Stolen Identity – Stolen Peace

Identity theft gets talked about a lot, but usually in the abstract: freeze your credit, watch your statements, don't click suspicious links. What doesn't get talked about nearly enough is what it actually feels like when someone isn't just using your card number, but is actively living as you. My guest today is Brooklyn Lyons. She's 25, recently married, and by her own admission, had no particular expertise in fraud or cybersecurity before October of 2024.

That changed when her car window was smashed in a parking lot, and her work bag, laptop, wallet, driver's license, and everything was gone by morning. What followed wasn't a quick nightmare with a clean ending. It stretched across months, multiple counties, a jail communication system, the dark web, and a wanted fugitive who dyed her hair to look more like the face on a stolen ID. Brooklyn didn't just sit with it. She pulled criminal records, reverse-searched phone numbers, tracked an inmate's transfers across four facilities, identified a suspect on her own, and eventually filed a civil lawsuit without an attorney.

We talk about what it feels like when someone is pretending to be you, not just spending your money, but messaging people as you, signing up for accounts as you, building a life in your name. We also get into the specific steps she took to fight back, the tools she wishes she'd known about sooner, and what recovery actually looks like when the case isn't closed, and the person still hasn't been caught.

Show Notes:

• [1:47] Brooklyn introduces herself as a 25-year-old from Texas with no prior experience in fraud or identity theft.
• [2:13] She describes moving to the DFW area after getting married in June 2024 and being aware of the high rate of car break-ins in the region.
• [3:32] Her car window is smashed overnight, and her work bag is stolen, containing her laptop, wallet, driver's license, and all her cards.
• [4:03] Brooklyn's immediate response is to freeze her credit with all three bureaus and cancel her cards within 10 to 15 minutes.
• [4:57] Despite locking everything down, her cards are maxed out, and a police report is filed with little follow-up from law enforcement.
• [5:12] A period of quiet follows before a letter arrives around Valentine's Day 2025 claiming she rented a U-Haul and never returned it.
• [5:48] Experian alerts her that her driver's license has been found on the dark web, arriving almost simultaneously with the U-Haul letter.
• [7:14] While checking USPS Informed Delivery for a wedding invitation, Brooklyn spots a certified letter from a county jail addressed to her with an inmate's name listed beneath hers.
• [8:28] She contacts the jail and discovers an inmate had listed her as his girlfriend when booked, requesting she pick up his belongings before a prison transfer.
• [9:53] Brooklyn looks up the inmate in the state conviction database and finds a record including identity theft, car burglary, organized crime, and credit card abuse of the elderly.
• [11:58] A jail investigator reveals that the inmate's girlfriend had created an account in Brooklyn's name using her driver's license photo, editing her own appearance to match Brooklyn's features.
• [14:02] Brooklyn traces the same pattern across multiple county jail facilities the inmate passed through, confirming the woman repeated the identity fraud at each one.
• [15:13] A detective confirms the woman has stolen or attempted to use 17 other identities, and that Brooklyn is the only one who has caught on so far.
• [16:52] Four police departments become involved, and Brooklyn begins coordinating with investigators across all of them through a shared email thread.
• [19:22] Pulling her credit report reveals phone numbers tied to the suspect, leading Brooklyn to discover PayPal accounts, Cash App profiles, and a Facebook page created in her name.
• [20:58] Brooklyn uses a PayPal password recovery prompt to identify the first three letters of the suspect's real name.
• [22:03] She requests all jail booking documents containing her name from every county involved and receives text message logs from one department.
• [22:33] Using a birthday and partial name found in the messages, Brooklyn searches mugshots.com and identifies the suspect herself, later getting vague confirmation from investigators.
• [24:38] Chris asks whether the suspect and inmate were in a relationship, and Brooklyn explains they appear to share a child and were trying to manage a custody situation.
• [27:57] Brooklyn investigates whether a Verizon phone number was tied to an account in her name and later finds the suspect's real email embedded in her electricity account profile.
• [29:27] Brooklyn details changing her driver's license four times throughout the ordeal and suspects the woman is using her information for utility accounts to avoid being found.
• [31:02] Two police departments issue arrest warrants for the suspect, but she remains at large and difficult to locate.
• [31:33] Brooklyn files a civil lawsuit on her own without an attorney, drafting the paperwork herself and submitting a known address for the suspect.
• [32:04] She drafts a settlement agreement requiring the suspect to delete all fraudulent accounts, send proof, and return her physical driver's license, emailing it directly to her.
• [33:12] The suspect signs the agreement but does not comply with any of its terms within the deadline Brooklyn set.
• [33:37] Brooklyn files a motion to enforce the settlement agreement, which has since been approved by the court.
• [36:58] Discussion turns to whether the original car break-in was connected to the couple, with Brooklyn expressing frustration that law enforcement never attempted to link the CVS footage to them.
• [38:14] Brooklyn reflects on how the situation became consuming, describing obsessive monitoring of jail systems, court records, and criminal databases at its peak.
• [39:18] She shifts toward healthier monitoring habits, including monthly credit pulls, USPS Informed Delivery checks, and identity protection subscriptions like Aura.
• [40:33] The emotional toll is discussed, including nightmares, anxiety, therapy, and the strange experience of seeing someone try to physically resemble her.
• [43:22] Brooklyn describes seeing light at the end of the tunnel, connecting her recovery to moving out of the area and reclaiming her sense of self.
• [46:13] She reflects on pride in handling most of the case herself and finding closure in knowing the suspect is now aware that Brooklyn knows everything.
• [48:03] Brooklyn expresses empathy for others who may not have the same access to legal knowledge or law enforcement relationships that helped her navigate the process.
• [49:14] Practical tips are shared, including USPS Informed Delivery, e-verify identity freezing, and the IRS identity theft PIN available during tax filing.

