So, about a decade or so ago, my soon to be spouse had something of an identity theft problem. It wasn’t a true case of it, it was in fact a situation in which Social Security accidentally assigned the same number to two different people with the same name. It took years to straighten out, and even now some records get mixed up. It was annoying, horrible, caused much emotional and financial distress and even just a few years ago a man came to the door for mortgage documents to be completed, for that other person who lives across the country.
However it never involved me before today.
I get a call from someone who believes I am someone named, shall we say, F saying there is a legal complaint against me, the spouse of… my spouse. That this number was the number F had left to be reached at.
So I go ballistic, demand details, holler about identity theft and how I’m going to take care of this once and for all. The line gets disconnected in the middle of this. I call back and leave a voicemail demanding an explanation, because I’m going to take care of this by God. I look up all the information I can about these people, where they live and work and try to call them but fail because of the time. I call the person who called me again, still furious, demanding that they call me back because I have the contact information they need, etc…
Anyway, at some point I look up that number and discovered it is a scam that tries to convince you that you have some legal claim against you, tells you to call some other number with a fake case number who then tries to extract your credit card info and threatens you with court.
WHICH I THINK IS HILARIOUS. I mean think about it, without even realizing it I was yelling at them, practically threatening THEM with legal action… I mean, damn… Hahahahahaha!