Fraudulent account opened/billed in my name, need insight on fraud issues

Factual Questions
1

I received a bill just a week ago forwarded from the post office for an account from PeoplePC (some discount internet service provider) that i never opened. It lists chargebacks on a Visa card and is billing me for the service. I tried calling to have it cancelled/taken care of and each time I am unable to do anything because I do not know the phone number that was used to open the account, the email address used to open the account, and the secret security question. I was directed to write a letter directly to corporate which I was told will take a few weeks to receive a reply. I am about to do that now.

My question is… if I ignore this, or if PeoplePC does not believe me, does PeoplePC have the right to send the bill to collections (or related) and have it officially show up on my credit history? I would like to avoid having to plead my case in this instance but do I have no case to defend myself if this happens?

And generally:
Is it really this easy to open accounts in someone’s name to ruin/cause trouble to them?

Is there anyway to protect myself from this?

I was lucky the post office forwarded the mail to me but I wonder if there is possibly any other accounts, from other companies, to addresses that will not reach my attention. How do I find this out?

The stupidest part of this is I couldnt even have the service suspended or cancelled while disputing this because I couldnt verify the information when the account was opened. Lovely eh? Thanks in advance.

2

Start Here and get your free credit report. I would just take one of them. You get one free from each company each year. So if you take one every four months you can actaully see your credit report quarterly instaed of yearly. OTOH if there’s an issue, you might want to get the other two as well right away. I would also send in the letter like they told you to and start documenting EVERYTHING you are told as well as the date and who you talked to, also keep copies of all correspondence. Oh…and don’t pay the bill. You might also want to keep calling, give them YOUR phone number/name etc and when they say that it doesn’t pull up an account, ask them why you got a bill.

3

Take it to the police and file a fraud complaint.

4

Experian fraud victim’s assistance:
Do file a police report.