Ginny is sure that her bank’s surveillance cameras caught her having a nervous breakdown after she learned that all of the money in her checking account mysteriously disappeared. She is a full-time college student and working mom, who lives paycheck-to-paycheck, and every dollar she earns goes towards paying the bills and supporting her 14-year old son.
So when the bank teller at her local bank told Ginny than her money had been used to pay a pricey bill for a Cingular Wireless account, Ginny began to worry. She didn’t have a cell phone, and the Washington D.C. address on the cell phone bill wasn’t hers. She immediately suspected that she had become a victim of identity theft.
Not long after discovering the fraudulent Cingular Wireless account, Ginny learned that the thieves had opened accounts with Verizon Telephone Services, DirectTV, Sprint PCS, and Dell Computers. She also learned that the thieves tried to open credit cards using her name and personal information.
Once more, the imposters accessed Ginny’s newly created checking account and authorized the payment of an overdue fraudulent bill. With limited funds in the account, the thieves caused her rent check to bounce, resulting in expensive overdraft fees that Ginny wasn’t able to pay.
Furious about the chaos that the thieves had caused, Ginny placed a fraud alert on her credit files, filed a report with the Federal Trade Commission and sought help from her local Sheriffs Department, who told the Maryland resident to file a police report with authorities in Washington D.C. where the thieves lived.
With the address of the crooks in her hand, Ginny took a day off from work and spent her day driving to Metropolitan Police Headquarters in the District of Columbia where she filed a police report with the department’s check and fraud department.
Ginny expected the detectives would follow up on the case because of the information that she provided them; however, 60 days after filing the report, “The police did not do anything. [The detective] informed me that he believed my case had been closed