Keep Track of Everything

I have been MIA for a bit on my blog and this post was not supposed to be my first post back, but I totally must warn everyone that may read this. KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING YOU DO…Literally

Here is my story number 1:

Someone stole my identity. Yep, took my social, my name, my address and bought themselves a nice Mercedes down in Florida. How did I find out? They stopped paying the loan on the car in 2016 and I got letters stating how I owe money and if I don’t pay the car will be taken away. I thought of it as a scam and did nothing about it. Fast-forward to now, me and my husband have been trying to finance a car as we were in desperate need of a car. We have the car, we leased it BUT it has been a real struggle. First, our bank, whom we have an account with for a long time denied us a loan. So we check our credit scores, and there it is, mine is pretty low due to unpaid car loan!!! Yep, the Mercedes. WOW

Then we also got denied for a lease with Nissan, we did end up getting a lease with a Honda but I was so upset with the entire situation. I am in the midst of straightening the mess up, I already filed a police report so everything is in the motion of getting fixed but I am still mad at myself! I should have taken more action the first time I received anything that said I owe money. It would have saved me all this heartache and headache it caused me and my husband to get this car.

Story number 2:

Remember that IRS will never call you to tell you that you owe money. They will send mail first. Plus if you file your taxes and pay on time then you shouldn’t even worry about anything.

Just today I received a phone call that was a scam. I wasn’t too worried because I knew that I filed my taxes on time, paid everything on time, in fact this year we got a return so I didn’t owe anything to IRS. I didn’t get to pick up the phone and I only listed to the voicemail. The voicemail is an automated message stating that there is a lawsuit against me due to tax fraud and that I should contact them as soon as possible to rectify the situation.

I did call, but I did not call that number, I called the IRS 1 800 number that i have found on the IRS website. Keep in mind that the only irs web to use is, irs.gov as there are other websites claiming to be the irs. In fact, remember that EVERY Government agencies website has to end with .gov, that’s how you can authenticate a government agency. Don’t fall for these schemers out there, and always double check your sources.

Story number 3:

With the above car pursuit I also needed to get an insurance policy for the car needed. I thought since I am already on a policy with Allstate with my parents then Allstate will treat me better as their customer. They quoted me over $300/month to insure the car. I wasn’t too comfortable with paying almost $2,000 for an insurance policy for 6 months and my friend also told me that she is paying much less with Progressive. So we called Progressive and bingo, I am now paying $153 a month for my policy, that’s less than a thousand for six months.

The moral of this story is, don’t settle for the first quote you get! Always shop around, especially with insurance. They don’t have a lot of rules they need to follow and so their prices can range so much, which really is ridiculous.

I am telling you there is a scheme waiting to happen every corner, you need to have your eyes wide open and keep track of everything otherwise it’s easy to fall victim.

Cheers!