I ask because my SIL just went through a horrendous experience. Apparently, someone where she works stole her SS number, and sold it to someone in another city (within the state). This creep then opened several credit card accounts, including store credit cards, and used them to rack up over $80,000 in bills.
My SIL contacted the police chief (in the city where the thief lives) and was told “we don’t investigate this type of crime”. What she wound up doing:
-writing certified letters to all of the crditors, with an affidavit that the was not responsible. She then had to close out all of her credit accounts, and get new numbers.
It took her 12-16 months ro clear her record…and she received no help from local law enforcement (since it was within the state, the Feds did not get involved.
This person stole $80,000, and ruined a person’s good name…and he/she got off scot free. Why don’t we have laws and harsh penalties aginst this type of crime?
My SIL could have sued this person, but it would not be worth the time and money, as she has no assets.
I believe that identity theft is a crime in most places. What state are we talking about here?
My guess is that the police chief was referring to the fact that he doesn’t have the manpower or expertise to go after these types of criminals. Did she contact the district attorney’s office for that jurisdiction? Perhaps they can point her to who does investigate these types of crimes in that state.
Of course we have laws against identity theft - it’s fraud, if nothing else. Often mail fraud.
Also, the most appropriate agency to contact would have been the US Secret Service. They’ll take cases for this type of thing if the value is over $20k (IIRC). The FBI would generally take an interest, as well.
Actually, in regard to USSS, I should add that I haven’t worked in that realm for a while, and they may have adjusted their mission more toward protection in the meantime. But they’d still know where to direct your SIL. I’d recommend she look into, as the perp will likely do this kind of thing again.
I heard an “argument” from David Mitchell (English comedian) basically implying that the whole concept of “identity theft” is a way of moving the blame to the victim.
If someone steals from your bank account, it’s the banks who should be taking steps. Saying “well, someone came in with your identity” is obvious rubbish. What it means is “we don’t have competent security, someone stole from us and we don’t want to give you your money back”.
I don’t really agree 100% (mostly because these cases can be quite complicated wrt the companies/information involved), but it does highlight somewhat why you don’t need explicit laws against identity theft; it’s either fraud, or outright theft.
FWIW, can anyone explain to me the seemingly disgraceful scenario in the US were apparently if you get someone’s SSN and credit card number, you can pretty much rob them blind? It’s not like you’re not supposed to hand those numbers over to lots of more or less random entities (who may or may not have reliable/honest employees).
I want to know who changed the rules and allowed any thief to charge stuff with only the credit card number?
Up until the 1990’s you had to physically hand a credit card to a clerk. He used a machine to swipe the card and make an impression of the numbers. No card. No transaction. Even today I need my card to buy grocerys or fill up my car. I can’t hand them a piece of paper with my cc number on it.
Today if someone gets your card # they can charge stuff all over the world using the internet or a phone call.
Why is that allowed?
Shouldn’t I have the option to tell Visa that any transactions without the physical card aren’t authorized?
That alone would drastically cut ID theft.
There are laws against it, but part of the problem is the huge number of parties involved.
Let’s take the OP. Now it seems like it’d be a case of the SIL versus the person who stole the identity.
No it’s not. The theft is between the person who opened the credit card and the bank that issued the card.
Let’s say that Jane Doe opened the account. And let’s say Acme Bank issued the Visa card.
I am assuming Jane Doe opened the account used the credit card paid the bills for a few months and then stopped paying. This caused a ding on the SIL’s credit report and he found out about.
But see the major crime is between Jane Doe and the bank. Or is it? Here’s where it gets complicated.
Once a fraudulent card is found the bank will first go back and “chargeback any transaction made with that card.”
Let’s say at this point Jane Doe’s racked up $10,000 worth of debt. Acme bank charged back all the charges made. So it seems like now it’s Jane Doe -vs- Acme Bank. But no, now because of the chargebacks it’s Jane Doe -vs- every merchant she charged at.
So each merchant now has to prove to Acme they followed correct procedure in order to win that chargeback. Suppose Acme Bank gets a hold of that credit card and it’s not signed on the back. Oh big problem for the merchants. All merchant agreements say you have to have the back signed. (This was covered in another thread).
So let’s say Jane Doe charged $10,000 at 50 stores using a Visa issued by Acme Bank. Acme Bank charged that back to the merchant, since the card wasn’t signed and the merchants failed to follow proper procedure the authorizations are void.
Now Acme Bank isn’t out anything. It’s now Jane Doe -vs- 50 merchants.
If all the merchants followed correct procedure than they will win their chargebacks and we’re back to Jane Doe -vs- Acme Bank.
See what a mess this is already. And that is just one credit card. And did you notice the SIL isn’t even involved yet at this point.
The SIL doesn’t owe any money as it was fraud, but his credit report is dinged. So he needs to fix that. It’s often very difficult to fix that. And in the meanwhile, the SIL is being turned down for legitimate things because his credit is effected incorrectly.
OK but you see where the big crime is, where the money is being exchanged, doesn’t involve the SIL. So the police aren’t going to be interested, because the SIL is only out the reputation of his credit report.
You see Jane Doe USED the SIL to commit a crime. But the theft didn’t happen between the SIL and Jane Doe.
FTC and Identity Theft - Identity Theft | Consumer Advice
DOJ and Identity Theft - Identity Theft
Identity Theft Center - http://www.idtheftcenter.org/
BTW, theft/abuse/whatever of social security numbers is a federal issue.
We get posts like your here quite frequently. Apparently, knowledge about ID theft is either not getting out and/or not taken seriously. Your SIL may have been burned. At the same time, what are you doing right now to protect yourself?
