“Lisa” writes, “I recently found out that I was a victim of identity theft.” What shocked her, and us as well, is that after Capital One notified her that they’d approved the card with another address, they followed up by sending their fraud claim to the criminal’s address instead of Lisa’s.

Lil ole me. A twenty-seven year old female, simply a poor writer in LA.

Capital One Bank– while I appreciate them sending me a letter telling me they sent a credit card to someone with my SS# yet a different spelling of my name AND address than what is on my records at all three Credit Bureaus– why ON EARTH would they still send out a card?

I called Capital One immediately and successfully prevented the criminal from getting that MasterCard card approved. They went ahead and froze the account. After reporting this to Capital One, they send a fraud claim not to me, the victim, but idiotically to the CRIMINAL who stole my identity. This, in turn, alerted the thief (thieves) to take quicker actions with fraudulently using my identity.

This was an act of negligence as well as an unsavory business practice on Capital One’s behalf. Capital One Bank has obstructed the law by aiding these identity thieves who are involved with a federal offense.

I mean, wouldn’t it make sense for Capital One (and ALL creditors) to make it a company-wide, mandatory practice to alert the customer BEFORE processing ANY requests with mismatched information from the credit bureaus?

So, I called the Social Security and the Credit Bureaus to put a Fraud Alert on all accounts. Then, the LAPD. Capital One was “gracious” enough to give me the address that the criminal used– [redacted]. And courtesy of the White Pages, the residence of one Magdalena C.

What do I do now? Wait until the LAPD finds her? Call the cops on her? I mean, have they thought of looking this woman up on http://www.whitepages.com? The internet make identity theft so easy, and perhaps catching the criminals easier too.

I hope this Magdelena C. gets locked up for a LONG time.

Sincerely,
A Victim of Identity Theft

We agree that Capital One showed some extra special incompetence there with the fraud claim form. Maybe you should report what happened to the FBI too—that’s a link to their local office locator.

Update: As our editor Ben Popken and some of our readers point out in the comments below, there are a few other things you should do, Lisa, to protect yourself.

• Place a freeze on your credit reports. A fraud alert won’t necessarily prevent future abuse. A freeze will.
• File a report with the FTC’s ID Theft Hotline: 1-877-IDTHEFT (438-4338) or http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx
• And make sure you filed an actual police report with the LAPD if you haven’t already.

(Photo: Getty)

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