To Catch an Identity Thief
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"I hunted down the woman who stole my life."
"I've Got to Follow Her"
Karen Lodrick ordered a latte at Starbucks while waiting nervously for the bank on San Francisco's Market Street to open. She had been anxious and distracted of late but couldn't help noticing the scruffy-looking pair standing next to her: a tall man wearing a navy baseball jacket and a large woman in jeans and Gucci glasses, carrying a brown suede coat and a Prada purse. The woman looked vaguely familiar.
That coat. A cold tingle of fear ran through Karen as she took it all in. The distinctive faux-fur trim along its edges looked as unkempt as the woman who held it. And then -- bingo -- she knew. Karen's ID had been stolen five months before. Her bank account had been emptied, and her life sent reeling out of control. The coat she was looking at was the same one she'd seen in the bank surveillance tape, worn by the woman who'd stolen Karen's ID.
Karen followed the pair onto the patio and watched as they settled at a round table under a burgundy window awning. She called 911, asked that a police officer meet her, then settled at the next table, watching and waiting on this morning in April 2007.
Just the day before, Karen's bank had called after closing hours to tell her that she'd left her driver's license at a branch on Market and Church streets. But Karen had never been to that branch. And her real driver's license was still in her wallet. The con artist must have come back to retrieve the phony license.
A cell call from her friend Ed Fuentes interrupted her thoughts. She walked toward the hedges that bordered the Starbucks patio, out of earshot of the pair, and told him her suspicions.
Don't do anything crazy, Karen ... She could have a gun.
The large woman and her companion stole glances at Karen, looking increasingly nervous. Then they got up from the table and separated. The man turned south. The woman headed north.
"Ed, I've got to go," she told her friend. "I've got to follow her."
"Don't do anything crazy, Karen," said Fuentes. "She could have a gun."
"I've got to do it." She feared that if she didn't act, the identity thief would disappear, along with any hope of ending her bad dream. The chase was on.
For five months, the thief had dipped into Karen's accounts like they were her own private piggy bank. She scammed thousands of dollars more, using credit cards she opened in Karen's name. The banks were unable to stop her. The police could do nothing. Creditors demanded payment for the thief's transactions. Karen closed her accounts, only to have the criminal crack open the new ones she'd opened and drain those too.
The woman turned a corner. Karen's phone rang. The caller ID said "unknown caller." Karen looked up the street and saw that the woman had her cell phone out. Could she be checking to see if the real Karen Lodrick was on her tail? And where were the police?
As Karen approached a recycling center at the corner of Buchanan Street, a man stood looking quizzically at her, then at the woman she was following.
"Do you know her?" she asked.
"No. Do you?"
Karen told him she thought the woman had stolen her identity. "You're not the first person to say that about her," he said, arousing her suspicion about him as well. Was he an accomplice? Karen again called 911 as the woman took off up the hill, looking over her shoulder at Karen every few seconds.
"I need somebody to come to Buchanan and Market," Karen told the 911 operator who answered. "She is running. I need the police."
"What's the problem, ma'am?"
"This woman has been taking my identity. For the last five months. It's been a living hell."
There was an odd voice mail from Karen's bank waiting when she returned home to San Francisco in November 2006 from a family reunion in Michigan. Karen called back, and the service rep asked if she'd made any large withdrawals and mentioned one in the amount of $600. Karen assumed it was a bank error and asked the rep to verify the debit card number.
"That's not my card," she said.
The bank representative insisted -- mistakenly, as Karen later learned -- that someone had called from Karen's phone to order the new debit card. After much back-and-forth, Karen convinced the rep that it wasn't hers, and he canceled it. What he failed to mention was that a second new debit card had been issued on her account. And it was still open.
Concerned after the bank rep told her the order came from her home phone, Karen asked her neighbors if they'd heard about any break-ins. They hadn't. But several people in her building mentioned that they'd seen mailboxes hanging open. A thief had apparently broken into the mail and stolen at least four envelopes: two with debit cards and two that provided the debit card PINs.
As far as Karen knew, the thief had stolen $600. Bad enough, but not life-altering. It wasn't until she got to the bank, and a representative turned the computer screen around for her to see, that she understood what had occurred. Screen after screen showed dozens of withdrawals, just over the past few days. About $10,000 was gone. Karen's balance was zero. Her overdraft protection plan had automatically deducted another $1,200 from savings to cover the shortfall after the thief had cleaned out the checking account.
Karen filed a police report, closed her now-empty account and submitted a claim. With no money to cover checks, she couldn't pay her bills, her rent. She couldn't even buy groceries. Late fees were compounded by black marks on her credit report. And that was just the beginning.
At five-two and 110 pounds, Karen Lodrick was tiny compared with the nearly six-foot-tall woman carrying the brown suede coat. Block after block in downtown San Francisco, Karen chased the woman, keeping the 911 operator on the phone to let her know exactly where they were.
