ID theft strikes local resident
Identification Theft is fast becoming one of the top crimes in the U.S. and the world. My husband has always prided himself on paying his bills on time and never paying any late charges. Recently he decided to refinance our home loan to take advantage of the new low interest rates. He was declined because of his credit. It was explained to him that he not only had several loans past due, but many were out for collection and some had even been written off. This floored him. How could this have happened?
About four years ago, we were contacted by Dell Computers. They explained that an account had been opened in my husband’s name for $4,000. At this time the person had ordered some computer equipment and they wanted to be sure that he was the correct one because the shipping address was different from ours. We said no, we didn’t order it. At that time they suggested we file a report with Cape Coral Police department. He went to the station and was told that, “They didn’t write reports on ID thefts and because he had not actually lost money, there was no crime”.
On March 22, he went to the Cape Coral Police Station and filed an incident report with Officer Pankey who couldn’t have been any nicer. As my husband was preparing to send this report to the Credit Bureau, he noticed that one of the creditors had been left off. He returned to Cape Coral Police Station and requested a correction. Upon making this request, the desk officer was quite polite. At this time, Officer Schwartz stepped forward and advised my husband that this was “Not a police matter”. It was a civil matter. She wanted to know how long he had lived in Cape Coral. Then she told him that it could just be a mistake made by someone at the Credit Bureaus. That many people had the same name. He reminded her that there weren’t many with the same social security number. She told him that she would make the correction, but to remember, this was not a police affair. Perhaps Officer Schwartz would perform her job more efficiently if she would spend more time studying the Florida Statue 817.568/ Criminal use of personal Identification information. More specifically section 2(a). It plainly explains that ID theft is a felony of the third degree and carries a sentence of up to 5 years in prison.
When you have this happen to you, you feel very violated. You are told by the Federal Trade Commission to file a police report. The three Credit Bureaus request a copy of a police report. The companies reporting want a copy of the report. This is a long, arduous process trying to get a mistake corrected that you did not cause. I feel that this police department and it’s officers could, at least, show some sympathy for the victim and do whatever they could to assist them. This would be far better than lecturing them on the law.
Mary West
Cape Coral