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Transcript:

Brooklyn, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Yes, I'm so excited to be here.

I'm really excited to hear your story. We often get a lot of professionals that work in, you know, counter scam and counter fraud and cybersecurity experts on the podcast. And I really do enjoy when we have someone who has a story of their experience that they want to share. I know it takes a certain level of bravery to go public, say, “Hey, this is what has transpired in my life.” And so I really commend you for taking the time and putting yourself out there and being willing to share your story.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm Brooklyn. I'm from Texas. Just like you said, I'm a regular individual. I have no, well, I guess I do have a little expertise in identity theft now, but previously had no idea and would never think that it would happen to me. I'm just, I'm really excited to share my story.

How did your identity theft journey start?

I would probably pinpoint it, honestly, to October of 2024. My husband and I moved to the area after we got married in June of 2024. And we were so excited to move and to be in a new area and out of our college town. And I had heard of car break-ins in this, in the DFW area, a lot. It was going to happen or the likelihood of it happening was very high.

One night, I went grocery shopping after work. I had a lot of things to carry in and my husband came out and helped me. And I thought I had grabbed my work bag and I didn't. I did not. I sat in there, unfortunately, and funny enough, my mom works for a judge. She deals with people going in and out of jail all the time. Growing up, like she was a helicopter mom in a good and sometimes crazy way.

And one of the things she always told me was to never leave anything in your car. And the one time I did…you know where this is going. My window was smashed and my work bag was stolen. It had my work laptop. It had my wallet in there, my driver's license, my cards, everything. Seeing that walking out that morning was just, I knew that something had shifted for me, obviously. Just the realization of it setting in was so surreal. But I immediately knew what to do. I obviously called the police on the way to my car. I knew exactly what I had to do just from past experiences, not with me personally, but other people.

I immediately locked my credit with all three credit bureaus. That's the first thing I did. I was really shaky and really panicky. I was trying to type on my phone and like, I couldn't, I was getting frustrated. And then I next called my cards, obviously, and got them shut down. Within a span of like 10 to 15 minutes, I had that little safety blanket of like, “OK, my credit's locked now.” Obviously, they maxed out all my cards and all my money was gone. Obviously there was a police report and really nothing came from it.

I mean, they later told me down the road that they got footage from the local CVS where they went and said, “Oh, it looks like it was a couple.” And it just went, I never heard from them again about my car break-in, which is pretty normal for this area. Again, it happens all the time. It's like I said: identity theft and car break-ins, they happen all the time here. It's kind of, that's not what's brought to their full attention, which is fine.

I'd much rather them be on the streets dealing with the actual legitimate scary crimes that are going on currently. And so it was quiet for a little bit. I mean, they would try to use my cards and nothing would really happen. I mean, they were locked, my cards were locked. And I just kept reporting everything to the police. Just any occurrence that happened, timestamp, you know, I just kept a running file of things that would happen. I said, quiet.

And then the week of Valentine's Day of 2025, I get a letter in the mail that says I rented a U-Haul and never returned it. And that I owed like $156 for this U-Haul rental. And I was like, “I never rented a U-Haul,” which oddly enough, my husband worked for U-Haul in college and he was like, “Yeah, I mean, you have to submit a driver's license to rent a U-Haul, like, everybody knows that.”

And so I was like, “OK, things are getting a little weird.” I had signed up for an Experian. You can sign up—well, really any credit bureau you can sign up for identity theft protection and it alerts you when any of your personal information is being shared online or they dig into that stuff. I got an email that said, “We found your driver's license on the dark web.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, like, that simultaneously happened.”

It was like the U-Haul letter and then the email. And I was like, “OK, somebody's got it.” I knew they were going to have my driver's license. I figured they would probably chuck the rest once I had closed everything out. But of course, like, these people are breaking into cars to make money.

While it's a shock to you that your driver's license is on the dark web, like then again, it's not because it's like, these people are trying to make money, you know? That instance occurred. I got that taken care of with U-Haul, luckily.

