Crime and Punishment
Mr. Siegmund, we're contacting you because we've identified a series of suspicious charges to your account...
And so it begins, as the data theft epidemic becomes personal.
The first indication that something was amiss was a cryptic phone message from J.C. Penney asking me to call them as soon as possible about my internet order. I didn't know about any such order, but it was entirely possible that my wife had placed one, so I didn't return the call, preferring to leave it for her.
The voicemail message from the credit card company got my attention, however, and I did return that call. The woman in the fraud detection department confirmed my identity (it's apparently harder to prove that you own the card than to use it fraudulently), and then recited a string of transactions charged to the card starting on Wednesday. Many of them had been placed on hold or rejected by alert merchants, although some had gone through. The thief was a busy little rascal, and eclectic in his larceny, charging everything from auto parts to flowers to DVD players and clothing (Guess.com?! Give me a break, you hipster doofus.).
In a matter of minutes, we'd canceled the account, an order was given to ship a replacement card, and the process for dealing with the current legitimate balance was explained. I fed my card through the shredder and emailed my wife to do the same with hers. So that's that.
Only...not really.
There's the matter of dealing with the criminal, whose activities are felonious in nature. He (or she) isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, having provided a residential shipping address (in Buna, Texas). The lady at J.C. Penney's loss prevention department assured me of their cooperation with local authorities if I wanted to press charges.
Filing charges hadn't occurred to me. I assumed that that's what the credit card company would do if they located the offender. After all, I'm not incurring any financial loss. It's the vendors and/or the credit card company who stand to lose something. I'm not sure what to do.
On the one hand, I could see how going forward with charges could be a royal pain in the rear, and a great time drain, not to mention the emotional costs. On the other, if that's the only way the criminal gets brought to justice, I've shirked my civic duty by not pursuing it.
As far as the impact of the crime itself, I find myself strangely unconcerned. I suppose I'm jaded, given my understanding of the inevitable implications of living in an online world to the extent we do. Credit card theft is no longer a question of "if," but of "when." I'm more impressed with the speed and effectiveness of the merchants and card company in detecting and short-circuiting the continuance of the crime. There's only so much we can do to prevent such theft; knowing that our personal interests (in this matter, at least) are closely aligned with the superior resources of those folks is where we need to find our comfort.
You and I should get a t-shirt made - "Identity Fraud - Been there - Had that" LOl... Glad you are not concerned about it on the whole! You've done better than I did.
Posted by: Rachel at May 25, 2007 10:33 AMYou and I should get a t-shirt made - "Identity Fraud - Been there - Had that" LOl... Glad you are not concerned about it on the whole! You've done better than I did.
Posted by: Rachel at May 25, 2007 10:34 AMPS It won't let me post comments with my URL in the URL box. Your spam filter has started to take exception to my site!
Posted by: Rachel at May 25, 2007 10:36 AMI think pressing charges is a must. Otherwise this person will continue to commit this crime against other people who could end up in a worse situation with their credit and identity.
Posted by: jen at May 25, 2007 11:54 AMI'm with the pressing charges crowd on this one, not that you asked.
My postal supervisor is a recent victim. The police were surprised that she wanted to press charges and actually tried to talk her out of it. She told them she wanted it investigated as fully as they could because she wasn't the first and certainly wouldn't be the last of their victims.
Apparently her thieves weren't gracious enough provide their addresses.
Posted by: Jim at May 25, 2007 12:12 PMHappened to a friend named Norman. He's a white male, and he was getting calls from merchants saying a very obvious black woman was making charges on his card. I know he canceled his cards, but I'm not sure if he pursued charges.
As much as a pain as it will be, you really should pursue charges if you at all can.
Posted by: sama at May 25, 2007 12:15 PMIt's amazing to me how quickly and effiently the credit card companies deal with this, but it surprises me too that they are not the ones to press charges. Like you said, they're the ones out the money. Hmmm...something seems odd about that. The problem with not pressing charges is that the crimes continue (and increase) while the argument against is that your case is relatively small and uses valuable resources that might be better spent on violent crime. I don't know. I still think it's the banks/credit card companies that should press charges.
Posted by: gwynne at May 25, 2007 05:36 PMOh, Eric, what a hassle. I'm glad y'all were able to contain the damage.
Posted by: Janie at May 25, 2007 06:19 PMThat's a drag, Eric. I hope canceling the card and creating a new account is the worst of it for you.
Posted by: Foo at May 25, 2007 07:43 PMPress charges as hard as you can. The criminal world is a kind of social culture where they share what and how they accomplished each crime with pride, bragging about it. This sucks in those on the fringes when they see others getting away with crimes. Don't be complacent
Posted by: bob at May 25, 2007 10:54 PMI had one about two years ago where Citbank contacted me about a possible chance of misuse of a card, which I ended up cancelling and getting a replacement. Since there apparently had been no illegal charges made at the time, there must have been some type of credit card number data breach either with Citibank or with one of the companies where I had recently used the card that led to their pre-emptive strike against any ID theft.
Posted by: John at May 26, 2007 12:26 AMi wonder how they got your info?
Posted by: mis_nomer at May 26, 2007 06:45 AMI totally feel your pain, Eric. We got zapped by an identity thief a couple years back. They created checks with my identity info (name, DL #, address, etc.) but used some poor other person's bank account info on the "meat" of the check.
The net result being that I suddenly got a slew of collection notices from checks I had supposedly written, while this poor other person's account had been drained of more than $5K.
Not sure who had the worst of it, though. Their money was restored fairly quickly, while it took me almost 9 months of letters and conversations with various entities to clean up the mess.
Hope the Penney's issue is the limit of it for you.
Posted by: Bret at May 26, 2007 10:29 PMRach needs to add me to the t-shirt list. I have also had a check washed, that was an interesting experience.
Posted by: shannon at May 27, 2007 11:06 PMWell, I can honestly say Been there - had that. As well. I'm only 20!! I dont have any credit cards, atleast none that I've applied for, although Visa called inquiring about my account balance when I was 18. Fun no?....no. Long story short, it was sorted out and nothing was applied to my (little yet existing) credit score.
By that way, nice to see an updated blog coming from Midland, I live next door (odessa) I googled "Fanatic Islam and its effects on children" and your blog popped up. Tiny little world.
Posted by: Kyle at May 28, 2007 02:53 AMAbout the publisher
Random Abbye photos...
Random Thursday: The Abbreviated Tuesday Political Edition
More rattler than meets the eye
Poop happens. And then disappears.
How the West was Won
Beware of Vampire Dog
Tieing? There's no tieing in gymnastics!
NBC Bungles Web Video
Random Thursday: The Monday Olympics Edition
On Holiday
Random Thursday
Chair Play
Book Review: "The Road"
Education is paramount. Well, next to jet skiing.
Warbirds, Old and New
The Neighborhood:
West Texas Blogs:
[Midland unless otherwise indicated]
Other Texas Blogs:
The Business:
The Church:
The World:
Gosh, I'm glad they caught it so quickly and were able to help you get things taken care of with what sounds like relative ease (though I'm sure it wasn't as easy as depicted, still, it didn't take months of hassle.)
I see the dilemma about pressing charges - but honestly, I think I'd try. Realistically it's going to be hard to prove (even with the residential address -- who's to say s/he didn't use a friend's address, someone with plausible deniability?) so the police may not choose to pursue it. But I think for me, I'd want to know I tried.
Posted by: beth at May 25, 2007 10:10 AM