Face to Face with your Identity Thief
Identity theft is a crime that typically stays anonymous. There isn’t that many people out there that actually get to see the face of their identity thief. Identity theft is a crime that is hard to track. Thieves can change names and identities quickly and it’s not a question of what they are doing but who is doing it. What they are doing is easy to track it’s who is doing it that makes it difficult.
One Seattle woman actually got the chance to meet her identity thief when she walked into the JC Penny she worked at and tried to obtain a credit card.
Michelle McCambridge, back in January, discovered that her identity had been stolen when she began to receive credit statements from several department stores that she didn’t ask for. After filing a report and some official investigations federal agents recovered security photos of the thief applying for the credit cards in her name. Michelle didn’t recognize the identity thief because they had never met, that is until about a week later.
A week after seeing the identity thief’s face in photos Michelle got the chance to see it up close and personal. Michelle’s identity thief was attempting to apply for a credit card at the JC Penny where Michelle worked. Not only did the identity thief apply for the card at the same department store Michelle worked at, but the same counter Michelle worked from.
When Michelle saw the woman standing in font of her counter asking about a credit card account she recognized her from the security photos. Her heart skipped a beat and she calmly excused herself from the counter and notified the security staff to focus on her. The security staff was able to get a pretty good look at the identity thief.
Unfortunately they police were not able to catch her right then and there. After the credit card was denied the thief left without a scene. Michelle’s efforts weren’t in vain however they did help connect the crimes when investigators finally caught the perpetrators. One of the identity thieves was arrested a couple weeks later trying to take out a credit card at a Kohl’s department store.
In this case it wasn’t just one person the identity thefts were all connected to an identity theft ring consisting of at least 5 people. The identity theft ring was responsible for the theft of 39 different identities.
Tags: identity, identity theft