We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Today we got a payment book from PNC bank for 72 payments of around $350 for something.
Lisa called PNC bank to inquire. Being as she couldn't verify the account within their stringent guidelines, they wouldn't even tell her what was bought using her name and identity, or where it happened.
But they would give a loan to someone that wasn't her. I guess the loan giving guidelines aren't so stringent? The best they can do is "file a fraud something and get back to us in 7 to 10 days".
Lisa is now doing the fraud alert steps to protect her credit.

In the last couple weeks we had been refinancing the house and she got some odd declined credit applications as if she'd applied for loans, but she thought that was maybe just a result of things the bank was bouncing around related to our refinance, she never gave it much thought.

I assume this will become a great big convoluted mess, but neither of us are really upset at all. I do admit to being somewhat pissed at the phone knucklehead at PNC, though. I would certainly hope they'd be far more helpful and supportive with something this important.
We have a little identity theft insurance, so that's good. We caught this quick and we're doing the due diligence, including filing a police report. It'll all work out, I'm sure. God has bailed us out of far, far more dire things than this. This is just a bump in the road.

The reason I'm posting is to get any input I can from any of you guys that may have dealt with this. What happened, how, what did you have to do, etc.
Any stories you can tell would be priceless and any suggestions for us as we proceed would be awesome. :tu

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Oh wow Scott thats crazy. Is there a local branch where maybe you could speak to a manager and see if being face to face will get you a little farther than the phone dummies?

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Scott, this is the info I'd give to ID theft victims FTC website Good luck with everything, and hopefully everything is resolved for you soon.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

If you were someone else, wouldn't you want to be Lisa? I mean, it makes all the sense in the world, Scott.

Hope it works out easily bro

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

I suppose if you could find out where it was bought, you could find out the make, model and VIN number, with that the perpetrator could be found via registration records. Heck, you might even be able to file a stolen car report. After all, they bought it in her name.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Not good, brother! Be sure to cancel all your ccs just to be safe. And, yes, I'd try to get a face to face with someone at PNC and mention how poorly you were treated- hopefully you have the guy's name. Prayers sent for a speedy resolution!

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

We live in Ohio, PNC is Pittsburgh PA based bank.
Lisa had been working in Washington, PA for a long time which is very close to Pittsburgh. She could have had her driver's license info stolen from any of the copies that hotel personnel took along the way.
I'll check and see if there are any branches here in OH, but I've never seen one.

Edit:
I checked. There's a bunch right around here. One is 4 miles down the road. Thanks, Brian, that was a big help!!! :tu

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

You live in Ohio now??!!

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

That's all kinds of f'd up. Seems like the responsible party would be the auto dealer who set up the loan financing--what the heck kind of lax requirements do they have?!

When my wife's employer accidentally released personnel records when they updated one of their servers (so if you Googled her name, tons of stuff, including SSN, performance appraisals, etc.) were available, we had to go with one of the identity protection bureaus. At least it was paid for by her employer. Haven't had any issues as a result of the breach, so we're fortunate so far.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

scott good luck to you and lisa with this. i know this can be a very stressful ordeal. hopefully since you caught it early its just a matter of canceling the loan and your current credit cards.

make sure to stay on top of this and monitor all your bank statements and credit reports for at least a year or 2 after this just in case they try something again.

maybe try talking to the DMV and getting lisa (and maybe yourself) new drivers licenses just so if they do try again its more proof that it wasnt you guys (because they used a old DL).

GL brother

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Track down the thief and quarter them with a rusty machete? You can't be charged with murdering yourself right?

But seriously, I hope everything gets worked out quickly and without too much of a headache.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

We really don't know if it's a car, Gerard. Sure looks like it, though. 72 payments of $347.40 and the payment book is the kind you get for a car.
Do you remember the identity protection bureau your wife used? I already mentioned it to Lisa and we're going to jump on that as soon as she gats back from filing the report at the police station.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Frank, the people used old info. The loan is in her last surname (smith), not our last name. She got her new driver's license immediately after we got married because we needed it to get passports to go on our honeymoon. That all happened last January.
She only lived at this address for a short time under her old name, and the loan is addressed to our current address.
That in itself shows someone didn't do their due diligence along the way, I'd think. Whoever got the loan used expired info, so it had to be info they got from before last January.
That's why I'm thinking it was lifted from one of the hotels she worked at.

Lisa is awesome at paperwork and she's taking this all in stride. Nothing slips through her fingers. She already has this nailed down tight and the loan booklet only showed up an hour and 45 minutes ago. :D

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

This is terrible Scott. This is my wifes biggest nightmare!
Hang in there and stay on top of it like Frank suggested, unfortunatley theres never much help out there for situations like this, it seems it's always up to the victim to figure out.

