Wanted...Identity Thief!

Well, this is not a joke this time, but the good news is we believe the person(s) have been caught!!!!

After Parker's party weekend the next week began as usual for Joyce with supply orders and photo sessions...on the 4th of March Joyce received a call from a vendor in Washington State confirming her order and requesting a new credit card to process the order because the card on file didn't work. Oddly, she thought the credit card on file should certainly handle a $65 order, but none-the-less anything could be wrong, so she gave the vendor another card (her business debit card) quickly on the phone. This is a card she doesn't use often due to the tie to the bank account, but she hadn't had any trouble with the few vendors that currently use it.

One day later a mysterious charge for $602 shows up on the account. We immediately phoned the bank, they put a hold on the charge, but the charge dropped off by Friday. Agreeing with the bank that this might have been an error, we waited it out. In a rush to finish a project the next Monday and get it out overnight in DHL, Joyce reluctantly got the mail. She wishes she hadn't gotten the mail before finishing the project, because what unfolded was unbelievable.

In the mail were 25-30 backorder notice/postcards from FashionBug.com...hmmm...totalling $602? You bet, the charge dropped off because everything ordered was on backorder and due to ship the next day. Surprise, again we were victims of Identity Theft!

Coincidence? The police said "NO WAY!"...the order was placed the same day with Joyce's card, processed under the name "Grace Goldman" (how clever a mix of her name and her business name) and shipping to Renton, WA (just 12 miles from the vendor given the credit card information that day).

The fraud department at Fashion Bug was very nice and helpful, but would only give extended information to the IGH Police. Officer Billmeyer told us that Fashion Bug informed her that this was the 6th order to go to this address in Renton and all of them used different cards with different names/bill-to addresses. We spoke to the owner at the vendor as well and he was very diligent in getting information and hoping to erradicate what looked like a bad employee situation right away. The officer showed up the next day after reporting the crime and took all of the postcards, copies of Joyce's email, the packing slip from the vendor and the information from Fashion Bug to turn over to the Renton, WA Police Department. We were able to swiftly get a new credit card number and the charge never appeared again because it was cancelled that day.

Did we discover a ring? We like to think so! :) We know that the person Joyce dealt with on the phone from the vendor is no longer an employee!?! Coincidence? Again, probably not.

The IGH police officer was very excited about this case, because she said that they get phone calls every day for identity theft/fraud and it just gets to hard to chase. Usually the cases end up at the bottom of a pile under the obviously more pressing cases, but this time she felt like there was enough evidence to hopefully catch or atleast scare the person committing the fraud to stop. She said with the recession the cases of this are out of control and would feel good to know that atleast one person was going to pay.

As for us, just another lesson to learn, but thankfully it just cost us a bunch of time and not a bunch of money!