Darlene Hooley: “in August of 2001, a constituent of mine had her purse stolen, an unfortunate incident that caused her some initial…”

“in August of 2001, a constituent of mine had her purse stolen, an unfortunate incident that caused her some initial annoyance, but one she quickly forgot after doing all the responsible things like filing a police report, cancelling her credit cards, notifying the major credit bureaus of the theft. She took those responsible steps and put it behind her. Two years later when she was called about a new computer being delivered to her home, a computer she never ordered, she decided to investigate what was going on, and what she found out was that there were seven credit cards being used in her name and two cell phones, cell phones and cards that she had never requested or never seen. Since that time, this woman has spent many hours on the phone with e- mails and research trying to clean up her credit files and protect herself from future theft. She said to me she feels like a ball in a pinball machine, being constantly bounced around from agency to agency, from credit bureau to credit bureau. At one point a Portland police officer actually suggested to her that it might be easier to her if she would actually change her legal identity and her name.”