She lost sight of the woman after she turned a corner. But as Karen looked through the French doors leading into a stately old apartment building, there she was again. One glance at Karen and the woman took off down the hill toward Market Street, a main thoroughfare with multiple lanes in either direction.
Traffic whizzed by. Locals strolled the tree-lined sidewalks and walked in and out of funky coffeehouses. Some, toting bags of bottles and aluminum cans, meandered toward the recycling center. People of every description moved along Market Street. But she didn't see any police officers.
A Prolonged Nightmare
As the identity thief passed an abandoned shopping cart, Karen saw her arm swing out. She tossed something inside. Karen raced to the cart. "I got what she dropped," she told the 911 operator. "It's a wallet. A Prada wallet." Karen wanted to look inside, but she had no time.
The thief ran into a busy intersection against the light and flagged down a taxi. Karen panicked. "She is not going to get away," she cried to the operator. "I am not going to let her escape." She caught the taxi before the driver pulled out.
"Don't let her go!" she implored. "She's an identity thief." The driver lifted his hands off the wheel and held them up. Her escape thwarted, the woman got out and confronted Karen.
"Why are you chasing me?"
For an instant, Karen felt doubt. What if this wasn't the thief? She tried to convince the woman to wait for the police. But she took off down Market Street again, toward Octavia, where the freeway spilled out its traffic. Karen kept after her.
A vintage orange streetcar pulled up to the bus stop, and the woman jumped aboard, Karen right behind. Adrenaline pumping, she was totally focused on the thief.
"Please don't drive away," Karen told the driver. The thief quickly ducked off again. "Why don't you just wait and you can talk to the police?" Karen called.
To Karen's surprise, the woman answered, saying she was on probation and would be arrested. Karen now had no doubt she'd found the right person.
It drove Karen crazy that it took about two weeks for the bank's credit card division to process the problem and recredit money to her account. She felt hopeful when the bank called to tell her it had a surveillance video of the thief. On it Karen saw a big, dark-haired woman in a suede coat and designer sunglasses at an ATM. Karen signed an affidavit that she didn't know the woman, got a printout of her image, and that was it.
Meanwhile, the thief reached deeper into Karen's life. She used her Social Security number and other information to get a counterfeit driver's license, showing Karen's license number but the thief's picture. With the license and the Social Security number, she reopened accounts that Karen had closed years before.
One day, the Dell computer company called Karen to confirm that it was all right to send "her" $7,000 order to an address different from the one on her account.
"Close that account and don't deliver those computers," she told Dell's rep, explaining someone had stolen her identity. She asked for the address the thief had wanted the equipment sent to. Dell refused to give her the address, saying she'd have to put the request in writing.
Karen placed fraud alerts with the credit reporting agencies. But that didn't stop the thief from opening more accounts in Karen's name. Again and again, she asked the bank to put an alert on her account, but when she checked, it wasn't there. The thief got into her new bank account, and the whole cycle began again. She was at her wit's end.
To add to her frustration, the bank claimed Karen had failed to come in to view the surveillance video. It didn't matter that she'd signed an affidavit. The bank couldn't find it and cut off access to her funds. She viewed the video again and signed another affidavit. The bank lost that one too. She signed another.
Now, with a phony driver's license, the thief was stalking her third checking account.
For half an hour, up and down the streets, around corners and into alleyways, Karen Lodrick, frightened but determined, pursued the woman with the suede coat. Karen lost her twice when she slipped into buildings to hide. And then she lost her a third time at an indoor parking lot. "It's over," she told the 911 operator. Exasperated and exhausted, Karen zipped open the Prada wallet.
Two of her bank statements were tucked into one side of the large wallet. On the other were the two debit cards used to clean out her account in November. She also found one of her own paychecks. But what chilled her most were tiny "cue cards" with her name, Social Security number, driver's license number and address.
The 911 operator assured her that an officer would be there as soon as he finished an emergency call, and Karen agreed to wait by the entrance to the garage. When the cop arrived a few minutes later, Karen told him what had occurred, feeling little hope that he'd find the woman now.
But only moments later, the officer found her -- crouched between a car and the building, smoking a cigarette.
"Idiot! You should have kept running," Karen told her.
Epilogue
The arresting officer said the identity thief, Maria Nelson, had at least 60 prior arrests, was indeed on probation and was wanted in another jurisdiction for similar crimes. When Nelson came before a judge 44 days later, however, thanks to a plea deal with the prosecutor, she was sentenced to only time served plus probation.
Meanwhile, Karen keeps getting billed for phone service and items at a department store that she didn't buy. And she fears her ID may have been sold on the black market, prolonging her nightmare.
