Tee is pissed!!! Identity Theft

[Tee]

Well, I never thought it would happen to me...

I logged onto my credit card accounts today around 4:00pm and my eyes about popped out of my head!!!

All kinds of unauthorized charges!
100.00 to Pizza Hut in Garden
50.00 for online porn.
750.00 in gas purchased at Robinson Oil unmanned station in Garden (like 10 trips over a three day period)
750.00 Paypal purchases and online web purchases for carburetors, manifolds and other carparts

I don't know how the perp got my card but I suspect I either dropped it in Garden when visiting a gas station or had it stolen out of my car- It wasn't immediately noticed since I have two duplicate Chase cards.

So right away, I call the credit card company and inform them- they took all the details and then instantly refunded the unauthorized charges. So then I called Garden PD and made a report.

Brewing, I started my own investigation and at first it seemed like nobody was going to help. Paypal confirmed that the person opened up a new account just a few days ago under the name Tim Trent. I was able to cancel the account but they would not give me any details i.e. location anme etc..

First, I called the Pizza hut and while the mgr could not remember what they guy looked like, she did remember the transaction- he came through the carry-out window and ordered 88.00 worth of pizzas then she said he gave her a generous tip of 12.00...to which I replied "You're Welcome". She could not remember anything but that- I guess it stuck out in her mind cause "I" was so generous.

I then downloaded the info from the purchases and went to work, calling and hunting on the web. Since the purchases were listed as paypal addys, not ebay member ID,s it was a bit difficult. But hey, this is my world, this is where I am king. He made a big mistake ripping me off and then coming into my realm to perpatrate his evil deeds. I diligently scoured the web using my usual tricks and hunted through eBay looking for dates and purchases that matched the statement I held. Well after all is said and done, I have single handedly traced down the perp, handed over all the evidence to the Garden PD, faxed them about 20 pages of evidence and will now wait for apprehension. I have just about everything but his blood type. I will see that this guy is prosecuted to the fullest, that I assure you.

Damn
I HATE THIEVES!!!!!

Truckin_2000's going to be truckin his butt to jail tomorrow.
Gonna be hard to enjoy that new hopped up car in jail.

I will keep you informed.

[lurker]

Great work, Tee.

are you any good at finding lost bones?

[Detector]

WOW. that SUX. Damn good job of chasing that fool down.

[Army_of_One]

The sad thing is what you did in a few hours would have probably never been done by the GC PD.

[Detector]

How receptive was the GCPD about your info? Did they show interest in how you were able to track down the perp, or did they act like it was a pain in the arse?

[TexKan]

Real good job Tee......... too bad identity theft ain't right up there with child molestation and murder.................. otherwise they coulda done this for you. I doubt if they coulda done as good a job as you but then puters is your world - perps is thiers. Glad you got it figured out - most folks aren't that lucky.

[WizardofOz]

Were you able to find out the EBay and Paypal user ID's? With that, the police department can issue either a subpoena or search warrant for the records which will reveal the IP addresses and time/date stamps from the transactions. The end result will be another subpoena/search warrant for the user name and address from the ISP. It is time consuming having to wait on the responses from the businesses but you saved them a lot of time by doing most of the groundwork.

Criminal charges are one thing but have you considered also filing a civil lawsuit? I've read where identity theft victims have taken their thieves to court and sued for comparable worth time for all the time they spent working on their case. It is like businesses recouping "lost time and profit" when a hacker shuts down their servers. Turn the tables on the thief by garnishing his wages, destroying his credit, taking his tax refunds, and having more warrants for contempt of court when his sorry a@@ can't pay for the lawsuit. When the criminal charges are ready, then it will help to kick him to the ground even more. I would make this person a victim of his own crime!

I would do some more checking into how your card information was stolen. You may not of even lost the card but had some lowlife working at a business use a "skimmer" to grab your card information without even knowing.

A tool that you can use to make EBay/Paypal give you the records without waiting for the police is the Fair Credit Reporting Act Section 609(e) request (see links below):
- Deter. Detect. Defend. Avoid ID Theft
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/busi...heft/bus66.pdf

[Army_of_One]

Wonder what the penalty is? As crowded as the jails are he will probably be out driving that fixed up truck on probation....

[wordsmythe]

if you'd just keep those cards maxed out you wouldn't have that problem.

[jeezeweeze]

Tee

I know how you feel, the mess I had online with mine. However it was handled pretty swiftly by my bank and thank God Western Union was on top of it.

About all I could do from this end was turn in a police report and thankfully I have my online banking and check my balance at least once a day. I also had to notify credit bureaus and such.

I now use the PayPal virtual credit card for my purchases online. Its a one use only card, you get a new virtual card for each transaction.

So its mostly up to each individual to take action and try to minimize the chance of becoming a target. Losing your CC is another issue but still the same process to recover your funds. Been there, done that on the lost CC and it being used.

I would imagine the process of tracking down these jerks would be an astronomical task for our local law enforcement and would take a whole separate department working only on I.D. theft which will probably be the norm eventually as soon as funding is available for it.

Great that you found your perp and it would be nice to have a website with their names, mugs and location on it like they have for sex crimes, because when you experience I.D.theft its a icky feeling to say the least.

Guess the best advise to give folks ... CHECK YOUR ACCOUNTS BY PHONE OR ONLINE DAILY