Identity theft is cruel blow for woman who had lost job, boyfriend, home

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10292186

Published Tuesday | March 25, 2008
Identity theft is cruel blow for woman who had lost job, boyfriend, home
BY MAGGIE O'BRIEN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Guadalupe Reyna spent much of 2007 broke, pregnant and alone.


Guadalupe Reyna is still awaiting half of her $4,800 tax refund while the IRS investigates how someone stole her identity. She and her three children, including Natasha, 6, and Jorge, 3, stay with a friend because they lost their house to fire and the father of 5-month-old Alan was deported last year.

She lost her job. The father of her then-unborn child was deported. Then, in September - when Reyna thought things couldn't get any worse - the Omaha house she was living in burned a week before she gave birth.

By year's end, Reyna, 24, who has three children, was left with little but the clothes on her back. She pinned her hopes on the $4,800 she expected after filing her tax forms, but even that hasn't come easily, because something else had been taken from her: her identity.

Shortly after she filed, the Internal Revenue Service, believing that Reyna had been living and working in Maryland, notified her that her earned-income tax credit and tax refund were being withheld because she hadn't filed since 2000. She protested, and IRS officials are investigating. She said they think someone - possibly a hotel employee who makes about $19,000 a year - stole her identity to gain employment.

Identity theft problems for taxpayers have risen dramatically in recent years, according to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission, the agency that tracks identity theft.

A 2007 IRS report to Congress said refund fraud based on identity theft increased nearly 400 percent from 2002 to 2006, while related employment fraud rose about 130 percent during the same period.


FULL story at link.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. That poor family!

[Lance_Boyle]

2. remember - illegal immigration and fake docs don't hurt anybody.

n/t