Kathleen Trumbauer crunches numbers for a living. But the all-important social security numbers belonging to her and her husband were stolen by thieves. She found out when she called the IRS.
"Both of our names and socials had been used to file a tax return for 2013," said Trumbauer. "Now, I never file until October. So I know we did not file a tax return."
But they did send their children to Bishop Blanchet High School -- their daughter is a senior there now -- and volunteered at Catholic Schools.
It took three tries but the IRS accepted the fraudulent tax return. The crooks used the couple's true names.
"They did," said Trumbauer. "But they paired us with different spouses."
KIRO 7 first revealed social security numbers and other private information the archdiocese uses to do background checks had been breached; exposing tens of thousands of people to fraud.
"There's been so much hacking and so many different things they're just so good and they're just looking to find what they can get into," said Ron Hawk, parent of a Blanchet freshman. "And that's all I've seen."
"You haven't checked on yourself?" the reporter asked.
"No," Hawk said. "I'm going to, though."
This couldn't have come at a worse time for a busy accountant, during tax season.
"Yes, it's a big problem," Trumbauer.
She is telling her worried clients to do what she did: call the IRS fraud hotline and all financial institutions they do business with to find out if they, too, are victims.
KIRO
