"He had Conrad follow him in the Jeep and abandon it in Northtown, up in Richmond,
where its chances of being stolen, Kenny assured him, would be approximately one hundred percent,"
Tom Wolfe, "A Man in Full"
"He had Conrad follow him in the Jeep and abandon it in Northtown, up in Richmond,
where its chances of being stolen, Kenny assured him, would be approximately one hundred percent,"
Tom Wolfe, "A Man in Full"
Early in the morning on September 19, 2002, I parked my RV in front of the US Post Office Bulk Distribution Center on Rydin Road, the entrance road to the Point Isabel Regional Park in Richmond, California. There were about 3 other RVs and many trucks and cars also parked on this street.
At about 9:30am I rode my bicycle to the BART station and rode to Megan's apartment in Berkeley to work on her new computer. Megan and I returned at 6:15pm to find the RV missing. I called 911 -- who connected me to the Richmond Police who stated that they did not tow it. The RV had been stolen.
Everything I owned except my backpack, bicycle, and the clothes on my back were history. We reported this to the police and got home at about 10:00pm. I was distressed enough. I was distressed more by the absolute lack of concern by the police officer. They do nothing at all except take the report – and that was minimally filled-in. He knew there was an RV theft-ring, chop-shop in the area although he would not admit it. He did admit the RV would be found locally.
My computer has all of my credit account numbers. Also stolen were ALL of my checks, my passport, my birth certificate, my Social Security card, and files of all current bank and credit statements. I spent the night on the Internet chasing down card numbers, accounts, credit-reporting websites. By morning I discovered that one card had been used but the card company shut the card down for irregular charging pattern. Great: Paranoia at its best.
At my request, the Equifax Credit bureau marked my account as a stolen identity. The other two bureaus were referred to Equifax. I closed my checking accounts as soon as the banks opened. I opened new accounts with different numbers.
I started getting new identification. I started life from zero. Well, not quite zero: I had my health, my family, and my sanity.
Sanity is relative. Now I had to fight the insurance companies, being poor, bad checks, lien holder of the RV, and continue the battle with Siemens/Hewitt not paying for my health insurance.
A month later the bad check notices started coming in. As they arrived, I gave each a call and returned documentation as requested. I refused to send notarized statements because I already had lost enough money and I am not going to pay for someone cashing a check that should have verified the writer. One company has pursued harassing me. I only reply once. For this company, I have replied to their lawyers. They have tried to hurt my credit anyway. Sorry. You cannot hurt me more than I have already been hurt – and my credit will survive anything they can do.
The police report is given below. See the description long version at Disaster.
If this happens to you, the way to handle it is listed at Identity Theft.
(Larger Police Report)