Don’t laugh too hard on the police report. It’s usually required for any insurance claims that result from identity theft, and if someone is being targeted the first incident usually isn’t the last.
In your case I doubt you’re being targeted. But just mentioning it because the targeted folks I’ve helped clean up machines that are infected with crap, etc... had to show a pattern of behavior from the criminal. So the first police report wasn’t useless. Or the fifth. Or the tenth.
Useless as far as the police actually catching the criminal, definitely. Not useless for their coverage.
Many homeowners insurance policies and renters policies now include some low dollar amount ID theft coverage at no additional cost. Worth a look at your policy. Even if you don’t have an ID theft specific coverage policy.
I’d be with you on paper and pen coming back for everything but every telephone is now a check cashing device.
All someone has to do is steal the paper checks or make reasonable fakes of yours and shoot a cell phone photo of one filled out. The bank won’t bother to look at your signature or anything like that until you call and say your account is lower than it should be.
People don’t notice until they reconcile their statements. Or, you’re a smart monkey and you have an alert set for ANY transaction above $0.00 and keep an eye on them.
There’s pretty much no getting away from the stupidity of electronic banking at this point. Withdrawing too much cash triggers mandatory reporting to the gub’mint too. They don’t like people having cash.
