In case you need another compelling reason to get Lifelock’s services, I’ve got one for you today. You’ve already heard about stolen laptops, Chilean hackers, and universities coughing up your personal data. But from our “random” file today we have someone who committed ID theft for…prescription drugs. I thought I had heard them all by now but I was apparently wrong.

This is a particularly interesting case because it wasn’t just the individual whose identity was stolen that was defrauded; the state was also on the line for about $20,000 worth of services provided to the wrong person. Apparently the fraud was instigated by the perpetrator by essentially doing the same things as the person from whom they stole the identity: going to the same appointments, getting the same medicines. It’s frighteningly simple and it was only discovered when the state realized it was double paying for the exact same services all scheduled on the exact same day. Good catch State of Washington! Unfortunately, when it was all said and done, the woman had defrauded the state for over $180,000 due to the cost of the medicines. Ouch. Apparently most of the costs incurred were with the Health Provider so they were on the hook for over $150k of it.

The 48-year-old woman was booked into the Snohomish County Jail just before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday for investigation of seven counts of first-degree theft, two counts of second-degree theft, six counts of forgery, first-degree identity theft and drug violations.

Those are some pretty hefty charges. I’d be curious to know how they’re handling the drug violations–simple possession? If there were seven counts of theft, I would have to assume she went on seven visits to the hospital–maybe the State of Washington wasn’t so great after all if it took seven tries of duplicate entries for them to be caught. I’d also like to know what kind of drugs they were–I’d of course guess painkillers but only because I can’t imagine someone stealing antibiotics for that long.

There aren’t many cases like this but it looks like the individual whose identity was stolen suffered no personal loss of anything and wasn’t personally defrauded out of any money. I guess that’s a small silver lining but regardless that’s pretty rare; most people aren’t nearly that lucky.