Good luck brother, wish I had some advice to offer.

Do you remember there was a thread somebody had posted about credit card fraud they experienced when on a road trip to B&Ms.
If I remember correctly it was a restaurant employee that took thier card to charge it and must have taken the number down.
I know this isn't the same but it made me think of it, thought maybe the victim could give some advice. I have no idea what to search for to find this though.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

does it say where the car was bought

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

This is crazy! The b@lls on some people. I have been a victim of identity theft and it was so early in the game that not even the police knew what to do, luckily my bank jumped on it, but it was only a couple of hundred dollars and back in 98' I think.

Good luck and keep us updated brother.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

We don't know if it was a car, that's a guess. It could be a boat of anything, really. The papers say nothing and PNC wouldn't tell Lisa anything on the phone.
We'll go to the local branch tomorrow, I'm sure they'll give us that info.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Hopefully you can get somewhere with them. At least she's handling it well. My wife would have already cancelled our cards and called the bank and frozen our accounts. :r

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Lisa knows every single ounce of information about every bit of what goes on here. If there was a credit card movement or bank movement, she'd have known before it happened.
The only reason this could ever happen was because it was outside the long arm of the Lisa. :D

She just finished up at the Police Station and got her report. They made a good suggestion which was to take her passport with her when she goes to the bank tomorrow. They suggested that a passport can't be faked. I watch tv, and they do it all the time. :D

And on the loan, Yes, it was a car loan. Lisa just told me that on the phone. When she was on the horn with the phone dummie he mentioned it was an auto loan. I misunderstood her. He just wouldn't give her any specific info on where and what kind of car was bought. I'm sure security cams and driver's license copies will bear out the fact it wasn't her.

I just told her how proud I was of her in how she's handling this and what an amazing woman she is. She said we've both been having a wonderful day, and this isn't going to screw it up. There's absolutely no reason to get upset about something we can do nothing about, and we've done all we can do till tomorrow.
That's just one of the million reasons why I love this woman so. We see eye to eye on nearly everything, and what we don't, we love that, too. :)

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Stay strong, brother! Looks like you both are well on the way to handling the ugly situation!

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

72 payments at 347.40 is $25012.80, which is roughly a car valued at $18,200 with no trade in, no down payment, ~9% interest loan, and the 6% PA sales tax factored in.

My experience is that banks typically don't like to loan money for 6 years, it's a long duration and a lot can change in 6 years. And if you total the car in a couple years, the bank has nothing to repo which means they have to waste time and money coming after the person's other assets....an all around loss for the bank. This is one of the reasons typical car loans are 1-3 years, with the unusual long loans being up to 5.

Hence, banks typically won't loan that kind of money out without some serious tangible collateral backing it. I would make damned sure your house or other personal vehicles and assets haven't been used as a guarantee for the loan. Where I live, a state title search (which is a royal PITA to obtain sometimes) will show if an asset has been used as backing for a loan of any type. I would see if Ohio has anything similar.

Good luck man, hope you come out of this one better than you went into it.




Cornrow: I'm pretty sure they would just put you away for Attempted Murder First :)

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

dont be surprised too scott if this wasnt a inside job between the thief and car salesman.

down here in south florida we were having peoples credit card info (along with other personal info from fast food joints and stores with skimmers) and they would in turn sell all the info to the scammers. those scammers would in turn give the info to people they knew who worked at other stores who would open up lines of credit and run up the bill within 24 hours before the victim even knew what hit them.

another problem was people taking the elderly info from the mail at nursing homes and using that with people on the inside of banks to open lines of credit or withdraw all the money from savings.

again good luck brother and if you need anything contact me!!!!

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Sorry for your troubles, Scott. Love your upbeat attitude with everything that seems to hit you. Wish I had half of that attitude.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

I hope the thief gets burned for doing this. Good luck!-(P

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Gerard, Lisa signed us up for LifeLock. It was a toss-up between them and Identity Guard. LifeLock is the outfit that ran around with the guy's social security number on the side of the van. I remembered thinking that was pretty cool when I saw it.
I checked all the Consumer Reviews and those two companies were neck and neck. There are four of those types of outfits that are all pretty equal but the top two are the ones I mentioned.
They're about $100-$250 a year, which is a bit painful, but they'll provide us with all the credit reports we need and will monitor our names, address, ssn, everything from here on out.
It can't undo the damage that's been done, but it will halt anything that happend from here on. There's $1,000,000 identity theft insurance included and all sorts of other benefits, too. It's a tremendous service and a real Godsend for us right now.
I can't thank you enough for just mentioning it, it's really gone miles toward putting us at ease. :tu

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

So Sorry To Hear This, Scott. Thoughts & Prayers Sent For A Quick Resolution, Brother!:tu

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Sorry to hear Scott, that kinda makes my little compromised CC seem like small fries brother.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Sorry to hear about that Scott. I hope you and Lisa get it rectified swiftly!

