Identity Theft Victim: Help & Support After the Crime provides REAL answers for victims of America’s fastest growing crime who are crying out for sensible, unambiguous and reality-based assistance. This refreshingly pragmatic book speaks to victims weighed down by ineffective advice, vague responses and no solution attitudes. It acknowledges creditors’ "guilty until proven innocent" mind-sets and a society that gives thieves, impostors and con artists a mere slap-on- the-wrist.

Identity Theft Victim: Help & Support After the Crime provides insight, knowledge and answers to real issues and circumstances facing today’s identity theft victims. Quickly distinguishing itself from the pack of identity theft books, it unabashedly acknowledges the sad but true fact that identity fraud victims typically find themselves victimized twice, once by their impostor and then again by the present system! Under this known but seldom discussed reality, Identity Theft Victim offers support and the tools for victims to work within a system that is presently antiquated, overwhelmed and impractical.

Written by a former identity theft victim in response to numerous requests to share her story, her experience and her success, Ms. White meticulously details the practical plan that turned her agony into answers and her trauma into triumph. Most importantly, Identity Theft Victim: Help & Support After the Crime fulfills the promise of providing victims with the knowledge, assistance, support and strategies to help them prove their innocence and victim status along with important organizations, contacts, sample letters and the tools that change panic and procrastination--into unrelenting persistence and perseverance!

LouAnn Busch-White has worked with victims of identity theft since 1997. After successfully overcoming her own identity theft, LouAnn's frustration regarding limited answers and real assistance for identity theft victims led to her entrepreneurial mission. She founded Identity Theft Management™, a victim's advocate and identity theft consulting company specializing in assisting victims with their specific identity theft issues and circumstances and providing knowledge, direction, support and confidential assistance to INDIVIDUAL identity theft victims who must prove their innocence and victim status regarding fraudulent claims, acts and activity performed in their name.

Too many people still don’t understand the severity of this crime. These are usually people who haven’t been personally affected and don’t know the destruction, havoc and trauma inflicted on its victims; victims who too frequently, find themselves alone in the battle to regain their identity from an often-unknown assailant. I wrote Identity Theft Victim: Help & Support After the Crime to share needed information about an overwhelming, frustrating and time-consuming crime. I wrote this book because too many identity theft victims struggle daily to prove their innocence and victim status in a confusing "guilty until proven innocent" system. Too many don’t understand their rights when it comes to credit information and inaccuracies. Too many victims believe their circumstances must be unique because not many people understand or seem to know how to help. Too many victims find themselves victimized twice, once by their impostor and then again by the present system. Nothing and no one seems to be stopping or even slowing this crime’s dangerous escalation. Not many people grasp the devastating repercussions or the legacy it leaves on its victims. When victims do receive help, it’s too often ineffective, unspecific and capitulatory. I want to reach people weighed down by ineffective advice, vague responses and no solution attitudes. There is a big difference in seeking advice from large agencies designed to handle hundreds or thousands of calls and advice from victims that have gone before you. I am one of those victims who not only understand what you are going through but have dedicated myself to working and advocating on behalf of the estimated 800,000-identity theft victims annually.

I also wrote this book for all those people who think it won’t happen to them. Knowing what this crime really entails, I get annoyed when I read all the little "suggestions and tips" for protecting one's identity. All the misleading information provided to consumers that, if followed, will "prevent" them from becoming victims. What happens when it doesn't work? What happens when the lists of tips aren’t enough? What happens when the crime of identity theft has become so widespread, so pervasive that it is unmanageable, often undetectable, and virtually unavoidable? What happens to the people that follow every suggestion ever printed... but thieves steel their identity anyway? It’s disappointing when organizations, associations and agencies lead consumers to believe that if they just follow the list of do's and don'ts, they won't fall victim to this devastating crime. Don't feel guilty if, or when, it happens to you. What they fail to tell you in all their many lists of Do’s and Don’ts is that you can follow every suggestion to "prevent" identity theft and still become victimized! What they don’t tell you is that we have surpassed the "preventing" stage of this crime. You can do things to try to "minimize" your chances of becoming a victim. You can alter your behavior to try to lessen your vulnerability but "prevent", not any more!

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. The number of innocent, hard working people victimized by this often life altering crime is staggering. The problem we are facing now is a list of victims that grows exponentially each year. Sadder yet, is that after becoming a victim, you find very little real, "take-me-by-the-hand-and-help-me" kinds of assistance. Most identity theft victims are left to deal with the financial, emotional, psychological and physical effects...on their own!

Chapter 1

What is Identity Theft And How Did I Catch It?

Identity theft is not a disease. You can’t catch it from anyone, although, it has spread as if it were contagious! Everyone seems to know someone who has experienced it. However, a mere two months after reading an article about it, it actually happened to you! You find yourself thinking that now that it’s happened to you, it’s real. The crime you have merely read or talked about really happens! All too often, it turns out that you didn’t do anything to "catch" it. IT catches you by the sheer fact that you ARE your personal information and your personal information is everywhere. So, now that you know it was nothing you overtly did that brought on the nightmare you’re now living, do you feel better? No? You are still left with having to deal with angry merchants, creditors and collection agencies? Your credit report is full of inaccurate and incorrect information? You can’t get a loan for that new car you’ve saved for or refinance your home? You’ve been denied the new credit cards you’ve applied for and you were turned down for the job you wanted? Wow, you must be depressed!

It appears that you did, in fact get a new job. Your new job requires knowledge, experience and the attributes of perseverance and persistence.

Chapter 2

Your New Job:

CEO of "Getting My Identity Back Incorporated"

You have your full-time job away from home and you have hundreds of other jobs to do when you arrive back home. The last thing you needed was another job called, "Who in the world stole my identity and how do I get it back Incorporated!" Believe me, it is another very full and demanding JOB! But guess what? You not only got the job; they offered you the position of CEO! The only qualities you may be lacking are both the knowledge and experience to be successful in your new position therefore we better get started.