Identity Theft and Child Support
Evening all,
Was not sure where to post this question. Not totally about my budget although it is going to impact it in the near future.
Yesterday as part of my year end personal clean up I went to pull a copy of my credit report to check for mistakes and out of date information. I was not able to verify online as the questions about open accounts did not match anything that I had. A call to Equafax and they could not verify me over the phone. I am mailing copies of my driver’s license, social security card and a couple of bills to prove address in the morning.
So this evening I went to the Child Support website to check that the extra payment that I had sent had posted. There were payments from income withholding's and I am disabled and not working. Seems that whoever is using my SSN is also getting hit with the child support order. I had to laugh.
Got a question and I will be talking to the child support agency on Wednesday, tomorrow is a holiday also for them, about this. I was wondering if anyone knew if those payments will count or will they remove them later and go back to the true amount? Will I get a penalty for this? At this rate the back amount will be paid off 4 months faster than I had projected.
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Ugh, I am so sorry this has happened to you. At least you caught it before it became an even bigger deal.
Child support laws vary from state to state, so it is hard to know how your state will handle the situation. In most cases, though, a state's child support enforcement division is very willing to work with you to make sure payments are credited correctly, and that if you want extra payments to go to any back-amounts owed, they can arrange that.
Let us know how it went. It sounds like you might need to arrange an appointment to go in and see them with all of your supporting documents. Best of luck!
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MicroSpice Well after calls and calls, yesterday to Social Security and the IRS, today to the Child Support Agency the extra payments were made by/for me. They were made by my last employer. I am on SSDI and have not work since September of 2016. Seems that a review found mistakes in with holdings and taxes so there were funds sent to the Child Support Agency. I am waiting for a call from a manager of the outsourced Insurance that authorized the payment to find out what is going on and amounts.
I have sent in the paper work to Equafax to prove I am me and get into my credit file, then I will go from there. Since it seems that no one is working under my SS number I can not use that to make a police report and freeze my file. Sort of in a Catch 22, can't make moves to protect myself until I prove that I am me, but I can't do that since I don't know about the loans and credit cards showing on my record. Why they don't go to the info a year ago when I pulled my record and verify that way I am not sure.
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Ruff16965 (05bd62cee897) Can you try pulling your report from CreditKarma or through one of your credit cards instead of directly from Equifax?
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blondeambition I have looked at Credit Karma and will again, it shows who I owe some money to but nothing that I was not aware of. No credit cards, only my bank debit card and a no fee prepaid that I keep funds on for emergencies like my debit card being cloned.
Now Wells Fargo, my bank says something about a free credit report on the home page I will see if I can get through there or I can visit a local branch, I had not thought of that. Thank you.
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On Credit Karma all I can do is see my score not the report, if it is on the site I am missing it. Will have to dig deeper later. The mechanic is here to fix the mess I made of my truck.
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This is frustrating. Did you happen to initially access your credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com? That is the site that gives you access to credit reports from all 3 bureaus (Transunion, Equifax, and Experian) for free. If so, you might run into the same problem as you did before.
It looks like this will be an exercise in hurry up and wait.
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MicroSpice Actually, www.annualcreditreport.com is where I was Sunday when this mess started. I was getting a copy of my report to check how my recent divorce (make sure the ex took care of the things she was supposed to), moves (make sure that there were no utilities balances outstanding, and generally checking for errors. I was not able to access the a report as I could not verify because I did not recognize any off the accounts they asked me about. The thing is I have seen one account that was not mine before, have clicked the none of the above choice and it has gone on, so I assume that it is a security feature to throw one in that is not true, every once in awhile to possible weed out someone that only has basic stuff from access your account.
Today is the first day that I could see the info getting to Atlanta, so I will give them a call later today.
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UPDATE:
Well I finally heard back from Equafax and got a copy of my credit report. There is nothing on there that I did not recognize. Now when I sent them photocopies of my id's I also sent address history for 20+ years, that long only because when I hit 9 years I had lived at one address for 12+ years. So it might have been like the agent on the phone said and they just had some wrong info on my report.
I did finally get a credit freeze on my file. Now the interesting thing about that is that it is good for 90 days but renewable, but entitles you to a free credit report every quarter from all 3 agencies. Just thought that I would pass that tid bit along to you all.
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Ruff16965 (05bd62cee897) so what happened to your child support payments? Did you get credit for them or did the State removed them. I'm in a similar position and have a court date for October. From what the Child Support Office told me the State wants me to forfeit the payments and reduce tje account to $0.
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Magenta Gazelle What it turned out to be was Social Security sent back payments/adjustments. So it was all kosher. As of April 2019, I have paid off all my back child support, a shade under $75,000 in 7 years and am free and clear. It took until December and getting my congressman involved for Social Security to stop taking the money from my check, sending it to the State Child Support Office who would then cut me a check and mail it.
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Ruff16965 (05bd62cee897) i see. In my case someone is using my SS #. The State figured out there is an identity issue. So like i mentioned before , the State want to forfeit those payments, claimimg that since i didn't pay it i shouldb have it removed. So that's where I'm at.
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Magenta Gazelle My advice talk to a lawyer or call your local news station if they do a consumer support series normally. Here is is call "3 On Your Side".
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