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Scott,

Sorry to hear, glad you caught it though...

Funny thing about lifelong, you can do everything they do for free, it just takes some work......oh, and the founder had his identity stolen after plastering his SSN all over the place

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

It's funny you mentioned all this. Lisa crunched the numbers herself while she was at the cop shop. With her excellent credit, the interest would be much lower and a 72 month loan is cake to get around here (and in PA, as well).
We figure our benefactor is driving around in a brand new car valued at right around $20,000 or a little better. That's not a bad day's work.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Sorry to hear about his Scott. Sounds like Weezy has this locked and loaded. Positive thoughts for a very swift outcome.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

I went and looked up about the LifeLock guy. He had his identity stolen 13 times. :lr
They also got fined $12,000,000 by the FCC for deceptive business practices, and news surfaced that the co-founder once stole his own father's identity in order to get an American Express card, so he resigned.
Honest to God, this world is screwed up.
Fortunately it'll still feed us the info we need in one easy place. Weeze doesn't have time to chase this thing all day every day. It'll allow her to keep an eye on what's happening, so it's still worth the price.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

That is a fact.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

I was thinking on this for a minute.
In my lifetime I've had my truck stolen from my driveway (never recovered), my house robbed twice, my credit card info stolen and used, my credit cards stolen and the theif tried to use them, and I've had my car broken into and robbed twice.
I also had money stolen by a babysitter a number of times until I finally caught her, a friend stole my medication, and one time someone stole my handgun but returned it later and then told me he did it. I also had my safe broken into at my house once.
Now this. I can't count this because it happened to Lisa directly, but we're a unit, so I suppose I can count it.
Those are just the things I could think of right off the top of my head, too. I must be charmed.
Maybe this is the last one. :D

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Holy crap I thought I had some issues. I hope that everything works out Scott. Sounds like you and Lisa will get this taken care of.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Scott, hope this service works out for you. My wife (also a Lisa :D) sounds as tenacious about banking records, paperwork, etc., as your Lisa. Her employer enrolled everyone in Experian

http://www.experian.com/consumer-pro...rotection.html

I don't know much about these kinds of services because up until now, we haven't felt the need to use one.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

The car has probably already been chopped, too. It's not much good to drive around in.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Today's Update...
It appears that it's not a malicious thing at all.
Somehow the retards at Great Lakes Hyundai, where we bought Lisa's car last February, transposed a bunch of information.
Some lady whose name happens to be Lisa M. Smith bought a car from them recently. My Lisa used to be Lisa L. Smith. We were already married and she has my name, so how these retards managed to transpose all this info and bill us was beyond me until I did some thinking.
(Funny thing is, I was just there today looking at cars, I need a new one.
The other funny thing is that last night I told Lisa that I pretty much guarantee that this problem came from Great Lakes Hyundai.)
Anyways, we realized that we began shopping there BEFORE she changed her name. They took a photocopy of Lisa's licensce for test-drive purposes. Last night we only realized that she had her new license when we bought the car.
So they managed to use my wife's photocopy of her old license from almost a year ago to bill the car to us and make a mess of Lisa's perfect credit.
Guess who will be paying to fix all this?
Now that I realize the extent of stupidity and piss-poor lacsidaisical work performance that's caused us this grief, the good folks at Great Lakes Hyundai are in for a heaping helping of shilala charm. :D
May God have mercy on them, because I certainly won't. ;)

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Glad you found out the problem, wow what negligence. Let em' have it Scott! :D

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

This is still preliminary, Bill. The lady from PNC bank called and that's how we figured out Great Lakes was where the problem started. We'll have proof of that in the coming days.
In the meantime the bank is fixing their end and sending Lisa an affidavit she has to fill out. The LifeLock thing should allow us to see what's happened to Lisa's credit and make sure nothing else is at play here.
Once I have all the info, then we'll decide together what we do and how bad I hammer Great Lakes. So far it's been a minimal investment of time and money, but we're not paying a dime for their mistakes. We don't mind the time so much because we understand people do make mistakes, but had I ever made an error of this proportion in my career, I'd certainly expect to be looking for a job. I don't want to see someone get fired, but I will insist that I speak to them directly.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Man oh man, I sure hope some heads are rolling at that dealership. What a STUPID, moronic mistake to make. ;s

