What do you do about dishonest family?

[Iggy]

I have spoken many times on the cellar about the problems I have had with my sister. I think it is time I got some more advice on her from the wise dwellers.
And after rereading this, things seem scatter-brained. I apologize for that. It is hard to make sure the story makes sense to those not going through it.

First, some background for those not familiar with my problems. My sister (Nicole) is a drug addict that steals anything that is not nailed down. She had stolen pain medication from my now deceased grandfather and forced him to go through the morphine withdrawal along with the pain it was covering up just so she could get a fix. By the way, the reason he had to wait was he had just gotten his prescription refilled and had to wait 3 days before they would give him more because the doctor was unavailable.

Family obviously means nothing to her. Just this past May she stole my digital camera and traded it for drugs. She had asked to borrow it and I said no. So she took it instead. She was constantly stealing random things like shoes and clothes from me too. I was living with my grandmother to help out, and I have since been forced to move out because I could not keep anything while I was there.

I had moved into my grandparent’s house in August of 2004 because my grandfather was dying and my grandmother needed the help. It also served the purpose of letting me save some money so that I could go to college. (A little more info on the school problem here and here )

I just moved out of her house at the beginning of this October because of the things that had constantly come up missing. Plus that is when I finally had the money and time to rent a U-Haul to move my stuff. Before I moved in with them in August of 2004 I lived with my SO. Now that I moved out again I live with him again. (We have been together for 4 years as of November 13th of this year.)

Ok, now onto the advice. Just this past Sunday I discovered that she had basically stolen one of my credit cards and racked up around $350 on it. As I was still in the process of changing my address with a few places the bill (for a department store credit card) was mailed to my grandmother. At the time I wasn’t too concerned with this as I always paid it online and didn’t need the paper bill. At the time I did not even consider that my sister might do something sinister with it if she got a hold of it.

Apparently when she saw my bill she decided it was time to get back at me. (I had called the police on her last year because she had an outstanding warrant and had been particularly awful at the time. She is still mad at me for that.) She opened the bill and proceeded to call the department store customer service line impersonating me. She told them to add “Nicole” (herself) onto the account and to mail out a new card because “I” had lost it. The card she had canceled was the one in my wallet. When she got the new card in the mail (I should mention that when I moved out of my grandmother’s house she moved in) she went to the store 3 separate times and racked up approximately $350.

What my question is, what should I do now? Obviously she will stoop to nothing to hurt me, which I am sure includes vandalizing my car. I have already called and had a password put on my credit card accounts so that she cannot impersonate me anymore. I am going to call all of the credit bureaus and have a password or secret question put on so that she cannot apply for credit in my name. She knows all of my personal information (including my social security number, I don’t know how she got it) except for my address and I am not listed in the phone book so she can’t look it up.

I am going to speak with my family about this, and we are going to decide together what plan of action we need to take. I might have to not go visit my family if she is there, including holidays. I really do not want to do this but I cannot risk giving her the opportunity to make me a target anymore. I am just at a loss as to what to do. So far nothing I have done has worked, and I don’t know how much my family will be willing to do to help me not be a target.

So, what do you think? What would you do in my situation? I am 22 and she is 24. If you need to know anything else, just ask…