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Atlanta city employees say their identities were stolen

ATLANTA — Atlanta city officials have launched an investigation after receiving numerous complaints from employees that their identity was stolen.

Armajean Lovett told Channel 2’s Dave Huddleston that someone stole her identity. She said she found out about the problem when she tried to file her income tax return. This year, instead of mailing or passing out employees’ W2 forms, they received them online. Lovett said she wonders if that’s the problem.

“When you had to go on there [the computer] and log in and pull them off, some had already gotten my identity,” Lovett said.

Clinton Marshall said the same thing happened to him.

"I didn't say anything to the city because I thought it was an outside affair,” Marshall said.

City officials are so concerned that the interim chief operating officer sent employees this memo that reads:

The City's Department of Law has opened an investigation in an effort to determine if any ID theft occurred.  If you believe someone may have used your social security number to file a fraudulent tax return, please notify the IRS immediately.  You will need to fill out the IRS identity theft affidavit form 14039.  Any employees impacted should contact chief compliance officer Jeffrey Norman at 404-330-6462.

The commissioner of human resources Yvonne Yancy said there could be more victims out there, but so far about 30 workers have been affected out of thousands of city employees.