And again, for a brief period of time, it was very quiet. I had my birthday, we went on our honeymoon because we waited like a year later to take our honeymoon. And it was just like you were peering. It felt like I was peering around every corner like, “OK, what's going to happen next? What's the deal?” And of course I reported the U-Haul thing. I can't even tell you the date of when this really started happening. I want to say it was early July, probably a week after the 4th of July.

My brain tries to hide that date for me because I get so worked up over it. But I signed up for USPS Informed Delivery, which if you know what that is or if any of the audience doesn't know,

I highly suggest that you go sign up right now and then come back. But essentially what it does, it just takes a picture of everything you're getting in the mail that day. Packages, it tells you the tracking number, but anything you're getting in the mail, it takes a picture of it.

And my friend was getting married. I was waiting for a wedding invitation and I hadn't really checked my USPS Informed Delivery in a while and I was looking for the invitation because she wanted to make sure I got it. And all of a sudden I see a letter that says that that is from a county jail that has my name on it and my full address minus my apartment number that was coming certified mail. And there was an inmate's name underneath my address.

And I was like, “Oh, my God. This is a certified letter and the apartment number isn't on there. I'm not getting this. Like, they're not going to come to my door. They don't know…like, I can't sign off for this.” I'm freaking out and I immediately—I’m, like, trying to get ready for work, but I'm thinking that I'm getting sued. I'm thinking I'm in trouble. I've never, the most I've ever done with the law is speed. I don't, you know, in a school zone, OK?

I'm freaking out. I'm like, “What is going on?” I call an officer and I explain, “Hey, I'm getting this letter. It says a TDCJ properties.” And he says, “Yeah, that's the Texas Department of Criminal Justice properties. That's from a jail.” And he was like, “Do you know this man? Like, is he related to you?” I was like, “No, I don't know this man at all.” He was like, “Has your family been a victim of a crime? Maybe he's reaching out to you to apologize.” I was like, “No, sorry. I don't know this man. I know all my family members are OK, as far as I know.”

And so he's like, “You know what? Let's call the mail room. Let me give you their number.” I call the mail room and this really nice lady, I told her everything and she was like, “OK, ma'am, you know, it is going to come back to us unfortunately, but I will send you the copy again.” And she said, “But you know what? Let me look into your specific letter and see what's going on.” She calls me back and she's like, “OK, so this letter is coming from our county because an inmate put you down as a point of contact when he was booked into jail for you to come pick up his belongings because he's getting transferred to a prison.”

Ooh.

I was like, “OK.” And she was like, “So there was no relation to this man whatsoever?” I was like, “No, ma’am. Like, I don't know him.” And she said, “Well, he put you down as his girlfriend when he was booked into jail.”

That's scary.

And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I was like, “Well, first of all, I don't have a boyfriend in jail. I'm happily married. I don't know this man at all.” Immediately, when I get to work, first thing I do from what my mother has taught me, I look up this man in the conviction database system in our state. And essentially what it is, you can pay for credits to look at somebody's criminal history.

Lo and behold, this man had gone to jail for identity theft, car burglary, organized crime, credit card abuse of the elderly. And I was like, “Great. This is just—my boyfriend apparently is just a roundabout guy.” I'm thinking at first like, “Oh my gosh, like, he's putting down my information

because maybe he doesn't have anybody. Maybe he doesn't want anybody else to find it.” I don't know. Just thinking there's no way another person is involved, right?

Yeah.

And so he was just putting me down as like a point of contact because this man was from out of state. He was a wanted fugitive or he is a wanted fugitive from out of state. And so I'm like, “Yeah, no, he's definitely just putting down somebody's random contact information for me to come pick up his belongings,” which by the way, I never did.

Good.

I never did that. A lot of my friends were like, “No, like, you need to go pick up his stuff.” “I'm not doing that.” Luckily, I do have a mom who knows legal jargon and legal lingo. I call her and I tell her everything. She's got a close connection. She has friends. She's also looking at this man at the same time. She was able to pull in his booking sheets, all of his paperwork when he was booked into jail.

And sure enough, I have a copy of the paper myself. He did, he wrote my name down. He wrote my address down. He even wrote a phone number down. He sure as hell did. He wrote me down as his girlfriend. In that moment, I'm like, “This is about to become such a bigger issue than I even realize.” She was like, “You know what?” The mail lady was like, “Let me direct you to one of our”—I can't remember if she was an investigator or honestly doesn't matter.

I think she was a police officer either way. But this nice woman—I wish I could remember all these names because they were so helpful, but there's so many of them—calls me and she says, “Yes, ma’am. You know, I looked you up on our system and it appears that this man's girlfriend created an account in your name using your information. She submitted your driver's license photo using our jail communication system.”

