started last night as I was making my deposit at my Landmark Credit Union, which as you might recall, I just switched to a few weeks ago. Everything was okay in my life before I pulled into the drive thru lane at Landmark, but it quickly changed as events unfolded and I found out that my accounts were siezed, my debit cards were disabled, and every single check that came into my account would need to be verfied with the issuing bank. And it would be this way for SIX MONTHS!
Folks, I'm one of those people who ALWAYS pays EVERY SINGLE bill on time. My credit history is cleaner than clean. They couldn't give me an answer to why my accounts were being treated this way, but promised that someone would call me as soon as they found out. As I drove home from the credit union steam was coming out of my ears. I was so upset. Is this how they treat all of their new customers?
It turns out it isn't. A branch manager called me within 10 minutes and as we were on the phone together she came across the problem. Someone had used my social security number at a different bank, someone with a name that wasn't mine, and they were not being very responsible. Alerts were sent out, Landmark received the alert, and locked up my funds.
I immediately pulled my free credit reports, which I highly recommend that every one of you do when you are done reading this post, and I was relieved to find that there wasn't anything that appeared to be fraudulent on them. This morning I had to fax over my Social Security card to Landmark, and they were able to put my accounts back to normal once they verfied my number. I then had to visit the bank where all the destructive activity was going on. Thankfully, they were very helpful and once I filled out the proper paperwork and provided the proper identification they removed my Social Security number from this person's bank accounts. I also issued a fraud alert with the credit agencies.
The day was looking up for me, and since I was near the Dept. of Motor Vehicles and my driver's license still had my previous address on it I decided to round out my afternoon by having it updated to reflect my Menomonee Falls address. As I was leaving I looked down at my license and noticed my signature.
Wouldn't you know that I signed my license L. Laczniak. I don't even know what to say to that, other than it's ironic that my entire day revolved around someone else using my identity and then I go and muck up the signature on my license.
