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Identity Thief Apprehended By Victim

Posted by Zonk on from the power-to-the-people-marty dept.

ewhac writes "Karen Lodrick was entering her sixth month of hell dealing with the repercussions of having her identity stolen and used to loot her accounts. But while she was waiting for a beverage, there standing in line was the woman who appeared on Wells Fargo security video emptying her accounts. What followed was a 45 minute chase through San Francisco streets that ended with the thief being taken into custody by police."

10 of 636 comments (clear)

  1. Lucky it was the police by computational+super · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lucky for the identity thief they ended up in the police station and not the morgue. If you were on the jury and the victim had beaten the thief to death... would you convict? I'm not sure I would.

    --
    Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
    1. Re:Lucky it was the police by thegnu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you were on the jury and the victim had beaten the thief to death... would you convict? I'm not sure I would.
      No shit. It reminds me of this case where a little girl (like 12 or 14) got raped in a remote area where most people have rifles, and her grandmother went and shot the guy. I'm not sure she even got arrested. I definitely think that grannies are the only people who get to be vigilantes.

      Plus, if someone fucks up your life. Although, this was not really vigilanteism, since she didn't kill anybody. But god, that must feel good in this society of ever-abstracting forms of validation. Very straightforward: Fuck with Og, Og crush.

      --
      Please stop stalking me, bro.
    2. Re:Lucky it was the police by Joe+U · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If only we had some kind of system... something to do with a series of rules, we could call them, um, "laws". And some kind of "legal" system. Then we could set up punishments for violations of these "laws".

      Great dream. I call it a civilized society.

  2. Feh. by jpellino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With a little bit of digging, I got the name, address and phone of two of the people who got to use my debit card three years ago. One bought a Nextel cell phone, the other paid their Progressive insurance bill. I called Progressive and escalated this, and asked them what they were going to do. The answer? "I guess next time she'll have to pay cash."

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
    1. Re:Feh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yep. This is the worst part of the feel-good story -- the end. So after all of this, the unrepentant thief gets ... time served + probation? The fact that she was already on probation for fraud when she started her crime spree is like an EXTRA slap in the face. She could've walked out of that courtroom and done exactly the same thing, to the original victim, or someone else.

      I thought the point of probation was that if you committed a crime during your probation, you went to jail. No? Then what's the point? We hear about jail sentences for people who are too stupid to close up porn popups, but someone who flagrantly breaks the law, and willfully causes real financial and emotional harm to another person while on probation for (probably?) doing the same thing before, gets probation?

      It doesn't make sense. I guess the stereotypes of California being an overly liberal state must be true. The Daily Show said it best when they said that the lesson from the high profile murder acquittals was that if you're going to commit murder, make sure you do it in California.

  3. I had a similar experience by benhocking · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone had used my credit card number to buy a cell phone. When I saw the charge on my CC statement, I called the cell phone company (can't remember which one it was anymore) and asked what address it went to. Even though they paid for it with my credit card, they said they weren't allowed to provide me with any information. I called my credit card company, got a new card, and told them what I knew. Since the money came out of their pocket and not mine, I assume they didn't quit that easily.

    --
    Ben Hocking
    Need a professional organizer?
  4. A related story by rfc1394 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This woman was in a department store and was purchasing something. As she approached the counter, she handed the clerk her credit card. The clerk went to use the machine but it apparently wasn't working, so she had to use a phone to call in the card. A short time later, a security guard came over and grabbed the customer. The cashier had actually called in a code to have the guard come by. The clerk said that she realized the woman was committing identity theft.

    The astonished customer couldn't believe it, and asked the cashier how on earth she knew. She said, "Because that's my name on the card, and that's my credit card that had been stolen."

    -- Paul Robinson - My Blog
    --
    The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
  5. Thanks Congress - you suck. by RoboOp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While real problems and challenges like privacy and identity theft go ignored, they waste their time on crap like "National milk drinking day" and raising funds so they can leave more problems unsolved.

    We are in the midst of an identity fraud crime wave, made possible by more intrusive technology and fewer regulations that limit the sharing of that information. There is a limit to the solutions that the individual can do - it can only be accomplished on a national level. Unfortunately, there is no leadership of any sort at the national level in the US. The head of the fish has completely rotted away.

    --
    "First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
  6. Please mod up by Reverberant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    and yet the penalty for stealing tens of thousands through identity theft, and running the victims through months of hell - is probation?

    We as a society really have our priorities out of whack. DUI? Home confinement in your mansion (no, I'm not linking to the stories about you-know-who). One teenager has consensual sex with another teenager? Throw him in jail for 10 years.

    Steal someones identity, multiple times, costing the victims thousands of dollars in cash and lost time? Probation. Hell, I got people in my city getting probation for serious gun crimes. WTF?

  7. All the gun comments are fun.... by Snowtide · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But think it though a second.

    The identity theft victim pulls a gun and tells the thief to freeze. The thief screams for help and that the woman holding the gun is trying to kill her. The identity theft victim explains that the woman she has at gunpoint is a thief. The thief says the identity theft victim is crazy and has the wrong person. Another well meaning hero to be pulls their gun and points it at the obviously angry woman with a gun telling her to calm down. Person number three pulls their gun and picks a side or generally points it at the other two people with guns in the coffee shop and tells them all to calm down. Everyone with a gun is convinced they are doing the right thing.
    Ask a working police officer, this is a good way to get people shot and or killed.

    Seriously, look at how people drive cars, and you want to give them concealed weapons permits to have guns on them all the time?