ID Theft Update: Part III
Posted by: andrew in General, Life, The Great Identity Theft Crisis
First, I have to take a moment to say that, sometimes, I really appreciate people. If I’ve learned anything in life, it is that it pays to be nice, gracious and patient when dealing with things like this because you never know who you really might be dealing with.
As you know, ‘Evil Andrew’ went ahead and opened up a checking account with USAA in my name. In order to do that, you have to be in the military, so apparently I am a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force…
But that’s besides the point…
I’ve been in contact with a guy named Damon who is a Fraud Investigator there. After chatting several times, it turns out that Damon is a really cool guy, and seems very interested in helping me out. I mean, sure…it’s in his best interest to do so, seeing that his employer got fraudified (note to self: copyright this word), but really, he has probably gone above and beyond what he normally should be doing. He has given me quite a bit of information and really done a great job of keeping in contact.
For example, in continuing his own investigation, he found out that ‘Evil Andrew’ opened up yet another credit card, this one a Chase business credit card, and has racked up a whopping $23,155.79 on it. I wouldn’t have known this by looking at my credit report because all of these things are not showing up there. Which brings me to a little digression and word of warning to you all…
The way I understand it, you have two different credit reports attached to your name; your personal credit and your business credit. When you go to check your personal credit report, you never see any of the other stuff and (I think) vice versa. In other words, this could have kept going on for quite some time and I would have never known about it until a bunch of debt collectors came knocking at my door. And I would most likely have a very hard time in the future doing anything entreprenuerial that required credit. This is apparently how these guys fly under the radar.
Anyway…back to my original point, which was being nice and gracious to people pays off. So Damon warned me about this card. Then we started talking, and I learn that Damon was in the FBI for 13 years. He then lets me know that the agent who is currently on the case in Nevada is a friend of his, and that he should be able to get information as it comes in pretty quickly. And most importantly, he said his friend feels pretty confident that they’re going to catch this guy.
Now…I could’ve been mad or short or pissy with this guy or any number of the other people I’ve dealt with. In my own humble opinion, I think I probably have every right to be, seeing that everyone was initially expecting me to account for what now amounts to well iver $45K in losses. I’ve also been dealing with more phone calls than you could imagine. I think my cell bill is going to go through the roof. Everytime I’ve had to remind myself that these are people are just doing their jobs…and if I’m just cool and patient and show some appreciation, they’ll be more inclined to believe what I’m telling them. And so far, that policy has paid off. It doesn’t make it any less frustrating, but it has netted me quicker responses and extra information.
Another example was this guy John at the UPS Store in Nevada. Because I treated him with respect and didn’t flip the ‘ef out when he told me that there was nothing he could do about letting me know more information on ‘Evil Andrew’, he ended up being extremely cooperative with an administrative lead rather than an investigator at the Austin Police Department. They told me you’d normally have to get a subpoena to get the information he had on record. He ended up just faxing it over without any questions. Out of all of the people involved in this, John just happened to have the most valuable information, that being a copy of the driver’s license with ‘Evil Andrew’s’ picture on it and a copy of a school ID.
So…in summary…just be nice. Except when the person is ‘Evil Andrew’, and then you can just cap him for me.
