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No Justice For Victims of Identity Theft
chicksdaddy writes: The Christian Science Monitor's Passcode features a harrowing account of one individual's experience of identity theft. CSM reporter Sara Sorcher recounts the story of "Jonathan Franklin" (not his real name) a New Jersey business executive who woke up to find thieves had stolen his identity and racked up $30,000 in a shopping spree at luxury stores including Versace and the Apple Store. The thieves even went so far as to use personal info stolen from Franklin to have the phone company redirect calls to his home number, which meant that calls from the credit card company about the unusual spending went unanswered. Despite the heinousness of the crime and the financial cost, Sorcher notes that credit card companies and merchants both look on this kind of theft as a "victimless crime" and are more interested in getting reimbursed for their losses than trying to pursue the thieves. Police departments, also, are unable to investigate these crimes, lacking both the technical expertise and resources to do so. Franklin notes that he wasn't even required to file a police report to get reimbursed for the crime: "'As long as their loss is covered they move on to [handling] tomorrow's fraud,' Franklin observes. And that makes it harder for victims like Franklin to move on, 'In some way, I'm seeking some sense of justice,' Franklin said. 'But it's likely not going to happen.'"
I'd love to know if you could be charged with suicide if you kill somebody who has stolen your identity.
Anybody know?
The amount only came to a few thousand dollars and it was done with a series of fake checks that the thieves printed up themselves and passed off at stores that were known at the time not to use any kind of check verification system but it still screwed my life up for months and even then nobody was really interested in catching the people who did it. The stores had pictures of them and everything but didn't pursue it (to my knowledge). My bank only wanted to get me to sign statements that I hadn't done it and they reimbursed my account all the money that had been taken.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
That you have an identity to steal. Our society needs to be a "lender beware" society more than relying on individuals to protect that which isn't in their power (nor the government's power) to protect. An "identity" isn't non-abstract enough to have legal meaning. I owe you money? Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. (something they don't have to do today) Force lenders and credit card companies to take ownership of the issue, not individuals.
The world at large should consider it mostly not your problem when someone opens a credit card account in your name. It should be as simple as saying "Nope, not me!", and it's actually the credit card company that has been defrauded, not you. That's why I really hate the term identity theft. I had that happen to me, and my identity wasn't stolen. I still had it. My credit card company was defrauded to the tune of a couple thousand dollars, but I was mildly annoyed and had to spend a few minutes confirming that a few purchases weren't made by me.
I think it should still be considered a criminal act, and obviously things like changing your medical record or arrest record can have very serious consequences, but it's a positive that creditors understand that when this happens, THEY have a problem. I much prefer that to them coming after me and trying to stick me with the consequences of their lax security.
No, what we need is for companies/schools/etc. to stop using a SSN as a secret identifier. Your social security card even explicitly says it is not meant to be used as such a thing.
As a merchant responsible quite a few online stores, I want to dispute the quoted claim and take it one step forward. We bear the losses when a chargeback occurs. That's the end of that.
Now the part that REALLY upsets me is that it isn't even close to being feasible to report a known credit card thief!
I have enough data (50+ stores into one shipping program) between orders and chargeback reports that I can tell you full residential street names of known credit card thief. Addresses that have 2-3 chargebacks and counting. You would think with this information I could easily report it to the authorities? Nope. No easy online forms exist. If you search for them you will find they are all setup for the victim to do the reporting. It's a damn shame because though I won't have to deal with the individual scam artist(s) anymore (by now I would have blocked them with heuristics), there was an opportunity to stop them from stealing more credit cards and causing more merchants headaches.