Italy, and beyond... the lobbying that has been done to make identity theft and associated fraud primarily a crime against the institution/business and not you, and the associated implications that you somehow "lost" your identity or failed to protect it (versus the reality, one of those businesses that required that information failed to safeguard it properly) is one of the biggest scams of modern day consumerism.

When I was in the process of buying my home, with perfectly horrible timing something showed up on my credit report, a delinquency and charge off from Verizon of $1,800 or so.

I've never used Verizon. I've been with AT&T for nearly 20 years.

But after calling Verizon to dispute this as identity theft, this is what I learned - that "I" opened a Verizon account at a Walmart in El Paso, and ran up a huge bill calling numbers all around the world.

I live near Seattle. I've been to Texas twice in my life. I was even overseas during part of this alleged activity. I supplied (I shouldn't have to supply all of it, but I did - I needed this resolved because ... mortgage application) police report, travel documents and receipts, hotel overseas, utility bills, AT&T bills.

Verizon's first reply: based on our internal review, we remain satisfied that you are the one responsible for the debt, based on the documentation that was used to open the account.

Me: In that case, I would love to see and be reminded of the documentation I used to open the account, to see if it jogs my memory of some amnesia, apparently.

Verizon: due to customer privacy policy we are unable to show this to you.

Me: "So this documentation is simultaneously enough to prove it really was me, but not enough for you to be satisfied that it may not actually be me and you might be violating some fraudster's identity privacy?"

Basically.

I got it resolved, but it took far too much work.

And all the while, rather than "some company fucked up, and some other company's employee or process didn't catch it", I have to spend hours, and money, demonstrating to some other company that I didn't commit fraud against them, or they can make it impossible for me to buy a house without just paying them the charges someone else incurred.