And there are text messages. I mean, the jail communication system, you just sign up, submit a driver's license photo, and you're able to talk to anybody in jail that you need to, which I think is great if you're not stealing somebody's identity. And so I was like, “Oh my gosh. No. Like, this is a woman stealing my identity. This isn't him just writing down somebody to contact because he doesn't have anybody. There is a woman out there using my identity.” And she was like, “Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at a picture of her right now. I'm looking at where she submitted the driver's license and uploaded a picture of herself.”

This woman edited some of my features on her face to get approved to communicate with him in jail. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So all of that to say, I just start following this man's jail journey, as I'll call it, his jail journey. This county that I got the letter in, he was in a county previously. He was at a different county previously. I was like, “OK, great. What are the odds that she did the same thing there?” I called that county and sure enough, she did the same thing there. She created an account. She uploaded a fake picture of her using my features and was communicating with this man in jail.

Actually, a detective from this county reached out to me. I think he was like the chief of something. I don't even remember at this point, but he called me, and we talked for a good hour. He was like, “Yes, ma'am, I know exactly who this woman is. She's done this to 17 other people. You're the only one who has caught on so far.” This is the beginning of the process. I'm the only one who's caught on so far. I'm also just thinking about these 17 other people. Anyways, he says, “I think you need to come down to the station.”

He's like, “I'm looking at a lot of information here. And I just think it's best if you come in person.” And I was like, “Great. This sounds like it's a much bigger deal now and it's becoming real.” That Monday I called my mom to see if she could come with me and she did, luckily. Because I was like, “There is no way I'm facing this alone.” And I brought her again, because she knows how to talk to police. She works with them. We get there and he sits me down and he's like, “Unfortunately, she is somebody who is consistently hiding from us. She is a wanted fugitive from out of state, just like this man is. Again, she's done this to 17 other people and she never stops.”

When you say she's done it with 17 other people, it means she's used 17 other people's identity or she's stealing, using, your identity with 17 inmates?

No, sorry. She’s—I see what you mean.

Or both.

Or maybe, who knows? You're probably both. Who knows? But no, she's stolen 17 other identities or she's tried to use 17 other identities, just in general. Sorry, yeah, I definitely should have clarified that. But I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case as well. She's a wanted fugitive from out of state. She had multiple warrants out for this county. I mean, she's just consistently hiding.

He was like, “Give me all the phone numbers you've ever had, addresses.” He found some phone numbers that were not mine that she was using. For my safety and her safety, he didn't share any of her information with me. And no, I mean, which makes sense. I just want to say, no, all four police departments that are involved in this never shared her identity with me, which I totally get why, because they probably don't know the kind of person I am…where I…they don't know what I could do, you know?

That's totally valid. He said, “I am looking at your driver's license on this website. Unfortunately, it does look like this was sold to this individual.” Now that I knew that, it was just really following this man's jail journey. And for a span of a month to two months to three months, he was transported to four different places. And she did this at all four facilities. He was going back and forth for bench warrants.

Just some other things he needed to take care of in the county. I was keeping up with it during, or with it, on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website, because you can search any inmate and you can find what facility they're at. Needless to say, I just became overly obsessed with my situation. I feel as if anybody would. I know during that first week, whenever I got that letter that she had been using, or that he put me down as his girlfriend, I probably made 50 phone calls and it became like my second full-time job.

After I met with the lieutenant, after my mom met with him, he said, “I'm going to open up an investigation in our county. I highly suggest that you stay in contact with the three other police departments that are involved, report everything to us.” I have four different investigators essentially on one giant Gmail thread. I mean, it's insane. It is, like, 80 messages at this point of just me and them just going back and forth about things that she's doing, things that I'm noticing.

That weekend I go home because—and home for me is two hours east. I go home and I'm just, my brain is just fried at this point. But something was telling me to just pull my credit report again. I typically pulled it every month after the car break-in just to make sure. Something was just telling me to pull it one more time. I pull it one more time and lo and behold, I see the phone numbers that the police did not give me.

I see the two phone numbers that are associated with her. And then I see an address, a full address, which I mean, who knows if it's even real at this point. I reverse search those phone numbers and one of them comes back as me.

No. Gee.

One of them comes back as a Verizon mobile phone. And I was like, “Great.” But on the bright side, well, not the bright side, but I have her phone number, not that I was going to reach out to her or anything. I also have an email that she created using my name. What better way to try to search than to look at Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, any social medias. Turns out, I mean, she was opening PayPal accounts in my name, Cash Apps. I mean, she, like, created a Facebook page.

Luckily, no pictures of me were on there, obviously, but it was tied to her number. I mean, you can find out a lot from people's phone number and their email. And I actually got, whenever I was trying to log into PayPal, I did the forgot password thing and it showed me a recovery email address, and it had the first three letters of her name and everything was blanked out.

And by the first three letters of her name—it’s like a woman's name, and it's a very popular woman's name. I was like, “OK, I'm going to guess that that's her name. I don't know, I'm just going to guess.” And so meanwhile, simultaneously, I'm creating portals in every police department to pull files about this man and anything associated with him. The county that I got the letter from, I requested all of the documents from his bookend, from the time he was in jail, anything that has my name on it, I wanted it.