The thing is there are different rules for different merchants. When you charge something at a store the bank that issued the card gets a percentage of that.
But you as a merchant are allowed to pick the level of protection. The higher the level the more you pay in fees.
OK I worked at a hotel, the rates (I’ll round for simplicity) were like this.
If I physically have the card and swipe it, the hotel pays 1% of the total bill. If I take a phone transaction I pay 2.5%. Why do I pay more. Phone transactions are risky so it makes sense if I as a hotel accept them I should pay more.
If I take a phone transaction and ask for the CID on the back (that 3 digit number on the back) I pay 4.0% of the transaction. Why does the hotel pay more? Because the phone transaction is riskier and I am using the CID which is real time so it’s more computer intensive.
However using this CID is very effective against theft, when combined with a signature.
So why doesn’t everyone use it? Cost. That is it. I worked at one hotel in Chicago, do you know how many chargebacks we had. Three, yes that is it, ONLY three. It made no sense to pay for any extra to allow phone use of credit cards, when there was no fraud.
Now I know what you’re thinking, wait a minute Mark, you just said, you were only paying the cheap 1% rate but you still took phone charges. Yes, we did. It’s totally allowed, the thing was if anyone using a phone to charge a room at the hotel had distputed it, we would have lost, immediately with no recourse.
But since our fraud was next to nothing, why bother? If someone did give us a fraudulent card, it was cheaper to eat the loss than pay the additional fees.
The ability to charge without the card is something most people want. The losses are great but the banks make the losses up with higer fees and the companies that use phone charges make the losses up with more sales.
As for the consumer, if a charge appears on the credit card, you simply state you never made it. The credit card company will remove it ASAP.
I had my credit card stolen and $2,000 was charged to it. Citibank took it right off, of course I had to sign a paper and have it notorized that said I never made it
But you are all forgetting the “identity theft” issue.
Jane Doe does her magic and disappears. All the bank and/or merchants have is a name and SSN, and probably get address and other details from the credit reports tied to that SSN.
Now they come after the SIL an say “you owe us money” and then at the very least she has to show up in court 1 to 50 times and say “it wasn’t me” and be prepared to prove it against some irate merchants with slick lawyers. This is civil court, so it’s “preponderance of evidence” and what evidence does either side have? “She was obviously in disguise your honour”. Unless SIL is a different race and 150 pounds lighter than Jane Doe in surveillance video - if any exists - it’a a he-said-she-said situation and at the very least, it will cost aggravation and lawyer fees for years.
Then there’s the straighteing out credit history while JD does her thing a state or two away all over again, and dealing with crap like leins on your house and maybe garnishees from default judgements due to summons to bogus addresses…
All a big mess that nobody in authority seems to deal with.
**Why Are There No Laws Against Bank Robbery? (Effective, That Is) **
After all, banks are still being robbed. And banks have been around for hundreds of years.
One problem is the change in procedure when buying something with a credit card in a store.
Old way: hand the check-out clerk your credit card, they swipe the card, you sign the sales slip, the clerk verifies your signature against the signature on the card, and maybe asks for photo ID.
New way: the credit card machine is on the check-out counter for the customer to use, the customer chooses the credit card option, swipes his card, signs the screen and sale is final. Nobody ever looks at the card, the signature, or any other ID. The back of the card can be unsigned or belong to Mickey Mouse, the clerk doesn’t even see the card anymore.
If it is a debit purchase you have to enter a PIN but for credit card it is swipe, sign, done.
A person can buy a lot of stuff before the fraudulent card is discovered and cancelled.
This the point-this criminal committed grand larceny and fraud, and yet the onus is upon the innocent victim to prove their innocence.
Why not have extremely harsh penalties to discorage this?
It also begs the question: why not have a personal ID card, without which no CC transaction can go forward?
Is this the way it works? I had a checkbook stolen and I filled out an affidavit of fraud, which the bank notarized for me, then turned that in as part of my police report. To every merchant that contacted me, I sent a copy of the affidavit and a copy of the police report. Done.
I’d expect that something similar could be done for credit card misuse, although I imagine that you’d have to pay for the notary. And having them use multiple cards would complicate it.
How will that work for online sales? Or telephone orders?
A long time ago, if there was a charge on your credit card, you were responsible for it no matter what. The U.S. instituted laws to change this topping the amount responsible to just $50. Banks were first furious with the law because they claimed that credit cards would become useless. All anyone had to do was deny they did the charge!
In the end, it actually helped the credit card industry. People no longer had to worry about false charges on their credit card and used them more often. Banks were able to increase their security to catch identity theft issues.
Identity theft is painful for the victim, but in the end, the victim isn’t responsible for fraudulent charges and the seller, institution with the account, or the credit card company is responsible. If someone fraudulently cleans out my account, my bank IS responsible in the end. If someone opens fake accounts using my name and social security number, and purchases a ton of goods on credit, it is the store that is responsible in the end.
The problem for the victim isn’t the loss of funds, but the loss of time and effort in cleaning up the mess. You have to get three separate credit reports, see where new accounts were open, and then fill out all the paperwork at each and every place where the fraud occurred.
If your bank account was emptied out due to fraud, you will get the money back…eventually. The bank first has to do their own investigation and has up to sixty days to return any money. Meanwhile, you have no money. And, you’ll probably have a lot of paperwork to fill out.
There are fraud cases where someone gives a third party access to their account, and then finds it cleaned out. For example, you hire a bookkeeper who has access to your bank account, so they can deposit money and write checks. One day, the bookkeeper cleans out the account. In those cases, the bank may not be held responsible because they gave the money to an authorized person.