The Human Toll of Identity Theft

by Doug Pollack

Most of us are unaware of the severe emotional stress that can come about as a result of identity theft. It is gratifying to see the Wall Street Journal exposing this issue so dramatically in today’s article titled “How to Make Identity Theft Worse“.

Ms. Jordan’s article describes poignantly how commonplace it is for illegal aliens to use a citizen’s name and social security number in order to appear legal to their employer. But also how difficult it is and how long that it can take in order to rectify this type of identity theft.

“Audits from the Internal Revenue Service are never welcome. But when Emerita de Jesus received a letter for failing to report earnings at a North Carolina poultry plant, it had a particularly unpleasant twist: The California housewife had never worked at the facility. Instead, a Mexican worker there had used Ms. de Jesus’ name and Social Security number to get hired. The situation caused years of grief for Ms. de Jesus, who fought a protracted battle beginning in 2003 to clear her name with creditors, the IRS and the poultry plant, House of Raeford Farms Inc. The case, which was finally solved a few months ago, isn’t isolated. It is an example of an unexpected consequence of the government’s crackdown on undocumented workers: a surge in identity theft.”

And while this type of identity theft is now on the rise, partially due to more rigorous government requirements that workers provide valid name and social security credentials in order to be employed, the mechanisms to deal with this type of identity theft do not seem to be working. The article goes on to describe what Ms. de Jesus, a legal US resident, went through and how long that it took, to identify and resolve all of the dimensions of this ID theft. Her husband describes how:

“In 2004, however, his wife received another letter from the IRS regarding yet another year’s income that hadn’t been reported. The couple hired a private detective who confirmed a woman continued to work at the House of Raeford under Ms. de Jesus’ name. “We contacted 50 senators, 30 government departments and two governors,” says Ms. de Jesus, who declined to be interviewed but provided a written statement. “The system did not work.”

With 8 million illegal immigrants in the US workforce, this problem is not likely to get better any time soon. We can only hope that the IRS puts in place systems and procedures that enable US citizens and taxpayers to more easily and permanently resolve the effects of this type of identity theft.