Mom relocated to NC to a trendy uptown apartment a couple of years ago but still used the tax dude from back home. This year he sent a fedex package (with returns and all of the supporting investment tax forms and the social security statements, which may (?) have the full SSN on them?) to her apartment building that has a common area for packages. Fedex shows it was delivered but she doesn't have it. She's mildly panicking from the unknown. What do you do at this point? The apartment building won't look at surveillance tapes until the police are involved, so I guess she calls the non-emergency line and asks for fraud/identify theft detail? How do you begin to tackle this to protect, well, who knows what? Everything? It's a bit overwhelming.
In reply to glueguy (Forum Supporter) :
Did the tracker show it was delivered today? If so I would give it 24 hours before panicking. FedEx drivers (around me anyway) seem to have a habit of marking something delivered... then actually dropping it off a day or two later. No idea why but it has happened several times.
When it was four iPhone 14s I was convinced that the driver must have stolen them. Then they showed up the next day.
Credit freeze with all 3 credit bureaus.
OHSCrifle said:
In reply to glueguy (Forum Supporter) :
Did the tracker show it was delivered today?
About 5 days ago. She's spent a couple of days with Fedex and the apt complex looking for places it could've been misplaced.
secretariata (Forum Supporter) said:
Credit freeze with all 3 credit bureaus.
How difficult is it to undo this if she needs credit? What ramifications could the frozen credit have? Trying to understand the side effects of this. New territory for us
She should contact the IRS as well to let them know the forms are gone. They are well prepared to deal with fraud (assuming someone tries to file in her name to get her refund.) They can give her a security number to use when filing.
I don't think there's any downside to freezing credit. If she needs to make a big purchase like a car, they can be unfrozen at that time.
Freezing credit should be on everyone's to do list. It has way more benefits than problems. If I really want to finance something, I can have a freeze lifted in about 30 minutes at all 3 bureaus. How good is a freeze? Let's just say a federal agency was doing a full background check on me for valid reasons, but they had to call me and ask me to please unfreeze my credit so they could check it. I could give you everything (sadly like your mom did due to no fault of her own), and you cannot open a new account unless you have a my credit buraeu passwords and PIN numbers. You have to set up an account with all 3 major credit bureaus but it is free.
