Reporting Identity Theft

[Mrs.Harper]

My question involves police conduct in the State of: California/Arizona

Back in April of 2013, while attending court for the custody of my eldest child, it came to my attention, and the mediators attention, that I had several charges on my record for crimes such as assault and battery and assault and battery on an officer. The only issue here is that I committed no such crime, not only was I with child in one of the alleged acts, also it was in a completely different state.
Upon further investigation I found out that someone is collecting welfare in the state of California using my SSN. What are the proper legal actions to take here in clearing this up? Wouldn't I be able to submit finger prints and have them compared to the finger prints registered at the time of the booking? Also I haven't lived in California for almost a year now and that is completely verifiable.

[PTPD22]

To protect yourself, you need to immediately report the identity theft to your local police agency. Get the incident number from the police agency where you reported it. Then contact all three major credit reporting agencies, in writing, letting them know that your identity information has been compromised and include the police incident number. Next, you need to diligently monitor all of your credit accounts (credit cards, bank accounts, mortgage/loans, store credit accounts, etc.) and what is reported to the credit reporting agencies for any fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, you will likely need to be diligent about this for years.

To bring the person(s) who stole your identity to justice, you need to report any fraudulent activity you discover to the law enforcement agency where the fraud occurred. To start with, report that your identity is being fraudulently used to the welfare agency in California. If you later learn that credit accounts have been opened in your name or your existing credit cards are used fraudulently, immediately report it to the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction where the fraud actually occurred. Since some credit companies are reluctant to provide information to law enforcement, you may need to give written authorization to your creditors/bank(s) to give information about the fraudulent activity to law enforcement.

[Mr. Knowitall]

The FTC offers helpful documents for reporting identity theft, available here. The affidavit can be very helpful with making a report to a local law enforcement agency. However their materials deal with the financial side of identity theft, not the welfare fraud or false use of your ID in association with criminal prosecutions.

Once per year you can get your credit reports free from the official website run by the major credit reporting agencies (CRAs) -- annualcreditreport.com. That will help you find any financial identity theft -- although not all credit transactions are reported to the CRAs. You can put an alert on your credit reports -- you only need to do so with one of the three major CRAs, and they will share the report with the others. Last I checked, all three (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax) supported the making of online reports.

Whether or not you find evidence of identity theft on your credit report, I suggest completing the FTC materials and submitting the identity theft affidavit when you make your report to local law enforcement. Please note that there is only so much that local law enforcement typically has the resources to do -- but their report of the identity theft can be helpful when dealing with companies and government agencies.

I agree with PTPD22, that you're going to have to address the criminal charges associated with the identity theft with the jurisdictions that prosecuted the offenses, and that you should report the welfare fraud to the agency (or agencies) that are issuing benefits.