Anyone can have their identity stolen – even a former police chief. Here’s a story about how a family discovered they were victims of identity theft.
Former Chandler Police Chief Bobby Joe Harris spent more than 30 years protecting his community. He was trained at the FBI National Academy and other elite law enforcement schools, and knew how to protect himself. Always part of solving crimes, but never a victim: that all changed in late January 2006 when his name was added to the long list of identity theft victims.
Now Harris and his wife have turned to LifeLock to protect them from any future ID theft problems.
“This might sound strange, but we were lucky,” said Harris. “All this occurred in a little over a month and we discovered the fraudulent use of our identity and credit history before it became a major disaster. We had to get our problems corrected ourselves with the credit card company and credit bureaus, though we felt we shouldn’t have to. Being in law enforcement for over 35 years and my wife being in banking for the same amount of time, we went into the investigative mode to find something that would not let this happen again. A friend told us about LifeLock and after we looked at a number of companies, we found that LifeLock had the best product that covered all the aspects we wanted.”
How was their identity stolen?
The adventure began for Harris when an individual working for the local Sam’s Club canceled his wife’s membership/credit card and replaced it with a stolen identity name. The criminal used a false address and telephone number which even changed the address on their credit history. She increased the credit card limit several times up to $15,000 and charged more than $11,000 in the matter of a few days.
How did they find out they were identity theft victims?
The crime was discovered when Mrs. Harris was denied service at Sam’s Club.
Someone at the store informed her that her husband had canceled her card and he was the only one who could reactivate it. When the Harrises’ went into the store to reactivate the card, they found out about the fraud. The store told them the card had not been used and, being a retired police officer, Harris was suspicious and decided to check.
Harris and his wife ran a credit report that revealed more than $11,000 had been charged to that account and that the address had been changed.
Harris immediately called the Sam’s Club loss prevention agent in Arizona who told him that he believed Harris had compromised his own personal information. Knowing that was not possible, Harris then e-mailed Sam’s Club headquarters and was informed that the store had an internal problem which resulted in the compromise of information.
Furthermore, Sam’s Club confirmed that they knew about the problem for nearly a month and never did anything to correct it.
It’s unfortunate that so many companies, banks and even the credit bureaus function with such a blasé attitude. They operate under the notion that there’s an acceptable level of loss as long as it doesn’t affect their profits and shareholders.
“I wish we would have known about LifeLock before all this happened to us,” added Harris. “Our experience has been told on TV and in newspapers throughout Arizona. Daily I have people who recognize me say “If you have been a victim, how can we ever protect ourselves?” I tell them being a client of LifeLock brings a peace of mind we never thought we would need. I was one of the people who said something like this would never happen to me. I was wrong but it will never happen again.”
One of the worst parts of being a victim of identity theft is that you’re presumed guilty until you prove your innocence. Take charge of your identity today.
Learn more about Identity Theft Protection or get a LifeLock Promotion Code for 30 days free/$9 a month.
