Victim of Identity Theft at the Age of Three Weeks



And now at the ripe old age of five months, little baby Andrew is
getting bills sent to him for the medical treatment somebody managed to
get under his name.

Wow! That will make one hell of a page in his baby book.


Bo Raxo

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=155878&page=1

BOTHELL, Wash., Oct. 12, 2004 - Andrew is a healthy 5-month-old, but
according to bill collectors, just three weeks after he was born he
walked into an Edmonds family clinic on his own, got treated for a
lumbar disc displacement and was given a narcotic to help ease the
pain.


His mother and father got a $94 bill in the mail for the treatment and
prescription.

"To receive the mail with his name on it was very bizarre," his mother,
Katrina, told ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle.


It is bizarre, and Andrew may be the youngest person ever to become a
victim of identity theft.

He didn't even have a Social Security number, but someone used his
first and middle names - though without the "w" in Andrew -
included his correct mailing address, and got the clinic to prescribe
them drugs.


"As a parent you feel violated when your child ... all you want to do
as a parent is protect your child. And to find somebody has taken
advantage of a 3-week-old baby is hard to understand," Andrew's father,
John, told KOMO-TV.


They don't understand how it could have happened, but what they and
police believe is that someone might have lifted Andrew's information
from the hospital in Kirkland where he was born, and that bothers this
family even more, because of the amount of information that was
available from hospital records.


"Not only the child's name - first, middle and last - but the
parents', plus the parents' Social Security numbers and mother's maiden
name for each of us," said John. "Everything needed to establish a fake
ID."

Police in Edmonds said they are following strong leads.


The $94 bill Andrew got with a tersely written message that the account
would soon go to a collection agency has since been dismissed. And
though Edmonds police said they have identified a suspect in the case,
they have not yet arrested or found the person.

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