I hope no one has had a 1st hand experience. (here on Fluther)

1. I lost my wallet once and it just a B*tch having to CANCEL all your cards and or put a stop on them.

2. My ex-coworker/manager had his identity stolen and he found out about it MONTHS after when he was trying to apply for something (don’t remember what)

They got those stupid pre-approved credit cards under his name, and obviously did not pay. So his credit got f’d up. It’s just a big hassle.

3. Omg I also just remembered, my dad had his bank card Hacked somehow. The bank told him they’ll investigate and give him his money back, but it is JUST ONE BIG Headache. It’s funny cuz it was just before he went on vacation, so he had no money in the bank… :(

When someone goes around and takes out a bunch of credit or bank accounts as “you,” it’s hard to prove to people that what “you” did and what YOU did are two different things. And when the authorities come after YOU for what “you” did, it’s even worse, because YOU may not even know that “you” were doing it. When “you” have been defrauding people, it takes a long time to straighten out and get YOUR good name back.

If YOU can imagine someone taking over your Fluther account and posting insults and profanities all over every question, and then people don’t like YOU so much because of what “you” said to them, it might make more sense. If this is really you…

One of my good friends wife has had her identity stolen many times by her crackhead sister. She gets arrested all the time and gives her sisters name and information instead of hers. You would think that the stupid ass cops would look into this to make sure shes really who she says she is, but they dont. So warrants get sent to my friends house for his wifes arrest . The cops came once and tried arresting her in front of her kids, obviously that didnt go over to well. I still dont understand why the cops dont look into these things.

I dont have any exp(thankfully) or know anyone whos had their identity stolen for financial means though.

@laureth i had that happen to me before, except it was in the fluther chat room. Back a couple of months ago when someone used to spam this site a lot they went in there pretending to be me, funny thing is i was in there at the same time, i just couldnt see what they were writing.(which turned out to be highly racial stuff) So everyone was mad at me and saying how could i say such things when really i had no clue wtf was going on.

We had our identity stolen. We were lucky, a sharp on line operator noticed that the video equipment being purchased onlinecwas not in line with our purchasing history. She called our house to verify our online purchase….

Then we realized they had other credit cards too. The credit cared people were all great and didn’t charge us what they could have held us liable for.
Afterward, we had alerts put on our cards and they were well worth it.

I had a credit card stolen and my experience was about the same as basp described.

With a previous purchase history, they were able to tell that this was not something that should be attributed to me. And I had very little headache, but that was only with one existing card, not my whole identity that was used to create new accounts.

Once with my old health insurance. Some kid stole a whole list and was going to sell it. They got to him before he could. They paid for a years worth of protection on our credit rating and free credit check.

Once with our bank. The lost a back up hard drive. Same resolution.

i had a taste of it—for like a couple hours or so, but my bank blocked it like gangbusters. felt violated and was very nervous. thought i would have to switch out everything from a TO z.

You asked specifically how bad it can get. The worst case is not the financial stuff like credit cards. It can get really bad when someone uses your identity when committing a crime and you get arrested. Or even worse, some crack-head gets their aids tests using your stolen identity. If it turns out THEY are tested positive… guess what… now YOU can’t get health insurance, or you get in an accident, and get a blood transfusion with the blood type the crack-head had.