Advice: Don't Try To Open A JC Penney Account With The Person You're ID Thefting
Did you hear about the identity thief in Seattle who tried to open a JC Penney credit card account with one of the very women whose identity she had stolen?
The Seattle Times reports that the (tall) Federal agents had shown identity theft victim Michelle McCambridge a surveillance photo of the woman who stole her identity. Michelle didn't recognize the lady then, but she sure did when the lady came up to the counter where Michelle worked at JC Penney and tried to sign up for a credit card.
Michelle stepped away and made sure the manager got an image of the lady and reported it to law enforcement. Because of her cool thinking, she helped law enforcement apprehend the woman and four others who were part of an id theft ring that had defrauded at least 39 people.
The key in cracking the case, authorities say, was that Michelle and other victims got active in their cases and contacted the stores to make sure they saved their security tapes.
That doesn't happen very often, [Agent Velling] said. Usually, people just file a police report, cancel their accounts, and the cases languish for lack of evidence and resources.
"Identity-theft crimes are some of the most difficult criminal cases to investigate," Velling said.
Identity-theft victim meets her identity thief [The Seattle Times] (Photo: XISMZERO)
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Comments:
@Shaggy: Yeah, I was under the impression that the police would contact each of the stores to get a hold of those security tapes.
You know, I am glad to hear she caught the person. But that cop's statement is horseshit.
My girlfriend's ATM card was skimmed at a local gas station. We always use the same businesses and the one time we went somewhere new her card was cloned within an hour
We contacted the police and BofA and were on top of it. BofA was actually helpfull and gave us times and locations of withdrawls.
We added the times and locations of the withdrawls to the police report and like her, we also called the 7-11s and asked them to retain the tapes from those times. The managers were responsive and hurridley pulled the tapes and set them aside saying they'd be expecting the cops.
We also explained everywhere we took the card the previous day and said they should look at the store we questioned as being the only new varriable.
The police never worked the leads given, and never returned phone calls. AND HER BROTHER IS A COP!
They just really could give two shits about ID and ATM theft. Carry cash people, if you go somewhere that needs to take your card any further than the register screen you're standing at or needs to type in the card because "the machine's busted" take your card and walk away.
I don't know if it's that they're tall, or just that the woman's short. I'm betting it's the latter.
@Shaggy: Yes, and instead of investigating crimes, we have cops sitting in empty parking lots hoping to catch someone speeding down a nearly empty street.
@Shaggy: Uggh, yea and the criminals are out their moving on to their next victim. That's why identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the nation for so many years running... criminals are hardly ever caught - and when they are they usually go with a slap in the wrist. Either way, they're back at it in no time. Such a shame.
@Shaggy: My guess is that most stores would not save the security tape without some sort of subpoena.
Difficult to investigate? My take from people I know is that police don't consider this a high enough priority. I know someone whose credit card was stolen and the police did far less than he did to figure this out.
You must be at least this tall -------------------------------------------------
to work at the FBI's Seattle office.
Yeah, my SSN was stolen last spring. I called all the retailers, they said they'd save the evidence, I filed a police report.
No one from the police ever contacted me again. When I called them I was told that the detective on the case would call back. Never happened. I've given up on them catching whoever did it, I'm just glad I've got things mostly taken care of.
@KingPsyz here for HappyFunKingPsyz©: Truth. Because cops care more about the shooting down the street, or the guy beating his wife. Money is replaceable and cops don't care what happens to yours.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to be in fear of ever using a card again - just realize that if it happens, you're not going to catch anyone and the cops won't actively investigate your case.
@Shaggy: i think it's one of those jurisdictional nightmare crimes. identity theft is a federal crime. the secret service guys I know love working those crimes because they can see the human victims as opposed to the normal treasury enforcement stuff.
@samurailynn: Exactly. Cops are nothing more then glorified taxmen anymore. Catching real criminals cost more money then they bring in, in the long run. Speeders are quick to fill the coffers.
This is why cops suck.
This needs an "epic fail" tag.
@KingPsyz here for HappyFunKingPsyz©: And pre-ATMs, they didn't care about your stolen credit card. And neither did the stores.
I had my wallet stolen out of my desk drawer about 20 years ago. Lost about $60, a brand-new monthly train pass, and all my credit cards. Stopped the cards within an hour. Reported the loss to the police. When the banks told me where my credit cards had been used, I passed that along to the police, and got no response - essentially because my loss was low (at least to them - a $200 train pass and $60 in cash was painful to me).
Then went into the stores where the cards had been used and talked to the managers. Since the credit card companies would pay them for the purchases, even though they'd been taken off my bill, they really didn't care. They hadn't lost anything.
My wife had her ID stolen, and it was a harrowing experience for her. I can understand why people just want to move on with their lives.
Ours was slightly worse, as the ID theft resulted in the IRS coming after my wife, and dealing with them is an absolute nightmare, and they really were not very helpful during the ordeal.
