Identity thief sentenced to three years in prison
Sunday, November 9th, 2008Michelle Chapman was a member of a 4-person identity theft ring whose members also included Laura Bustamante, John Johnstun and Joshua Smith.
Laura Bustamante was employed at the Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS) and used her computer access to retrieve the personal data of 33 victims. As an eligibility specialist, she had access to a database which includes the application data of DWS customers, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, images of bank statements, images of driver’s licenses, and immediate family identifying information.
In other words, -a financial identity thief’s jackpot!
Laura worked with her identity theft conspirators and charged more than $13,000 to credit cards issued BY LENDERS AND CREDITORS FRAUDULENTLY in the names of victims.
The criminal case investigation started Jan. 17, 2008, when Motor Vehicle Enforcement officers located Chapman and Smith in a hotel room on North Temple in Salt Lake City. During a search subsequent to arrest, officers found a variety of counterfeit state identification cards, a large amount of stolen mail, credit cards, credit card member agreement correspondence, credit card pin number correspondence, credit report information, and store receipts for two laptop computers, among other things.
Wow. These 33 victims were screwed because the LENDERS and CREDIT CARD ISSUERS never validated and verified if the victims were actually the ones who really applied for the credit cards. This is a symptom of convenient, easy credit and sloppy verification on the creditor’s part. The victims will be stuck with the mess the lenders and creditors facilitated with their sloppy credit verification standards.
