Do I have a Lawsuit case?

[jason_grumpy]

I'm sure we have some lawyers around here.

Backstory:

Late December of last year my identity was stolen. The only place that I can think of that it was stolen from was my previous enrollment at ITT.

I caught the initial act by my cell phone provider thanking me for adding a new phone line (that wasn't mine). Subsequently during this time I issued fraud reports through the major credit agencies, and also filed a police report. Also, I ran my credit report instantly and saw several other cell phone accounts opened under my name and closed them as fraudulent.

Fast forward to now, September 2007.

Today I had the pleasure of reading a letter from one of my creditors stating my credit limit was reduced and my APR raised because of an excessively overdue bill on my credit report. Running my credit report again, I see a collections notice for $568.92 by Verizon opened in December of 2006. Not to mention I saw an excessive drop in my credit score, so bad it has slammed me back down in the low 500's. I've spent the past 2 years building it up into the lower 700's to buy a house from an excessive spending in my young adult years. This is disheartening and devastating to say the least.

After spending the last several hours on the phone with Verizon, I found out the people responsible used a variant of my name not once but twice since December of 2006 in a town less than 40 miles away (and the same town I went to ITT). They had paid the first past due account in full, then the second one was created with a new variant of my name and the same address. This account is the one they let go delinquent and is now on my credit report as a collection. This baffles me as I have had a Verizon land line account for the past 7 years with my correct name and address and have worked at the same place for over 2 years. A simple cross check of my social security number alone would have stated that I already had phone service in another town, with a different name spelling and a frresh fraud alert should have raised red flags.

With Verizon screwing my credit royally, not to mention the countless hours I've spent on this, do I have a case against Verizon for negligence and dinging my credit? I am seriously considering calling a lawyer over this, as I'm the one that has to fix this all by myself. This is Verizon's fault for letting it happen to begin with. I am sick of dealing with this, and in this case Verizon ignored my real account (not notifying me), and my fraud alerts. I've already filed a police report with my local sheriffs office for this specific fraud and opened an account with life lock. Do I have a case against Verizon?

Also, if they find the persons responsible for this (as they used a home address for the phone line), can I criminally persecute them and also file a lawsuit? I'm generally a nice guy, have never bothered anyone or filed a lawsuit, but enough's enough.