If You Move, Be Careful What
You Leave Behind
In was on June 1 2000 that we found out we
had over $70,000 of unpaid accounts against
our Social Security Numbers. At first I said
it was a mistake and they had the wrong people,
after all we had no accounts in the USA except
one which I knew had a near zero balance. Must
be wrong, maybe someone with similar SS number
or name? We had no idea what the mortgage company
was complaining about as we had been in England
for years and had returned to the USA to a new
job, schools for the children and hopefully
a home.
We had found a perfect place, much larger than
the one we had in England , backing up to a
forest preserve so no-one was behind us or to
the side of us, a problem we had in England.
So put down the deposit, filled out the stacks
of paper and submitted out bid. We agreed on
a price and submitted our paperwork for the
mortgage. Normally the realtor wanted pre-qualification
but since we were half between England and the
USA it apparently wasn't done.
The copy of the credit report arrived and it
spread to 15 pages on which were accounts with
Sears, Discovery, MBNA, American Express, JC
Penny, Home Depot, Phillips 66, John Deere,
numerous other credit cards and financial institutions.
There was even a court judgment against my wife
in 1998 awarded to Sears for $11, 000. Nearly
all were opened between Feb. 1992 and 1999.
Yet we had been in England most of that time,
after all what good is a $4000 John Deere tractor
in the USA when we are living in England?
A closer examination
revealed one or two of the accounts had been
opened in the mid / late 1980’s and
were account which I thought had been closed.
At this point we were told it could be Identity
Fraud. What’s that? We had no idea,
after all credit reports are not available
in the UK and in fact you can’t get
a credit report from the US credit bureaus
if you don’t have a US address and
official identity. We were advised to get
an attorney, call the credit bureaus and
the companies involved and so began the long
hours on the telephone.
It quickly became apparent that the addresses
used for the credit was in Oklahoma, a place
we had left in 1990. What was even more amazing
was it was our old address and then a new address,
also in Oklahoma, that we had never lived at.
The newer address was from 1994 when we were
definitely in England the whole time. Then a
name kept appearing, the same last name of two
people,. Strangely, the name showed up on my
wife’s credit report as an alias, along
with 14 other variations, 3 addresses and some
employment position which my wife had never
worked at.
Somewhere around 1994 / 1995 my name, well
actually misspelled since the thieves could
spell neither my first name nor my last correctly,
started to show delinquent accounts. Apparently
I worked at either a car parts company or a
metal fabrication plant which is strange since
I am a software engineer. Most companies asked
for a statement and a police report, one or
two passed the calls onto attorneys and one
or two claimed this was not going to get us
out of paying our debts. So we filled out a
police report and filed it with the police in
the city where the crimes occurred. We received
a police report number and nothing else. No
interviews, telephone calls, return of calls.
Nothing!
Friends of the family put us in touch with
an attorney who dealt with financial problems.
He decided to get in touch with the FBI who
quickly passed it to the Secret Service. He
gave us the name of a Secret Service agent in
Chicago who would be the investigator. The problem
was we had to get a mortgage, after all, the
house we wanted was now wanted by someone else
and the contract had a time limit to gain a
mortgage. So we called and left a message for
him to call us. The next day we heard through
our attorney that if we called the Secret Service
agent again it would delay the investigation
as he was busy and didn't want us calling him.
So I called the Secret Service in Oklahoma and
talked to an agent there who asked me several
questions and asked me to send any details I
had. He took the police report number and said
he would get a copy through the liaison they
have.
Several more hours were spent trying to
get items removed or letters from the creditors
stating the item was fraudulent. Then,
came two big problems.
Firstly,
the mortgage company we were dealing with did not want or could not
get a mortgage for us. Friends around the
USA tried all kinds of people to
get
us a mortgage
but we had such terrible credit scores nothing could be done. Secondly,
one or two companies refused to agree that the account was fraudulent.
The Sears
attorney stated he had served the court papers on the right person
and we had to pay the $11,000. Even our attorney
could not get him to rescind
the
accounts
(there were two delinquent accounts in my wife’s name).
One collection agency, who actually had
their business within 6 miles of the actual
people involved, told me “You need
to pay your accounts before we will even
consider telling the credit bureaus anything”.
Well after I screamed at him for 15 minutes
he changed his mind and said “I only
answer the telephone, you need to send us
the police report and we will see what we
can do”.
Within two weeks we had nearly all the accounts
agreeing to remove the bad reports. Strangely,
the companies which had accounts which weren't
delinquent, but were fraudulent, did not want
to cancel them as they were getting the minimum
payment each month. Some companies had sold
the accounts and would only take the bad credit
report off once the current holder of the account
had done so, except for one large finance company
who stated it was not their policy to take any
bad credit off. That was until I told them they
were breaking the Consumer Credit laws.
Along the way we had figures out who the criminal(s)
were as well. In 1990 we had sold our house
in Oklahoma to two people who knew we were going
to England. They still lived at the house, well
one of them did as the other had married and
moved to another house not far away which just
happened to be the second address which showed
up on the credit grantors records. By checking
the telephone numbers used in the applications
we found the first house was being used as the
telephone number to confirm employment. On my
fraudulent applications a third telephone number
used as employment verification was actually
the home business number for the new spouse,
although the company name on the applications
was never the real business name. Each application
was different, each claiming 10 years employment.
Even applications made in the same month had
different name spellings and places of employment.
