because life isn't challenging enough right now...

[Monica]

In Washington State there has been a huge rise in scammers fraudulently filing unemployment, to the point that the Employment Security Office actually refused to process new applications for a couple days. We've had several employees at work who've had that happen, as the request goes to our HR person, and I found out a couple hours ago that someone filed as my husband! So he's now going through the process of proving that he is who he is to get it undone. Scammers make me so MAD!

Anyway... just wanted to give all the US folks a heads up, as I have a feeling it's not limited to my state. Let your families know, just in case.

[Debbie J]

At least we don’t have flooding here, thank God for that!

[troublesmom]

So very bad.

[Monica]

At least we don’t have flooding here, thank God for that!

I'll take all the blessings we can get!

[pamcook]

Oh no! I heard there was a problem - so sorry you’re having to deal with this.

[pbp908]

I hate scammers.

[Monica]

I hate scammers.

You and me both!!!

[Trixie]

How did your husband find out and did they have his ss#? What a pain. I had a friend who lost her 7 year old son to cancer. The next year her taxes were denied. Someone had already filed and receive a refund using her son's ss#. It took months to get it straightened out. It is hard to believe a person would do this stuff.

[Monica]

Employment Security sent a letter to his place of employment for verification. And we don't know exactly how, but there was a massive Equifax breach last year, so it's very possible that was how. We don't toss away anything... even junk mail... if it might have any identifiers. I shred it all.

[pbp908]

Employment Security sent a letter to his place of employment for verification. And we don't know exactly how, but there was a massive Equifax breach last year, so it's very possible that was how. We don't toss away anything... even junk mail... if it might have any identifiers. I shred it all.

We finally got tired of shredding, especially with so many medical and retirement things coming in, as well as old tax records. I now have a large barrel for burning and use it once a month or so after checking to see if it's a "keeper."

[troublesmom]

Employment Security sent a letter to his place of employment for verification. And we don't know exactly how, but there was a massive Equifax breach last year, so it's very possible that was how. We don't toss away anything... even junk mail... if it might have any identifiers. I shred it all.

We finally got tired of shredding, especially with so many medical and retirement things coming in, as well as old tax records. I now have a large barrel for burning and use it once a month or so after checking to see if it's a "keeper."

We can't burn here so I have a backlog of items to be shredded. One thing I check our accounts almost every day and we have had our credit frozen fo a number of years.

[paddlegal]

Monica that is just so outrageous. Thank goodness it’s been caught and hadn’t gone any further, I hope.

I have been clearing out a lot of Bob’s very old medical and other now non-essential documents and was just amazed at how often his full SS# (and mine and Charley’s) was plainly printed on every page. I really had to look carefully sometimes to see it in tiny print. I’m now headed to amazon for a shredder. Too much to hand shred like I’ve been doing.

[Monica]

We can't burn, unfortunately. My mom always had a burn barrel for monthly use, and I miss the ease of that method. I do need to buy another shredder though. I have a very full box of records to be destroyed waiting for me to get another after the old 2nd hand one froze mid-shred.

[troublesmom]

We just recently got a new shredder and it does a great job. Shredding more than one page at a time was an essential. We got an Aurora off of Amazon. It says it will shred credit cards but have not tried that.

[Monica]

so... my newest challenge this week is trying to get Twitter to delete two accounts purporting to be official ones from the city and our pd. The jerk who created them is tweeting highly offensive posts and misrepresenting himself as the official accounts. I'm still waiting for Twitter to even acknowledge my complaints. I'm reaching the point where I hate social media. I don't consider a forum like PAO in that group, btw. And the person who has those accounts is making demands as if they hold all the cards, while I'm at the mercy of Twitter support to actually DO something about those accounts. So done with the world at large right now. I've taken the summer off Facebook with my personal account, although I still have to manage the work one, and I'm counting days until vacation June 26 through July 5. Taking a couple short trips and doing some much needed work around the house during that time, so I likely won't be here that much.