The readers digest version.. We live in MD, not too far from Baltimore. Some lady in Baltimore used my wifes name and social security to sign up for Pre Paid Legal (yes, the semi legal pyramid scheme), and generated about $10k in commission (apparently the ID thief was a good sales woman). Pre Paid legal report all commissions to the IRS, and of course the ID thief did not pay the taxes, they came after my wife. We contacted the IRS, they told us to file a police report, the police told us to file an FTC report first, but they wanted us to contact Social Security Services first (they were an absolute nightmare and made my wife cry on a few occasions, and they would not talk to me when I tried to deal with the issue for my wife).
Once we got all that taken care off, we contacted the IRS and the problem went away, but that took nearly 4 months, 4 months of dealing with the IRS, FTC, SSS and the police, who appeared to not really be interested, and only filed the report because we needed it for the other agencies.
I did try to contact Pre Paid legal, to get some information, they of course wanted a court order, big surprise, and the only information I wanted, was where the check they mailed out was cashed, so we could contact the bank and hopefully catch the person. In the end, the IRS went away, but the police never followed up, and we have no real resolution to the problem, someone has my wifes ID, so now we watch out credit closely. The individual seems slightly smarter then the average ID thief, having not used the ID to open up credit or buy things, and we never would have caught on had the IRS not come after us....
Woah, I just got image-smacked with the Hampshire Mall JCP...
There aren't enough brick-encrusted ficus trees to take away the depressing that is that mall.
@samurailynn: The cops make money catching speeders. They don't make money for catching ID theives, rapists, murderers, etc, so they're not out there actively looking for them.
@techstar25: Wait, is that when your comment is at the bottom of my screen, or do I scroll down so that it's at the top? These details are important.
@veg-o-matic: Dead Mall FTW!
Seriously though. I didn't even have to look at that picture for a half a second before I knew exactly where it was. Way to go, Hadley.
@KingPsyz here for HappyFunKingPsyz©: Within the past year, my fiancée's debit card number was stolen by a thief who made a replica of the card. Even though Bank of America told her that the thieves made purchases in a Wal-Mart in Arlington, TX (~40 mi. from us), the police refused to so much as call that store and request the video tapes. We were even told by the reporting officer that identity theft normally doesn’t generate any activity, even when the thief’s activity is known.
What’s the point of reporting identity theft if situations like the OP’s are the only ones in which justice is served?
@Shaggy: It's not their job, that's just what they want you to think. It's their job to keep us in line, anything else they decide to do is only for appearances.
"The key in cracking the case, authorities say, was that Michelle and other victims got active in their cases and contacted the stores to make sure they saved their security tapes."
I thought most stores told victims to scram as only the police (previously documented as not giving a $%!# about ID theft) could request the tapes and the police usually didn't get the tapes...
@Shaggy: "it's the police's job to investigate crime, and not the general public."
What does that even mean? ID theft is not a crime?
My wife, who is now 34, had her social security number stolen when she was 12, files a police report years ago and has never been contacted. I'd say about every 6 months we STILL get collection notices in the mail looking for payment on something or other. The person even uses a different name with the SS# but they still come after my wife. Kinda made it hard to buy our 1st house 11 years ago.
@Shaggy: Yeah, like they'll do that.
The one time I was the victim of identity theft, my credit card number was stolen by a room service employee at a downtown St. Louis hotel where I was a longtime guest. Typical dumb crook story; the first thing he did with the card was buy airline tickets in his own name, then charged up a bunch of phone sex until the credit card company recognized that something was wrong and shut down the card.
So the hotel management and I knew who did it, and how. You'd think the St. Louis police would be all over that, but they didn't even want to touch it unless I could prove to them that the phone calls the dirtbag made to the airline and the 900 number were made from within their jurisdiction. The fact that the card number itself was clearly stolen within their jurisdiction didn't matter to them at all; from their point of view no crime was committed until he used it, and it was up to me to show them it was their problem.
Fortunately the Adam's Mark hotel management took over at that point, and was somehow able to show the police that at least one of those calls took place from the hotel. The cops asked the hotel to keep the guy there the next time he showed up for his check, but apparently he smelled something was up and split before they could arrive.
The Adam's Mark was really up front about handling it with me, by the way. They took ownership of the problem, made sure my credit card company was notified of everything that was going on, made profuse apologies, gave me a nice discount on the rest of my time there (which alone saved me probably over $1000), and paid for dinner for two at their four-star restaurant. In the end it not only cost me nothing, it worked out to my benefit. If they were still in business in St. Louis I'd recommend them, but they aren't.
@AstroPig7:
That officer was pointing out a hot tip for our hard economic times!
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Signed,
AstroPig7
Just another story on how our flawed system fails us and lets crimonals making life harder on us. We cant fix the problem because the only person not being bought off by the banks and the people in charge of our info is the person that wants to make the change. With so many things needed to fix the system to protect us from id theft I doubt anything substantial will be done in the next 20-30 years.
