If you are going back and forth to a hospital, making final arrangements or working on settling an estate, the last thing you have any time, attention or interest in is the mail which looks like junk or nuisance mail.

Ask a friend or relative to check your mail for you just to be sure there is nothing odd showing up. Odd would be Welcome letters from stores where you do not shop, courtesy cards urging you to use them during the holidays and post-holiday sales.

Pay attention. Consumer organizations warn that thieves are counting on all shoppers’ general distraction added to stores’ need to sell and sell quickly to steal as  much as they can and as fast as they can.

Five years ago in late November, I received a courtesy card from a home repair and supplies company. Toss.

As I went through the mail, there was a Welcome letter from a store I never had been in. And another. Wait. I went back to the trash and pulled out the courtesy card.

I was much too welcome in places I never had been.

Finally, I saw a bill. It was from yet another home repair and supplies company.

The total was in excess of $2,000. Clearly someone was setting up a Christmas tree lot. The purchase included many tree stands, many strands of decorative lights and a saw.

I called this store and said, “This is not me, not my bill and I have no idea who bought this stuff.”

The store staffer said billing would note this and  they would send me the paperwork for my fraud claim. She said I should file a police report immediately and call the credit bureaus as well.

As the policeman told me, identity theft rings have “personalities” like people. “It depends on who is running it, what they have to work with and what they want.”  Some move fast. Some move very slowly because they are going for something big, he said. That is why fraud reports need to be as detailed as possible. “When we can, details help us make connections. Would you be willing to testify if we catch them?”

Oh, yes.

When it was over, these scammers had opened quick-for Christmas kind of house accounts at every store I never go to or shop in and used up the credit line, sure I would not be using any of “their” credit.  A 30-day hit and they were out of here.

I was mad but not, as several asked, “traumatized” by this personal invasion. It is easy to see how many people could be. In the scheme of things, my case was nothing. However, store personnel seemed very concerned about how I felt about this.

Was I OK? Yes and I would be more OK when we finished this up. The kindness with which this matter was handled by the bank and stores reaffirmed my confidence in people.

Many people have discovered cars bought in their names or worse. This scam simply ate up my time straightening it out. At the end of January in the new year, I had a fraud notebook—letters sent to me, letters I sent back to stores,copies, copies, copies, just to be safe I had proof—that was 3/4 of an inch thick. I measured it. I had spent hours and hours on the phone, faxing, calling, calling back.

By the time all charges were added up, the total came in at $10,000.

Months passed. Another policeman called. He thought he had identified the culprits.

Had I been in either ___ Hospital or ___ Hospital during the year?

No.

He was disappointed. “The ring is run by a woman. She found a way to get people into hospital billing departments. They worked long enough to steal the Social Security numbers off the records. Every other case like yours involved someone who had been in one of those two hospitals. Too bad. I thought I had them.”

I had not been admitted to either but my husband had been in one of those hospitals, I told him.

Perking up, he said, “Yours and your husband’s  SS numbers are linked in the insurance system. This perp needs female names. They used you, not him. I hope I can nail them. I’m trying.”

I never heard from him. He was so hopeful. But there are millions of them and not that many policemen dedicated to what is sometimes called a “victimless” crime. It costs us all money, stores having to add these losses to their prices.

Don’t let anyone get away with your name or personal information ever—and when you are worried or grieving, this would be even harder to take.

Have someone look out for your mail box, just as you are trying to look out for a medical problem.

One kind of trouble is plenty.