Sneaky ID thieves always one step ahead in schemes
By Tom Mashberg/ Exclusive
Sunday, April 10, 2005 - Updated: 12:18 PM EST
First of three parts
Peter Kochansky knew he hadn't bought a Porsche, but there it
was among his bills - a luxury car loan in his name for $40,000.
That wasn't the half of it. As Kochansky, a lawyer from
Somerville, soon learned, a notorious identity thief was racing
around the country, running up credit charges and emptying bank
accounts, all in Kochansky's name.
The thief, Shawn Pelley, now in federal prison, always seemed a
step ahead. When Kochansky canceled his credit cards, Pelley stole
$7,000 from a Fleet account Kochansky shared with his wife, even
though Pelley had no PIN number.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77741
Reporters get credit for simple ID switch
By Thomas Caywood and Tom Mashberg
Monday, April 11, 2005 - Updated: 03:50 AM EST
Second in a three-part series on identity fraud.
Identity theft ain't rocket science. Trust us.
To test the retail credit industry's claims of tough new ID
fraud protections, two Herald reporters swapped Social Security
numbers and set out to steal each other's identities.
Despite our lack of criminal expertise, within hours we had a
$10,000 credit line at one store and a $1,300 account at another.
The experiment began at Dana Ross Studios in the South End,
where $60 buys a convincing-looking ``Massachusetts identification
card'' - complete with digital signature, holograms and a faux
magnetic strip along the back.
No questions asked. Cash only. We walked out with two fake IDs
in 10 minutes. The cards showed one reporter's face and the other's
name, Social Security number, address and age.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77875
Tricks of the trade from prolific prowler
By Tom Mashberg
Sunday, April 10, 2005 - Updated: 11:31 AM EST
Shawn Pelley didn't like who he was, so he became almost anyone else.
Starting in 2001, the crafty Cape Cod native used ID theft to
take individuals, banks and retailers for $550,000. Loot and phony
identities in hand, he led a flamboyant lifestyle and rubbed elbows
with hotshots from L.A. to South Beach.
Pelley, 29, finally was run to ground by U.S. marshals and is
serving a 60-month sentence at a federal prison in Pennsylvania. But
the skinny, 6-foot high school dropout ran up immense debts in the
names of dozens of victims, many of them Massachusetts lawyers.
U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan called Pelley ``the most
active identity theft perpetrator the major crimes unit has
prosecuted.''
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77743
Scams turn victims' lives upside down
By Tom Mashberg
Monday, April 11, 2005 - Updated: 09:27 AM EST
State Rep. Paul C. Casey is a man of the people - the people
victimized by identity theft.
In 2003, he was one of a half-dozen Paul Caseys across New
England defrauded by con artists who used his common name to pilfer
gift cards and heaps of merchandise from area retailers.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77874
`You don't understand what it's like'
By Thomas Caywood
Monday, April 11, 2005 - Updated: 03:49 AM EST
Paul K. Casey of Foxboro is the kind of guy who keeps only one or two
credit cards and faithfully pays them off each month.
So he knew something was fishy when he got a letter from Sears
about the credit application he supposedly filled out at the chain's
outlet in Kingston.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77873
Victim: Unsnarling fraud `a second full-time job'
By Tom Mashberg
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Karen Leonard was an Army sergeant in two war zones, then braved the
bar exam, but none of it matches having an identity thief run up huge
bills in her name.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77745
Good Samaritan father, teen daughter targeted
By Tom Mashberg
Sunday, April 10, 2005 - Updated: 11:26 AM EST
Not only did crooks steal Bill Loesch's identity, they did the same
to his 12-year-old daughter.
Five years ago, Loesch, a protestant minister and Codman Square
health activist, rented apartments on the first and third floors of
his Dorchester three-decker to tenants he thought he could trust.
Instead, he said, one of them ``would get home before me, steal
my mail, get credit cards in my name by using my Social Security
number and then go on big buying sprees. And this was a woman!''
When the bills came in, the thief would intercept them and rip
them up. Years went by before Loesch, 63, realized he'd been ripped
off.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77744
Tough to recover once you're hacked
By Tom Mashberg
Sunday, April 10, 2005 - Updated: 11:25 AM EST
The pet sitter did it.
It took a while, but Sandra Pochapin of Southboro figured out
how she became an ID fraud victim: The pet sitter went through her
mail, pocketed a credit card and hit Lord & Taylor's for $1,200.
``I didn't even know the card was going to arrive,'' Pochapin, a
48-year-old marketing director, said. ``They sent me a card I didn't
want for an account that I never used.''
Since 2002, Pochapin has been trying to undo the damage caused
by one person with just one of her credit cards. The thief, who fled
the state and was never arrested, opened false accounts from Boston
to Brooklyn - at Macy's, J.C. Penney and Cingular Wireless, and
places Pochapin can only imagine.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77742
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