@sicknick: Well, lets be fair, speeders who get into accidents are pretty dangerous too. The cops wouldn't be relying on the photo radar cash cow if people just didn't speed.
I have to admit though, my local police have flat out admitted photo radar is pretty much just a cash boom for them. The city won't give them enough funding this year, so one of their options is to dramatically increase photo radar to cover the shortfall.
The city won't fund the police department properly and they wonder why they can't find any new officers.
@billy: I guess my post wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is: "ID theft is a crime. It is the police's job to investigate crimes. It is not the victim's job to investigate crimes. In the statement above, Agent Velling implies that victims must get involved in the criminal investigation in order to get justice. While this may be true to a certain extent, victims should not have to the investigative work that the police are supposed to do. This is wrong, and rather insulting."
Better?
And the most incredible thing I learned in the past few years,(After being a victim of credit card fraud), is that it's not even a crime for someone else to steal and use your Social Security #.
That's right..even if you've determined that the guy across town is using your number, the police don't care,it's not a crime on any statute, unless it's being used to perpetrate fraud..then it's an offense.
The argument that was used recently in California was that maybe the person didn't know that it was your SS #, so therefore they couldn't be accused of committing a crime against you. Sheesh..
@billy: It means it shouldn't have taken proactive people getting involved for a case to get solved, I think.
@Megladon: Some people in Washington DC need their identities stolen. That would fix things up quite quickly.
I think the reality is that police departments across the country are under increasing budgetary constraints, and identity theft, much like a drive-off at a gas station, simply does not take priority, given the limited resources available to investigate and prosecute the offenders.
@katre: It seems like filing a police report is essential in the process of getting things taken care of. I had a laptop stolen and until I filed a police report my insurance wouldn't do anything about it.
@jvanbrecht: I guess you could have approached the company with your wife's ID(birth certificate and ssn) and demanded her pay information.
@Shaggy: Even if the cops weren't badly understaffed and underfunded, they still wouldn't be omniscient. While you shouldn't put yourself in reckless danger, anything you can reasonably, safely do to help the investigating officers can only be to your benefit.
@DovS: Except we're not talking about people "helping" the police; we're talking about crime victims doing the investigative work that the police ought to be doing. I'll agree with you that the police aren't omniscient, but they don't need to be; they just need to do their job.
@jvanbrecht: The pattern almost suggests someone working illegally. Need an ID to work, but not looking to have the law come down on her for credit card fraud.
@heltoupee: @bornonbord: What you say is true: I don't pay taxes just to keep the cops in jobs. Their job is public safety, and I'm more safe around someone going 30 in a 25 zone than I am around someone setting off fireworks in dangerous locations on my property. Someone set off a firework on my small enclosed porch, and the police refuse to do anything to investigate who did it because it didn't actually start a fire, even though it could have. What's next - someone does start a fire on my property, but we don't have enough manpower to investigate it because we need to set more speedtraps in old manufacturing neighborhoods?
@KingPsyz here for HappyFunKingPsyz©: i'm sorry to hear the cops blew you off, but be careful not to paint all cops with the same brush. I had a CC opened in my name, and the police were incredibly active and helpful in tracking the guy down. (Amex, on the other hand...)
@Coles_Law: really? Amex has been great for me. I lost my card and someone used it to buy $100 in groceries. Called up Amex right away. They took it off my bill and overnighted me a new card immediately. They didn't even need a police report. They didn't call the store, nothing. I didn't report it to the police, because, 1) they suck, and 2) if someone found a CC and the first thing they do with it is buy groceries, they must've really needed them or they just bought a lot of beer. Either way, since I got my money back, no skin off my nose.
[Amex also credited a discount to my account after a retailer (a large and popular one, I might add) refused to honor it after the order had already been processed.]
Would be interesting to know how they did it in the first place. ATM skimming, garbage sifting, trojans and bot networks, social engineering, etc.
they were an absolute nightmare and made my wife cry on a few occasions, and they would not talk to me when I tried to deal with the issue for my wife
This is where you do all of your contact via mail. You write the letter as if it were from your wife, your wife reads it (to make sure she's satisfied with it) and then just signs it. You can even put your initials at the bottom in lower case to make it all legit. You read all the incoming mail. You refuse phone calls from them explaining your wife doesn't take calls, but they are welcome to write her.
Been there, done this (for a totally different situation, of course).
@Hotscot: But why else would someone need your SS # but to perpetrate a crime? I mean they must be using it for something! If they use it to obtain a bank account, employment, etc. they are stealing your identity. Isn't that a crime?! Stupid laws.
Usually, people just file a police report, cancel their accounts, and the cases languish for lack of evidence and resources.
Perhaps that's because it's the police's job to investigate crime, and not the general public.