[godwulf]

Hey, folks! I haven't been here in awhile, but thought this would be a good place to get something off my chest and maybe get some feedback.

Three or four years ago, I got a call from Sprint, asking when I was going to be paying the nearly $300 I owed them. As I didn't even own a cellphone at the time, this was news to me. Turns out someone else opened an account in my name, etc. At first they seemed sympathetic, but a couple of weeks later I got a call from their "Investigations" (read "Collections") Department, advising me that I had a number of options to pursue, but that they all began with "Pay the bill..."

When I objected that it wasn't my bill or my account, they attempted to make me feel in some way culpable or guilty because I "failed to safeguard" my social security number and birthdate. I told the guy that I could follow him around for a day and have his SS# and birthdate by the end of it. This information is literally everywhere.

After I finally contacted the Regional Customer Service Director, I thought I'd gotten them to back off permanently - but a couple of weeks ago, I got a letter from a collection agency about the money, so it looks like the problem is ongoing.

Here is my thinking about this: businesses and companies like Sprint are forever attempting to make it easier and more convenient for people to open accounts with them and start giving them money - but in their attempts to gain a bigger and bigger share of the market dollar, they've forsaken security and common sense. They permit anybody who knows somebody else's SS# and birthdate to open an account - with zero verification of any kind. And then - when they, inevitably, get ripped off - they expect someone who had no hand in establishing the account to pay the bill. They want to make us believe that we are the victims...when in fact, they are the victims. They want us to file police reports, take the criminals to civil court, etc., when that should be their responsibility.

Our "identities" are not being stolen, in most cases - they're being given away.

The companies who do this also hire "Identity Theft Experts" to go around trying to get consumers to confuse situations where someone has directly accessed your bank account or established credit, with cases where a third party has impersonated you, and the negligence and greed of the business owners have facilitated their doing so.