I spoke with Boston Police Officer Sgt. Michael Fish (Badge 491) earlier today about an identity theft incident that occurred in Boston a few years back. Sgt. Fish did not give me any opportunity to explain why I was calling now to file a report nor did he seem at all concerned about the incident. Sgt. Fish was apparently near the end of his shift and apparently was more concerned about getting off work than properly addressing a crime report.
When Alicia and I moved back from Hong Kong in the Spring of 2003 and applied for a mortgage, we discovered that I was a victim of (relatively minor) identity theft. While we were in HK, in the fall of 2001, someone in Boston had opened three accounts in my name - A Cingular account, a Spiegel store credit card account, and a third account the details of which I have forgotten.
Cingular was great - I called them, was transferred to their fraud department, and the woman agreed after about 10 minutes that it was clearly fraud. They wrote off the account and retracted the notification to the credit bureaus. The third account was also easily taken care of.
The Spiegel account was harder to resolve. At the time, there was a collection agency trying to collect payment. I spoke with them and asked if it would be sufficient if I provided documentation from my employer that I was in Hong Kong during the period in question. They said that would be sufficient. By the time I had the documentation, the collection agency had sold the account back to Card Management Services. (at some point between November 2001 and April 2003, Card Management Services had bought the assets (ie the credit accounts) from the bank that had originally issued the credit card.)
There are three ways to contact Card Management Services. The first is via a website and the second is via a toll-free number. Both the website and the toll-free number require a valid sixteen digit credit card number to proceed past the first page/prompt. The third way to contact Card Management Services is via postal mail. I mailed them a letter explaining the situation along with a copy of the letter from my employer in HK verifying that I had been out of the country during that time period. I never received any response.
I was able to dispute this account with the credit bureaus and it disappeared from my credit report until a few weeks ago, when I received notice from Equifax that this account had re-appeared on my credit history and then I received a letter from yet another collection agency. I called the collection agency and asked if I could send them the letter from my employer in HK. They said that was not sufficient and that I should file a police report with my local police department.
I went down to my local police department last Saturday to file a report. The police officer there told me that I needed to file a report where the crime actually occurred. This made sense. I therefore called the Boston Police Department today and eventually spoke with Boston Police Officer Sgt. Michael Fish (Badge 491).
Sgt Fish said that he was unwilling to file the report because the incident happened so long ago and because I was calling from California. I explained that I didn’t know about the incident until 2003 and that there was no reason to file the report then – it seemed like I could resolve all three accounts without filing a police report, so why take up their time for no reason? It’s not like they would have bothered to investigate the case even if I had filed the report – we are talking about maybe $900 in total after all.
I also pointed out that I would have been calling from CA in 2003 and could provide him with just as much information today as I could have then – I offered to fax over all relevant materials to his attention. Either way I would be calling in a report from across the country about an incident that took place years ago. Sgt. Fish mentioned again that there was a shift change and he needed to get off the phone. He had done all the “work” he was going to do today.
Sgt. Michael Fish should not be a Boston Police Officer. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the US. Resolving identity theft issues, as can be seen above, is a complex process that can take many years. I can explain the extremely complex history of this account and why I needed to file a report in less than five minutes. Shame on you Sgt Fish for not listening for even thirty seconds.
Posted by Stephen Bronstein at June 9, 2006 01:41 PM