Identity Theft Follow-up

Here’s how things went after I was con­tacted by the com­pany attend­ing CES in Las Vegas ear­lier this month regard­ing some­one using a link to a post of mine in TechVibes tried to scam some free equipment:

I left a mes­sage with the Van­cou­ver police, and they con­tacted me the next day. I gave them the infor­ma­tion I had about the Mark Drucker char­ac­ter in Vegas, and as instructed, I called Equifax and put a 6-year watch on my credit card accounts. Frankly, I’m fine with this. I’d always like to know when a credit card account is being opened (even if I do it), and a phone call con­fir­ma­tion is not that much of an incon­ve­nience. In fact, Dear Credit Card Com­pa­nies, wouldn’t it be seen as an advan­tage that you take some pains to make sure that the credit card appli­ca­tions you are get­ting are legit? Come to think of it, isn’t bad credit on mort­gages what started the whole down­ward spi­ral in the US econ­omy last year?

At any rate, as far as I knew, that would be the end of my brush with a fraud­ster. Silly me, I should have known that it wasn’t just one booth at CES that this guy would try to scam (although I don’t believe he pro­vided my link this time, but sim­ply the Time Mag­a­zine story). This morn­ing I got an email from another ven­dor, who has com­mented below. Here’s an excerpt:

Hello David,
The arti­cle you wrote on ID Thief saved me and the com­pany I work for a pile of money!  Recently, I was an exhibitor at the CES show in Las Vegas.  A man named “Mark Drucker” from TIME Mag­a­zine approached me at my booth and asked if he could write an arti­cle on my prod­ucts and that he would like sam­ples.  He offered me an inter­view on an arti­cle he was going to write.  I thought, great!  This will give my prod­uct line huge expo­sure and PR!  I sent out all of my sam­ples this past Fri­day and began fol­low­ing up with my show leads.  I have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with “Mark” over the phone and e-mail.

I felt a lit­tle bit wary about this “Mark Drucker” char­ac­ter because when I con­tacted TIME Mag­a­zine, they said there is no one by that name employed with the com­pany! I decided to Google his name.  My jaw dropped to the ground after read­ing your article/blog on Stop ID Thief.  I was able to con­tact UPS and have my sam­ples sent back to me before they were deliv­ered to “Mark Drucker.”

You saved me and I’m blessed to have read your arti­cle just in the nick of time.  It’s unfor­tu­nate that peo­ple like this are going around scam­ming peo­ple like me and you.  I want to thank you for post­ing your blog/article.  You have been a huge help and you have saved the com­pany I work for a lot of money and time.  I will be con­tact­ing GES (com­pany respon­si­ble for orga­niz­ing CES SHOW), the F.B.I. in Las Vegas in regards to this “Mark Drucker” phony, and TIME Mag­a­zine.  I might not get far, but it’s worth a try right?

He then included the guys local address and phone num­ber, which matched the one I had got­ten from the other com­pany. I’ve con­tacted the Van­cou­ver police and left a mes­sage that I’ve got some more infor­ma­tion on the this guy’s activities.

So I guess this is an exam­ple of a blog help­ing to fight back. I’m glad that it worked out, and it also shows that scam­mers may have a harder time get­ting away with their ruses, although it does depend on the infor­ma­tion about the scam get­ting out in time. Still, it gives me a lit­tle hope that a blog can actu­ally help in a sit­u­a­tion like this. And if the gen­tle­man from Vegas is in fact read­ing this, he should now know that more than one ven­dor is on to him.