Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Identity Theft

The Adzentoivichs have been victims of identity theft.

Ernie got a credit card from Shop NBC in the mail right before Christmas. We thought it was a promotion. Soon after he received a bill for $2500! Apparently someone opened a credit account with this ShopNBC (TV or Online store), using his name and his SS# which was off by one digit. The issuing bank gave them the credit anyway - even though the SS# was incorrect.

The NYPD are now involved and have been very helpful. The Shop NBC account has been closed and somehow the merchant has "recovered the merchandise" yet they won't say how. Apparently they shipped the items to our address but there was nobody here to sign. The thief called UPS and asked them to send it to another address, apparently. The funny thing is that we never got the slip from UPS saying we missed a delivery - this makes us believe that someone who has been in our building is a part of this.

The Detective found a suspect via a phone number. This person lives in Queens. They need more evidence before they can question this person. They are working on it.

Today we received in the mail our bank statement. Apparently this thief got into our bank account as well. There were multiple points of purchase at places like The Coach Store and Toys R Us. Two places where we obviously don't shop. This caused some of our own checks to bounce (which has never happened in Adzentoivich history. I think Ernie is more pissed about that than anything..). They managed to steal about $1,000 from our bank account as far as we can tell.

This is a nightmare.

They also took cash from an ATM so somehow our bank issued them an actual ATM card.

How can this happen?

We are now in the process of closing all of our credit cards and our bank account. Citibank doesn't seem to have any form of fraud or theft protection. For example, we asked them if they could protect our cards by somehow disallowing purchases made over the phone or online and they said that they can't.

This is not good timing. I want the NYPD to find this person and go all Sipowitz on their ass.

UPDATE: We just found out they stole more than $2900. Mostly all spent shopping in Long Island. Foot Locker alone was more than $500. Someone is walking around the city with really nice sneakers that we bought for them....I think Ernie is going to burst a blood vessel.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
That sucks and I cannot believe that the theives were issued a credit account even though they didn't even have the ss number right. That is OUTRAGEOUS.
Appalled,
LL

steph said...

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!! That is really scary and terrible and Oh My God. I hope they get those idiots. Also? The banks? Suck.

anne said...

Oh my God! That completely sucks!

Keep us posted on the progress the police make. Don't let Ernie kill the perpetrator, it will only cause more grief.

Ugh, what a mess. I would be all over that bank for giving an ATM to this creep.

josetteplank.com said...

Ick.

That happened to me.

I was in a CHUCH and while I walked to the ALTAR someone evidently routed through my purse, got my driver's license info and used that to walk across the street, open a cel phone account, and make $4000 worth of calls to South America in less than 2 weeks.

They were never caught. I even called the FBI to ask them if there was any info they were interested in, and basically, they said, "Pffft." So did the police. They kept saying, "Don't worry, you won't have to pay for it. Nothing else we can do."

I'm sorry you're going through this.

I had to close down everything just in case. THAT was the biggest hassle.