Essentially, is what I'm trying to say with every police department: I wanted anything that had my name on it. I wanted it because I mean, legally, that's mine. That is my driver's license. That is my first and last name. I want to know. Oddly enough, one of the police departments sent me their text messages from jail and I'm reading the text messages. And, of course, some of it's very personal and I avoided that.

I was really just looking for anything to do with me or the addresses or anything like that. Because at the end of the day, this is still somebody's privacy, ironically, but I did find a birthday and I found her full first name. Just the first name, no last name. And so there is a wonderful website—I say that ironically—called mugshots.com. You can look up anybody's mugshot using their first name and the state.

And of course it's going to show you their birthday. I found her. I found her myself. I sent a picture of her to all four in our giant mega thread of Gmail. And I said, “Is this her?” And one of them immediately called me. The other one emailed me back separately and they were like, “Yes, that's her.” I got confirmation that that was her.

We're not telling you that that's her, but we're also not denying that it's her.

No, right. No, like, yes. They were like, “It could be. But you're right on track,” or something like that. They were kind of, they were a little vague about their answer. But I was like, “We know this is her.” Of course, now I have a first and last name. I'm going to social media. I search her Facebook and I am learning everything about her. She is a mom. She has been married, I think, a couple of times.

I'm starting to get to know her as a person. She posted a picture and this man commented underneath it and said something like, “Hey, like, you should hit me up sometime.” And she responded with the phone number that was addressed to me.

No.

I was like, “OK, this is confirmation this is you.” That's all I needed. I just needed the confirmation that this was you and that now the police have vaguely told me that it is you as well. Now I have a face to the person who is stealing my identity. Do you have any questions so far?

It's really an interesting story that you, like, there are multiple steps to this. It's just, like, this recurring, “Oh, I think I've got this taken care of,” and then it bubbles up with, “Oh, here's more information.”

Yes.

Do you know if she was in a relationship with this guy? Was it her boyfriend? And that she just didn't want her identity to be known in contacting him? Or do you think that he was maybe another victim in a different way?

That's a really good question. I—it’s funny now looking back because they are supposedly not together anymore. In the text messages that I got, it appeared that they had a child together. And I won't say too much, but it appears that they were trying to get custody over this child. They had that sort of relationship. It was very sad to read. I just all in all feel really sad for the child in this situation.

They did have that dynamic. I definitely think that her main motive was because she has been in so much trouble with the law that of course she is trying to mask her identity, especially if she's talking to somebody, the father of a child, while he's in a jail system. I think that was kind of her main motivation was just to keep herself private. She is consistently running from the law. She's an out-of-state fugitive.

Once I got her first and last name, I searched everywhere. I went back into the conviction database system. She has been arrested in Texas multiple times. I found the state that she was born in. From the time she was 20, she had been arrested seven times. I think she's just consistently running. I just think that was her main motive was just to keep running and to keep hiding. It's funny while it was not funny, but while he has been in jail and in prison, on her social media, never posted about him.

It doesn't say, like, “in a relationship with blank.” It doesn't say, like—she just keeps it very private.

But now she's in a new relationship and she's posting all about it. I don't know, like, maybe there's a little gray area there between the truth, between that relationship. I mean, there were definitely some questionable texts. I don't know. I would never talk to my significant other in that sort of way. I don't really know.

But I definitely know her main motive was just to keep running from the law. But as far as their relationship goes, it's kind of just like a gray area. Because on one hand, you know, in these texts, you're just waiting for him to come home and all these things, and you guys are going to do better, and you guys are going to stop committing crimes. Literally word for word what they said. She even said over the phone, “Hey, I'm using the Brooklyn account because obviously I can't use my first and last name.” There was a recording of that.

I think…I don't know. Honestly, who knows what their true relationship was like, but he was also questioning her motives outside of him being in jail. What are you doing out there? Who are you with? I don't know, just seems like a lot of drama, but yeah. I don't know if that answers your question.

I mean, this is definitely more complicated than someone was just using, quote unquote, in parentheses, in quotes, using your identity to try to open credit cards and stuff. She was actively, at least in some capacity, trying to live as you for the purposes of deceiving law enforcement and whatnot.

For sure, yeah.

Do you know, was she getting, like trying to—well, and we know she tried to rent a U-Haul as you. Was she also trying to get, like, cell phones—like were the cell phone numbers actually tied to your name? Not just that she had used them on a form, but was the account in your name as well? Do you know?

I actually reached out to Verizon and I asked. I was like, “Hey, here's a phone number,” which I mean, obviously I'm just a regular everyday person. They're not going to give me that much information if I'm not law enforcement, but they looked up my name and they didn't find anything associated with that number to an account linked to me. I will say, though, as recent as of November, this past November, I was going to pay my electricity bill.

