By Sandra Block, USA TODAY
Like many victims of identity theft, Steven Comeau learned of the crime when a collection agency called and asked why he wasn’t paying his bills. But Comeau’s case was anything but typical. Criminals had used his personal information to get a mortgage on a rental property in Brooklyn, N.Y.
That was in 2001, and Comeau, an information technology manager in South Brunswick, N.J., is still trying to convince people he’s not a deadbeat landlord. In addition to calls from collection agents, he’s gotten complaints from tenants. When Comeau and his wife, Magda, put an offer on a house in November, they discovered that his credit report listed a mortgage default. In April, he received a call from a lawyer for an investment bank that wanted to buy the building. “It never ends,” he says.
Comeau believes the fallout from the scam would have been significantly reduced if he had been allowed to freeze his credit reports. A credit freeze bars lenders and others from reviewing an individual’s credit history. Because few lenders will issue credit without first seeing a credit report, identity thieves can’t open fraudulent accounts using the name of someone who has frozen their credit reports.
For this complete story, please visit Is Freezing Your Credit the Way to Safeguard Your ID?
