The detective told me the credit card application had been submitted using my roommate’s email address, but the verification documents were tied to my identity. Then he told me something I hadn’t known — there had been two earlier applications that were denied. Both had used variations of my information. She hadn’t accidentally opened one card. She’d apparently been trying to get approved for months. The detective asked whether she had ever had access to my driver’s license or tax documents. She had.
I sent him every message she’d ever written about the money. He called me back the next afternoon and said they’d found the same pattern on another person’s credit report. My roommate had been using personal information belonging to people she knew, then moving out before anyone could connect the applications to her. The $6,000 on my card wasn’t even the largest balance they were investigating. When he told me how many accounts were involved, I actually had to sit down.
Then he said something that made me realize why she’d disappeared so quickly. She hadn’t moved out because she was embarrassed. She’d moved because she knew someone was already looking for her. The detective asked if I still had the spare key she’d returned. I did. Apparently, she’d left behind something in the apartment that connected her directly to several of the applications. I handed it over that evening. A few days later, my lawyer called and said the bank had frozen the account and removed the charges from my name pending the investigation. For the first time since she left, I stopped wondering whether I’d overreacted. I hadn’t. I had simply been the person who finally reported what she’d been doing.
