Chasing Thieves tells the true story of how I overcame identity theft to catch the criminal and recover from the personal and financial trauma that turned my life upside down.
Every year hundreds of thousands of Americans become the victims of identity theft. In most cases the thief is not found; the victim never has the satisfaction of knowing how the thief came to target them. But my story had a very different ending. You may even have heard about it on entertainment news. Chasing Thieves is a chronological account of my identity theft. The book describes all the important events and their emotional and physical effects on me as they occurred. I have included the dates to give the reader a true understanding that identity theft is not a one-time crime; that it ebbs and flows, and continues to linger in the victim’s life long after the money first disappears. My purpose in writing Chasing Thieves is to increase readers’ awareness of the problem so that they will take preventive actions to avoid becoming victims; and to offer guidance on how to respond if they too, are unlucky enough to wake up one day to find that a stranger has substituted him- or herself for you.