Mon, 09 Jan 2006

Waking up to recurring ID nightmares

Nightmare? More like horror story! But bureaucracies can be very, very frustrating, and it's not just limited to government bureaus, either. In fact, sometimes private entities can be much more difficult...

I sold a business in 1990, made a decent sum and was retained by the new owners as the director of their R&D department. But when the business was absorbed by the new owners, a clerical error was made - the sales tax account with the State of Indiana wasn't properly closed.

Since the mailing address of my company had been a PO box, and the box was closed, all the mail bounced. And since I wasn't filing monthly sales reports, the State very gracious estimated my assumed sales for me and charged the company. Of course, I never knew any of this - until we went to buy a new house in 1994 and were told we owed over $250,000 in back taxes! Talk about a shock!

I immediately contacted the state revenue folks, and went down to Indy and had the whole things straightened out in about an hour. They even printed off "clearance copies" of every dun they'd sent over the preceding years, so I'd have a paper record. And I still have it, and I still use it, every time I apply for credit of any sort.

You see, while the state corrected it's error almost immediately, getting the error out of the public databases maintained by the credit bureaus has proven problematic. I've called, faxed and written, including copies of the clearances. I've even taken two (TRW and Equifax) to court - always receiving assurances that the matter was taken care of, and always having it show back up within a few months.

At this point, I've ceased trying to fix it, having become convinced it's useless. I no longer even act shocked when somebody tells me I'm a quarter million dollars in debt to the government. I just pull out my little file, and straighten things out on a case by case basis.

Presumably, if this had been a private debt, it would've disappeared from my report long ago. But taxes, like diamonds, are forever. And so I've left instruction in my will for whoever is the executor of my estate, not to be surprised when a massive past due tax bill shows up after I'm dead and gone.

Raymond Lorenzo, a victim of identity theft, still does not have his life back after 15 years.

(link) [CNET News.com]

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