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

I am stunned and baffled. So much so that I don't know if I'm baffled first or stunned first. lol
I'm long since done being pissed at them now, so that's good. We'll see how this all works out. I'm sure it'll be fine. Like I said earlier, God has bailed us out of a lot worse, and He'll make short order of this mess.
What worries me most is if they can be this incredibly stupid, how many other people have they hurt, and where's the limit of their stupidity, if there is a limit?
It really is scary. You'd think someone would have to go way out of their way to be that inept. It's kinda sad, even. It says a lot about how bad the service sector is nowadays. It's a shame there's little or no incentive for people in those type of sensitive jobs to care or take pride in their work.
If they get fired they just move to another crappy job.
Maybe it's not even any worse than it ever was, there's just so many businesses out there now, and we have so many choices, that it's impossible to avoid very poor service. It's gotten to where we're just used to it and have grown to accept it as a "fact of life".
I'm sure the older members can remember when things started going downhill. It was in the late 90's when the internet started to blossom. In order for brick and mortar shops to survive, something had to go. That something was service. They figured people would accept lousy service to get low prices just like they got on the internet. Then service outfits realized people were willing to tolerate lousy service, so instead of sending qualified, trained, seasoned professionals to fix your fridge, they started sending minimum wage kids who would eventually get it right after five or six tries. :lr
(I'm generalizing, of course. I'm sure you guys know the kinds of things I'm talking about. Everyone has had a dose of terribly lousy service somewhere along the way, if not every day. I'm not saying everyone is awful, because there are lots of really awesome folks in those jobs, too.)

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Wow Scott, I can't believe what a mistake they made... I mean they are screwing up you and your wife's credit! I have never been a person that would consider lawsuits because like you said, mistakes happen. But I might seriously consider a lawsuit because this "mistake" will stick with her credit for awhile, even though it might all get taken care of shortly. Even though you might get told your credit is repaired and all is taken care of, many times something gets through the cracks.

Good luck to you. :tu

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

That sucks bro...I am actually a fan of PNC, only cause my mother works for PNC, she is pretty high up in regards to ranks. But if you open a loan in a branch they have to have to forms of ID meaning passport and drivers ID. You may need an attorney to fight this problem but you are in for a mess unfortunately. Put a freeze on your credit report so that if anyone try's to get a loan out in your or your wires name, they will contact you immediately and ask you if it was you that was in wanting a loan or anything that will go against your credit. I am sure you know this but file a police report, get to the bank or any PNC bank and dispute it with the book you got. It will affect your credit if you don't pay the loan or start to pay the loan. It may be an unsecured loan because if you take a loan out for a car they would want the title to hold for collateral, so that being said it is probably an unsecured loan. If they took out the loan over the phone through a call center they would have to get the signatures notarized. Hopefully some of the things above help but, the best thing to do is to have a credit freeze put on your credit so that if anyone even you try to take a loan out they will call you and ask you if its actually you trying to take a loan out no matter what the loan is for. Good Luck Brother...

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Didn't read through the whole thread...just figured i would give some quick tidbits to help out but I'm glad that everything seems as though it will work out. But i like the idea of the credit freeze, from my understanding it doesn't affect your credit, it just helps make sure no one is our there with your name running around racking up bills.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

From what I understand, thats what out LifeLock subscription is for.
Fortunately it's all under control for now. Lisa has been working like 16 hours a day this week trying to make a project deadline, and I'm almost as busy with my own stuff and covering for my baby.
Once this weekend is over things will be back to normal and we'll know right where we stand come Monday.
Thanks for all the suggestions, brother. It's much appreciated.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Thanks to all of you guys for all your help and looking out for us on this thing. I used pretty much all your suggestions and you sincerely came through for us when we needed you most.
You're good family. I doubt if you guys even have any idea how much I lean on all of you, but this is always the first place I think to ask questions when I get jammed up. The collective experience here is priceless. It's no wonder I love all of you so much. :tu

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Yep, coulda been a lot worse. I saw a news story on some show like 60 Minutes or some such, where a person had their SSN compromised. The ID thief completely assumed the victim's identity. What made it worse, the thief had a pretty lengthy criminal record, so the victim had to somehow prove it wasn't them who committed multiple felonies, defaulted on a few car loans, etc. What a nightmare.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

I can definately see how something like this can totally blow up.
All Lisa has to do is fill out an affidavit that she didn't take out the loan. I imagine it needs to be notarized. My BIL is a notary so that's no big at all.

Re: We Think Lisa's Identity Just Got Stolen and Someone Bought a Car
 

Any updates Scott?