Inconvenience

I was going through finances, which I periodically do, not to reconcile but to see what else I can buy. Usually I just get the balances and add and subtract to get the total negative or positive. I'm precise like that. However I looked at cancelled checks and found that there was more than $1000 worth of checks with someone else's name but our account number. Things like $350 to Dollar Tree. What, did they buy the whole store? How annoying! So I was on the phone with the bank for a lot of the afternoon, called the police who came to my house to file a report, changed my checking account number (which will still require a lot of work to change the automatic payments that are in place), ordered checks and put a stop on all checks to the old account. I heard that with the economic hard times that identity theft increases but I didn't take it very seriously. Now I feel like we should check our credit to see if cards are taken out under our name. And I am determined to lock up or shred anything that could give access to vital information. I am too casual in leaving check books out and throwing away statements. So there you have it, an annoying inconvenience that has taken up most of my afternoon and a lot of my available balance.