Could an ID thief get you locked up? (Jack Bog's Blog)

A faithful reader writes:

I was just looking over the changes to my homeowner's insurance policy (rocking Saturday night indeed). Most of the changes regard the identity theft protection thing I bought with the normal insurance. The policy covers lost wages for time spent straightening out your credit after an identity theft. An additional thing they've added is "broadened coverage to include coverage for lost wages due to wrongful incarceration of the insured as a direct result of an identity fraud."
It's not really a local issue, but I just wonder, is this really happening? Are people somehow winding up in jail because their identity got stolen?

I hunted around to see if I could find any evidence of anyone actually being put in jail because their identity was stolen, but didn't really see anything, just this one story of a kid in Britain (or somewhere) having to make court appearances because of an ID theft:

http://iccroydon.icnetwork.co.uk/news/croydon/tm_objectid=16765934
&method=full&siteid=53340&headline=student-fears-going-to-jail-after-identity-stolen-name_page.html

Does anyone out there have any light to shed on this?

Comments (6)

I remember when I left my driver's license on an airplace a few years back, and asked the Oregon DMV for a new driver's license number, DMV said it would give me one only if I could prove that a crime had been committed using my existing number. I suppose if some guy using my name and number skips out on court dates for a series of serious traffic offenses somewhere, they'll be coming for me.

Posted by Jack Bog | March 4, 2006 9:52 PM

Or if someone makes a fake drivers license using your name and info (but their picture), and then racks up a whole bunch of bounced checks.

You'll have someone on your doorstep as well.

I have the feeling this may not be covered that much in the news, but has likely happened.

Posted by Jenni Simonis | March 5, 2006 2:52 AM

A family member had his credit card fraudulently used to start up a website a few years ago. He reported the fraud and never found the website...

but if it's something awful/illegal and they track it to his old credit card, wouldn't they throw him in the slammer right away and ask questions later? I have no proof, but I suspect they might.

Posted by teacherrefpoet | March 5, 2006 9:20 AM

I once knew someone who was living under a stolen identity (unknown to me at the time). He was almost arrested because the name he was using was not all that uncommon and someone else with the same name was writing bad checks.

Posted by Judy (aka Mom) | March 5, 2006 3:32 PM

Yes, people in Portland have been wrongly arrested for ID theft. I've no idea on the numbers but I've come across two I can recall. They each were siblings of the real crook.

The innocent person's brother/sister had each recently become a doper, gotten arrested without ID and were taken to the Mult. Co. jail downtown for processing. No ID files had previously existed on the thieved or the thief so when the thief lied about his/her ID, they became their brother/sister as far as "the system" was concerned.

Both these innocent people I'd dealt with (I was assisting them in investigating their most recent ID theft episodes) had been wrongly arrested, though in absolute good faith.

A good chunk of people on whom the police have probable cause will lie about their ID. Therefore someone complaining "Hey, I didn't do it! I'm not him!" doesn't exactly raise a red flag. If you think that makes cops negligent via being jaded, ask the next cop you see how many times last week he heard a drug possession suspect claim that the suspect's pants weren't really his.

The confusion can be cleared up but it's a pain. At the police level, one can trudge to Central Precinct and ask for a Do Not Confuse procedure so any time the innocent person's name comes up for Portland, the red flag is risen high.

More importantly, the ID theft victim needs to notify the police immediately and warn the appropriate banks and credit agencies. Accounts are then flagged for extra security measures.

Just don't expect Portland Police to do anything about the ID theft. It is (quite wrongly) very low on the list and it takes a huge amount of money loss before a detective is allowed to work an ID theft case. Most ID theft cases are left in "patrol purgatory" where cops trying to work their shift in cars usually don't have the time/resources/knowledge to properly investgate.

This is a major problem for and with the Portland Police Bureau. They've been eroded into being a triage unit and ID theft equates to a common cold.

Maybe the PPB can raise money to combat ID theft by having a bake sale on the ski lift.

Posted by Anahit | March 5, 2006 3:57 PM

Wow. This is really just wild to me. It seems like the really awkward/unfortunate/frightening thing about identity theft is that there are lots of crimes that can be comitted where the only real identifier is a credit card or other financial info - like starting an illicit website or writing a bad check - and once that is in place, the innocent ID theft victim is in a seriously disadvantageous legal situation.

I suppose that this is even worse for non-criminal acts that you can still be sued for, like copyright infringement. What do you do if someone uses your credit card to start a Bittorrent server (or whatever) then the RIAA sues you and suddenly the best evidence out there suggest that you are the infringer?

Posted by Luke | March 5, 2006 9:10 PM

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Saturday, March 4, 2006

Could an ID thief get you locked up?

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