I had noticed that I hadn't gotten an email from this electricity company in a long time, and usually I do, like, reminders to pay your bill and whatnot and your wattage usage. You know, all that. And I was like, “Gosh, why haven't I gotten an email from you guys?” I go and I look at my profile and I found her personal, like her real email, underneath my email and the phone number that was associated with me.

I was like, “How is this even, how is this even possible?” And so I guess she signed up using my birthday and maybe my driver's license number, I'm not really sure. I will say now, gosh, I changed my driver's license at least four times during this whole process. One, because I hadn't legally changed my last name yet. After the U-Haul incident, I immediately started that process.

That was one change. The other change was it getting stolen. Then I was able to change my actual driver's license number.

I mean, it was that big of a deal to where I had to change it so many times. I know as far as yeah, the Verizon phone number, they said that it doesn't appear that there's an account in my name, but I mean, she's done it with—I’m sure her electricity and other utility bills using my personal last name because she doesn't want to be found. I mean, and she, of course, has created multiple other accounts in my name, like the jail communication system. You can put money into an inmate's commissary.

All these, all the police departments had told me that she was using a card in my name, but it wasn't on my credit. I didn't recognize it. I'm thinking maybe it's like a prepaid card, or maybe she put me as an authorized user. Again, she's just trying her best to run and hide, so…

And so, has there been any updates of whether she has been caught? If you know that she's getting electric bills in your name, is this sort of like, “Hey, law enforcement, I know where she is now because I'm getting the financial statements,” or not.

OK, yeah, no. In the text messages I received from one of the counties, I sent it to the other police officers. I was like, “Hey, there is an address in here that they talk about that they are updating or that has been updated, or he's needing a new address or something. Maybe this is where she is.” And so moving forward, I just put that address on all of the paperwork.

I will say two of the police departments did issue warrants out for her arrest in regard to my situation. However, she is, again, impossible to locate. I did something I thought I would never be able to do on my own, which was file a civil lawsuit. And I did it. I drafted up the papers. I do not have an attorney. So far, everything's been accepted. I gave them the address that she possibly lives at. I gave them the emails that she was using.

They obviously weren't able to serve her in person. The alternative was I drafted up a settlement agreement. And in a settlement agreement, I said, “I will drop this civil case. Here is where you can find it. Here's the number. If you do the following”—and it was delete all of the accounts—“you have to send me proof that you deleted all of the accounts. You have to mail me back my driver's license.” That was one of my main things. “And you have to mail it back to my work.”

“If you are to breach any of this agreement…”—it’s like I put a certain amount in there anytime it would be breached—“my information, the contract in general…” And I emailed it to her. I emailed it to her, and she responded and signed the letter. I gave her a two-day deadline to do everything in the settlement agreement. She did not. She did not do anything, which I kind of expected when she sent the email back. She didn't say anything at all.

But then again, it's like you signed this agreement, and you're admitting to all these things that you've done. But now, I think my last email, of course I always kept it professional. I never made it emotional. I never was like, oh, it's never threatening, nothing like that. But I was like, “OK, I gave you this deadline, and moving forward, everything's going to move through the court system.” I submitted a motion to enforce the settlement agreement. And it's been approved.

Oh, wow.

And I mean, this has all been recent as of two or three weeks ago. I mean, I'm kind of in a standstill at the moment, which honestly, I feel like if we're speaking more emotionally out of terms as to how this all played out, I think just the number one thing I wanted out of it was just for her to know that I knew everything, and that I did this all my own, like obviously with help. I will be grateful for all the help that I've received, but I know everything now, and it's out there, and I know all the things that you've done.

I mean, the lawsuit clearly states all the accounts. It states time stamps. I mean, everything. I mean, once she looked that up, she would know that I knew everything. And that's mainly what I wanted to get out of this, not money or anything like that. To me, that would have given me a sense of a win, I guess. And then also getting my driver's license back, I think, would probably be the thing that hurts me the most if I never get that back, but I probably won't, so….

Do you know if it was her or the boyfriend? Do you know if it was them that broke into your car? Because you had said they had used the credit cards at the local CVS or whatever it was. Does that match the picture of either of them?

I definitely thought for a little bit that they were the ones that broke into my car. I definitely did. I was like, “I mean, look at this man's record. I mean, he does this for a living. This is all he does. And I mean, she does the same things. This is what she does, too.” I definitely thought that for a long time. And I think the most frustrating part was, yes, while I had an email thread with all these police departments, not all of them were as receptive.

Not all of them were as helpful as they could have been. For example, with my car break-in, they have footage of a couple going into CVS. I just don't understand, why can we not connect these two things together and try to see if those were the people? Why, I don't understand that. And so, no, they have never even tried to associate the car break-in with this couple.

That's also been another frustrating part about this, is that I feel like there were definitely steps that should have been taken that, I mean, this case would have been closed a year ago. But, you know, it doesn't happen like that. Who knows if they were the ones who broke into my car? Again, with the whole getting the email about my driver's license being on the dark web, and then, you know, she bought it. Maybe, I don't know.

