Travis Bates still isn't sure how the suspects got his identity, but when he called an apartment in Cleveland where someone had set up a false telephone account, he was directed to an answering machine.
The message on the machine wasn't his voice, but it used his name and said he and his wife weren't home. The case has not yet been completely resolved.
Bates, a teacher and track coach at Ross High School, is one of more than 200,000 individuals each year who are victims of identity theft. While local authorities said they only have to handle the most serious cases of identity theft once every month or two, the effects on an individual can be tremendous.
