A few years ago, one of my credit cards was compromised. I blogged about it here, chronicling everything from the initial theft, along with my partnership with the credit card company to stop the theft and to protect my finances.
Thankfully, my credit card – Rainy Day Credit Card Company – immediately noticed the purchasing discrepancy, and locked down the account. I signed an affidavit verifying that the transactions were not mine, and normally that would have been the end of the situation.
Well, not as far as I was concerned. You try to steal my money, you incur my wrath.
After I signed the affidavit, I did some investigating of my own. I checked the initial suspect charges on my account and found that the purchases that triggered the credit card breach were made to ecampus.com. I was able to find out from ecampus.com the e-mail account to which the purchase went. I provided that information – the e-mail address, the textbook purchased, the confirmation information from ecampus.com – to my credit card company.
Yesterday, I received a letter from the United States Department of Justice. The letter was originally sent to me six months ago – at my old address. After it got forwarded back and forth across the country, the address was corrected (from Pine Hills to the Town and Village), and I finally received the news.
And guess what happened.
The Department of Justice arrested the meathead who compromised hundreds of credit cards, including mine. According to the DOJ letter, this mackerel “knowingly and with intent to defraud possessed unauthorized access devices, namely, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers assigned to other persons. Defendant … intentionally accessed a computer without authorization and thereby obtained information from a department and agency of the United States…”
On May 7, 2012, this clown pleaded guilty to two charges – 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(3): Possession of Fifteen or More Unauthorized Access Devices; and 18 U.S.C. §§ 1030(a)(2)(B), (c)(2)(A): Unauthorized Access to a Government Computer. He has to pay restitution, he spent some time in jail, and he’s now on three years’ supervised release.
Did the information I provided to Rainy Day Credit Card Company help put this dillweed in jail? Don’t know. Maybe I was one of many customers who checked my credit card statements on a regular basis and discovered there was something fishy going on. Maybe more than one Rainy Day Credit Card Company subscriber stepped to the plate. Maybe Rainy Day provided all this information to the Justice Department on their own.
I can’t say for certain whether the information I gave helped arrest and convict this lowlife.
But I’m willing to think that maybe… just maybe… it’s better than if I hadn’t done anything at all.
Chuck The Writer 
What timing Chuck! I just had this happen to me on Monday – but with my debit card. The company the charge was made to caught it as a fraudulent charge (Thank God!) & I was credited the $$$$ back into my account. But I still had to cancel my one and only card & OH! the hoops you have to jump through to right everything with all the bills I pay monthly from that card. Lots of work ahead – when I get my new card that is. Glad it worked out for you & that the knucklehead got caught and tried.
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Way to go! What a great outcome!
Some dipwad tried to do the same to us. We worked with the appropriate law enforcement officials, and he had to face the consequences of what he did. And our credit card company was very good about working with us and the vendor, too.
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So scary, we’re more vulnerable than we want to think! Thank heavens that particular idiot was caught, hope they all are!!!
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Kudos to the DOJ for their diligence in catching this waste of oxygen!
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Chuck,
I’m happy this worked out for you and thank you for sharing this experience with us. It’s normal for you to point your anger towards the, “meathead” who fraudulently used your credit card. But think about where this person got your information in the first place:
“knowingly and with intent to defraud possessed unauthorized access devices, namely, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers assigned to other persons. Defendant … intentionally accessed a computer without authorization and thereby obtained information from a department and agency of the United States…”
You would think (hope) that an agency of the United States would have multiple policies and controls in place to protect OUR data – god knows, they have some sensitive information. The scary thing about this story is the amount of “meatheads” that are out there around the globe trying to get their hands on our hard earned money every day. Luckily, this guy is paying a price – most cyber criminals are not punished. Stealing from Americans is NOT illegal in many countries, in some cases it is state sponsored.
As consumers, we need to be vigilant and be aware of our risks. The Business we share our information with need to get their act together. In my opinion, this problem is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
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