Yeah, maybe the break-in had nothing to do with either of them. Maybe she doesn't physically have the card.

Yeah, who knows at this point? She does, I will say, though, she does physically have the card.

OK.

The police department, some of the police departments email me back what they got from the jail communication system. And yeah, you have to take, like, a physical picture of the ID and then also of yourself. But, maybe it's a copy or something. Who knows? But, yeah, no, I don't know if, maybe he broke into the car. Who knows? I don't know.

No evidence specifically one way or the other.

No, right, right.

You're monitoring your credit. What are the steps that you're doing to monitor this ongoing for you?

I think at first, like I said, it became a little obsessive. I would check the jail bookends for every single county that was involved, just hoping that somebody was arrested for this or that she was arrested for this. I would obsessively check my email every, like every minute of every day. I would obsessively check the court systems. I would pay money for pulling more of their criminal records.

I just kept digging and digging and digging into both of these people, essentially, and also just trying to create fake accounts with certain platforms to see if she had created an account in my name. Over time, I've figured that mentally and emotionally that wasn't the best option for me to do. And so now, currently, I do pull my credit report at least once a month. I double-check everything. I dispute everything that looks suspicious or that I don't recognize.

USPS Informed Delivery, I don't think, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't know any of this going on. I think that’s, like, the one that we were talking about, things that we would recommend, and that's definitely one of them, as simple as it is, because I mean, these people do manipulate your address. I mean, they even had—she had even used my address, but had used a different apartment number that wasn't even a unit at my apartment.

You just never know what these people are doing. I would highly recommend just signing up for USPS Informed Delivery. I think it's free. And it takes a picture of everything you're getting. I do check that every morning. That’s, like, the first thing I do. It really does give me a peace of mind. I'm still checking back on some of my utilities just to make sure, but I'm slowly, over time—obviously the situation brought me into a lot of therapy and just a lot of self-help.

I mean, I was having nightmares about this. I was waking up in the middle of the night thinking that she was going to come here and try to do something. I think the less obsessed I became over it, the more effective ways of taking care of myself and my credit and my identity became. I signed up for Aura. I have that. I have Life Lock. I mean, I have a lot of different subscriptions now because of this. And now I just get an alert every time somebody searches my phone number or somebody searches anything, anything at all.

I've created some peace of mind for myself, just monitoring it, but not becoming overly obsessed because it can really damage who you are and affect you in a negative way—more than just financially and credit-wise.

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely—I can see the challenges of when people are a victim of, let's say, a romance scam. “Now I don't trust anybody.” Or, I'm a victim of identity theft. “Now I have this need to make sure that it's just not continuing elsewhere,” particularly when it wasn't just a, “Well, they stole my credit cards, used them, I canceled them, and then it was gone.” Now you actually have someone using, actually pretending to be you. I can't imagine the sense of, like, the violation of that, like, someone's pretending to be me, not just using a stolen credit card.

Right, I mean, she has gone as far to dye her hair like mine, I'm not kidding. It's so interesting. I mean, she, I wish I could show you the pictures of how she edited herself with some of my features on her face. And then in a sense, you kind of get, like, offended. “Why are you trying to be me? Why are you trying to be me?”

And I think what else I realized she was using my maiden name, right? I mean, the picture of me on that driver's license from when I was 18. Just a newly adult, I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea what life was going to look like for me. I was going through such a hard time in high school and then in college. I just look at her, I look at myself, that 18-year-old self, and I'm like, “I can't believe this is happening to you.”

This woman is looking at you and she's totally fine with just violating you and using your information. It's just like while I'm married and, like, I have a new name, I have a new life. I guess you could say it is like I am mourning that person almost every day. It really does upset me that, at the end of the day, she doesn't care about me. She doesn't care about me as a person and that's OK. I know why she's doing it, you know, I don't know.

It's just, I've had to come to terms with a lot of things. And I think one of the main ones was, how can a woman do this to another woman? Especially during these times, like, we should be leaning on each other in these dark, scary times. You're just being stupid with it. And it just is so violating.

Is there a point on the horizon for you where you can see like, “OK, I'm done. I can walk away that, like, this is not going to, this will be part of my past, but not part of my present”?

Yes, I see the light at the end of the tunnel right now. I feel like we are moving out of this area. It felt like I was going to the scene of the crime every day I would get in my car, every day. It just never got out of my mind. Even still to this day, like on my car passenger window, you can see where they took a screw. It's just been so uncomfortable being here. It's affected my work life as well.

It's made me question the career path I've taken. It's made me question who I am as a person. God bless my hairdresser because we did so many different things to my hair because I was so pissed off about the situation. Different hair links, different cuts, like everything. It just felt like I had to change myself. I just feel so trapped. I think once we move out of this area and, you know, we're in a different environment, and once I can say that I have done everything I absolutely can to alleviate the situation, I think I'll feel a lot better.

