The afternoon of New Year's Eve, I received a message from a bill collector on my cell phone.  I immediately called them back because I have good credit and I take my financial obligations seriously.  They went on to tell me that a cable television account that I opened in California was in collections because I had not paid the bill.  Now, there was only one problem, I've never been to California so I knew that my identity had been compromised.     After a long discussion with this collector, I found out that a woman used my maiden name and my social security number to open a cable account at least three times since 2010 in the state of California and eventually defaulted on the account.  This was shocking because I've never shared my personal information with anyone without being cautious and I couldn't believe that this had been going on for so long without my knowledge.  I really felt violated that someone had stolen my identity this way.     Since this has never happened to … [Read more...]