Yet through them all the same addresses appeared,
along with our Social Security numbers. The
addresses being the house we sold and the house
the newly weds had moved to. Since the accounts
needed time to max out they had sent in minimum
payments and on those checks were the names
of the people who had bought our house. The
telephone numbers used, belonged to the people
who had bought our house. The address where
Sears served the court papers was at the second
house.
We now had less than two weeks before the
contract to buy the house expired, and under
pressure from the owners who had got a higher
offer, we still did not have a mortgage. Then
through a really wonderful friend in Oklahoma
we were introduced to a person who dealt with
getting mortgages for people with bad credit.
We sent over copies of the police reports, statements
from companies, a statement from us detailing
what we knew and waited. It was too late, the
house contract fell through and we now had no
idea what we were going to do. My wife, who
had returned to England, flew back to Chicago
with the children again to see what we could
do. We drove past the house we had hoped to
buy and noticed, at a house 5 doors down, a
woman putting out a sign “For Sale by
Owner”. We got out, viewed the house and
put a contract on the house that night. We still
didn't have a mortgage but we had not been rejected
either. At this point we still had not been
contacted by the police nor had they returned
our calls. My wife was planning on going to
Oklahoma since this was easy, we knew who had
committed the crimes, where they lived, the
jobs they held, the cars they drove, the private
schools their children went to, the fact they
tried to buy a car for as a graduation present
(on my wife’s’ credit) for the eldest.
What would be the problem? A few weeks staying
with relatives / friends while appearing as
a witness in court. Open and shut case. Still
no calls and no return calls to our messages
from the police. We were told by our attorney
that City Hall takes time.
Well we ended up getting a mortgage at 10.75%
from the mortgage arranger in Oklahoma. Fortunately
it arrived on the day when the owners of
the house required us to produce proof of
mortgage, since they had also received a
higher offer. We moved in 6 weeks later and
made plans for the certainty we would be
called to testify. Months went past. Calls
to the police never received a return call.
Offers to visit in Oklahoma were not answered.
The Secret Service agent always responded,
but usually with he was investigating and
that’s all he would say. If any new
accounts appeared I contacted him to give
details and actually found bad credit on
my Social Security number was actually not
valid but did show appliances had been bought
on my wife’s Social Security Number
while we still lived in England. Occasionally
we got threatening calls from collection
agencies who had purchased accounts which
the original owners knew were fraudulent.
One particular collection agent threatened “You
need to call me. You future life depends
on it” at 8:30 am on a Sunday morning.
Calls and mailings of the police report did
nothing until our attorney called.
In 2001 we were visiting relatives in Oklahoma
and found the house which had been the new
home of one of the thieves until the previous
year. It had a huge lot and a swimming pool.
Enough was enough, these people were driving
expensive cars, had big houses and were still
walking the streets. We tried to get the
local TV stations interested through our
previously mentioned, wonderful friend and
one anchor agreed but only if the Secret
Service agreed. They refused comment.
So now we are 28 months down the road. Last
week a couple appeared on CNN claiming identity
fraud. Six accounts and a few thousand dollars.
They didn't know who did it. So how come we
have now over $80,000 of fraudulent accounts,
over 30 accounts opened, mail fraud( at one
point the thieves opened a letter to me containing
an credit card I had forgotten to cancel before
I left for England. The spouse signed the credit
card, maxed it out and then before it became
delinquent used it as a reference for another
credit card) and we have seen nothing. I checked
out the Internet for any news of identity fraud
that I had not seen before and came across VAA
(Victims Assistance of America). I spoke to
the president of that group who advised me to
get in touch with the Attorney General of Oklahoma.
I did and found they claimed to have no jurisdiction
but I should try the district attorney. I did
that and he told me he knew nothing about the
case and I should call the police again. I did
and this time got a reply. Apparently the case
was shelved since not one company had filed
a complaint with then and since “The companies
are the victims not the individual” they
didn’t have a case so did nothing. With
7 months left on the statute of limitations
we had gone nowhere.
I had filed a police report but even though
Oklahoma has the following “165.800
Identity theft".
(1) A person commits the crime of identity
theft if the person, with the intent to deceive
or to defraud, obtains, possesses,
transfers, creates, utters or converts to the person’s own use the
personal identification of another person.
(2) Identity theft is a Class
C felony.” they have done nothing.
Still nothing from the Secret
Service even though he always takes my calls and tells me the case
is being investigated. The thieves
are
still free.
Their eldest wants to become a preacher. We still get the occasional
collection agency
telling us about a deal on an open $12,000 account for furniture,
the latest being we pay 2/3 rd they pay 1/3 rd.
It never ends.
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So if
the credit card companies provide relief
and monitoring why would you need this
service? Because what the crooks will do
is get a hold of someone like a utility
company and tell them "I've moved,
here is my new address". The utility
company will say "prove who you are".
Of course that is easy for your crook,
they stole everything they need from you.
When they get a bill with a new address
now they will open up new credit cards
after the limited fraud alert is removed
from your account.
Of course
when they don't pay the bills the banks
will hand the account over to a collection
agency. The collection agency will find
you and start harassing you and of course
they will turn a deaf ear to your complaints
about identity theft. They are working
on commission and will certainly sue you
because they know paying their bill is
cheaper then hiring a lawyer.
How do you stop this, who do
you call, where should you write, do you
send them registered or certified? We can
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