I think that timing is everything. For a long time, I couldn't even share the story without getting so worked up over it and just so emotional. I think that this right here is just my, one of my steps as to saying like, “You know what? Now you can tell it. Now you can tell it and it's not affecting you as it previously did. And you're sleeping better at night. You're not as anxious anymore.” I mean, yes, while I'm still finding some things out that she had been doing, it's frustrating.

I mean, every day felt like doomsday during that awful period of time where I did find out everything, but it's becoming less and less and less. And hopefully, now that she knows that I know everything, and that I'm serious, and I'm not an idiot, and I'm not the 18-year-old girl that you are looking at every day using her identity, she'll stop, or somehow, I don't know. I don’t know, I think that it's coming. I feel like my time is coming to where I can finally let this go and sharing my story was one of those steps.

Seeing where this lawsuit goes was also one of those steps. The fact that I have done most of this myself, like, I am proud of myself. I feel like I should be. For a long time, it just felt like, “Why should I be doing this? You should be the one taking all these accounts down. You should be the one that's reversing all the damage that you've done.” And that's why I wrote it in the settlement because I was like, no, like I should get something back from that. And you know what? Maybe I never will.

But I think if I get anything out of this, I become a better person. I become a better adult and just know that deep in my heart, I'm never going to be a person like that.

I love it. I super appreciate you sharing your story. I know that, like, this is the first time that you've shared it in one block before. I know that there's this, when people have been a victim of a crime, there is a certain amount of self-doubt and whatever, and I don’t understand why we have, why we feel shame when we're a victim of a crime. I don't understand. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I don't understand that mechanism.

But I appreciate you kind of taking power over the circumstances and say, “No, this is not going to define who I am. This is just an episode of my life and it will become part of my past. And I get to move on with it and she'll have to deal with the consequences at some point in her life that you have to.”

Yeah, no, for sure. I, yeah, no. And I do catch myself sometimes, like, thinking about her, just as a person, someone being consistently scared and somebody living in fear. Clearly I know what that's like now, but for her, that's every day. She's just irresponsible and she's consistently running from law enforcement. I couldn't imagine living a life like that either, you know, and I know she has kids too.

I know that at the end of the day, she does want something. It's obvious that she is sad and she wants something out of her life. I just hope that the kids are protected. I mean, that's really my hope for her. But yeah, and no, I hope that my sharing my story that maybe it gave some people a little bit of insight or tips and tricks that I have learned, especially nowadays, because kind of like how I shared with you before.

I just think of people who don't look like me and don't sound like me, when in their interactions with law enforcement, like would they have had as much help? Maybe not. I feel like sharing some of my tips and tricks and insider—not insider knowledge—but would help people, anybody in that sort of way. I also think of elderly people that this happens to all the time. Unfortunately, this is normal and hopefully one day, it won't be.

I know with the USPS, like the Informed Delivery, it's important to claim that, to be the first person to claim it for your address. Because I think if you're not, there are difficulties, like they assume that, “Well, you must not be the real person if you're the second person to try to do it.”

If you have, for the listeners, if you haven't done it and you're in the US, that's something to do. UPS and FedEx will also do—you can do the same sort of thing with them and they will let you know when packages are going to show up and all that kind of stuff. Just on a recent episode with Axton Betz-Hamilton, she talked about—there is a system called, like, when we look for jobs, there's an E-Verify system.

Yes, yeah.

There is a way that you can actually freeze your identity with the E-Verify system as well. That way, people can't use your ID, your Social Security number, to gain unemployment. I don't, I haven't looked at the mechanism yet, but that's something that the listeners can do to stop, to help stop. There's also a same kind of equivalent system for checking accounts that the banks use, that you can say, like this driver's license can't be used, or this ID can't be used to open bank accounts.

And so there are, thankfully some systems out there, because like we were talking about filing tax returns. OK, you could freeze, like, your federal tax, but like, OK, you could—I live in California. I can figure out how to stop taxes and some filing taxes in California on my behalf, but what about the other 49 states?

No, right, yes. No, I was just talking to my husband about that, because I mean, it's tax return season and I was filling out my side of things. And one of the questions was like, “Have either of you been a victim of identity theft?” And obviously I clicked yes. And it was like, “OK, like, do you want to create an identity theft ID PIN” or something? I forgot what it was specifically called, but I mean, the IRS also does that for you too, while you're filing your taxes. I found that out and I'm going to be using that probably for the rest of my life.

And the weird thing is it's only valid for a year.

Oh, really?

Every year you have to get a new PIN. You have to go through the process every—I guess you don't have to get a different number, but you'd have to go through the process every year, which is its own, like, “Really? Why can't I just, you know, freeze it?”

Or why can't people just leave me alone? That too.

Why can't people just stop stealing my identity? Awesome. Brooklyn, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story today.

Yes, no, thank you so much for having me.