译文:
擒贼记
擒贼记
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“我追踪到了那个偷走了我的生活的女人。”
“我必须跟着她”
旧金山，商业街。Karen Lodrick不安地等待银行开门的时候，她去星巴克要了杯拿铁咖啡。由于担心迟到而心烦意乱的她，却不由自主地注意起她旁边一对看起来非常邋遢的男女：高个子的男子穿着一件海军棒球夹克，而那名高大的女子则穿着牛仔裤，戴着古姿墨镜，挎着一件麂皮外套和一个普拉达皮包。这女子看起来好像有些眼熟。
那件外套。当Karen看到这一切时，一种恐惧所引起冰凉的刺痛感流遍了她全身。外套特有的沿边修整的人造毛看起来如此蓬乱，就如此刻握着它的女主人一样。就在那时，她一切都明白了。几个月前，Karen的ID被人偷走，她的银行账户被清空，她的生活也被搞得一塌糊涂。此刻她盯着的那件外套就是她在银行监视录像上看到的那件，一名女子穿着它偷走了Karen的身份证。
Karen跟着他们来到了露台，看着两人停在了一扇勃艮第窗棚下的圆桌前。她立刻拨打911，请求一名警员前来，接着她在旁边的桌前坐下来，注视并等待着。此时，已是2007年4月的一个早晨。
就在昨天下班后，银行打电话通知她把驾驶执照丢在商业街和教堂路上的分行了。但Karen从没去过那家分行。而且，她的驾驶执照还好好的在皮夹里面呢。一定是骗子拿着伪造的驾照过去的。
手机铃声打断了她的思绪，是她的朋友Ed。她起身向星巴克露台旁的树篱走去，在这里那对窃贼听不到她的谈话。她拿起手机告诉了Ed自己的猜疑。
那个高大的女子和她的同伴偷偷的瞥了一眼Karen，他们看起来越来越紧张不安了。接着他们站起来离开桌子，分头走开了。男子向南，女子则朝北走了。
“Ed，我得走了，”她告诉朋友。“我必须跟着她。”
“别干任何傻事，Karen，”Ed Fuentes说。“她可能有枪。”
“我必须这么做。”她怕如果不行动的话，那个偷窃身份的大盗就会溜走了，而结束她噩梦的希望也就随之消失了。追踪开始了。
5个月来，这个窃贼一直在贪婪地光顾着Karen的账户，就好像这是她自己的私人银行。她以Karen的名字办了许多信用卡，骗走了几千多元钱。银行没法阻止她，警察也无能为力。债主要求她为骗子的交易付款。Karen注销了她的账户，却只能让罪犯开设更多的新账户，并把它们挥霍一空。
就在那名女子转过一个拐角时，Karen的手机响了。手机显示“未知来电”。Karen抬头望去，发现那名女子已经拿出了她的手机。莫非她在试探是不是真正的Karen Lodrick在跟踪她？警察在哪呢？
就在Karen走到Buchanan街拐角旁的一个垃圾回收中心时，一名站着的男子嘲笑似的看了看她，又看了看她正跟随着的女子。
“你认识她？”她问道。
“不，你认识？”
Karen告诉他，她认为那个女子偷走了她的身份证。“你不是第一个这么说她的人，”他说道，这却让Karen对他也产生了怀疑。难道他是她的同伙？Karen再次拨打了911，而那女子现在走上了一个斜坡，并每隔几秒就回头看看Karen。
“我需要有人来Buchanan街和商业街交汇的地方，”Karen告诉911接线员。“她正在逃跑，我需要警察的帮助。”
“是什么情况，女士？”
“那个女人窃用了我的身份。五个月来，这让我的生活就像地狱。”
2006年11月，Karen从密歇根的一个家庭聚会返回旧金山的家时，收到了一封奇怪的语音邮件，是她开户的银行发来的。她拨了回去，客服问她是否办理了大宗的提款业务，并提到其中一笔金额有600美金。Karen当时认为银行出错了，就要客服核实下信用卡的号码。
“那不是我的卡，”她说。
银行代表却坚称接到Karen的电话要求开办新的信用卡——正如Karen尔后得知的情况一样，这里是有问题的。来回折腾了半天，Karen终于让银行相信了并不是她开办的，并将信用卡注销了。没料想，她的账户上又开办了第二张信用卡，到现在还在。
想到银行客服说是接到从自己家里打来的电话要求办理信用卡，Karen询问邻居有没有听到破门的声音。没人听到，但却有人看到她的邮箱一直开着。很明显，有人打破了她的邮箱，偷走了至少四封信：两封装着信用卡，还有两封提供了信用卡的PIN码。
Karen只知道有人偷走了她600美元。这是够糟糕的，但还不足以改变她的生活。直到银行工作人员把电脑屏幕转给她看时，她才明白到底发生了什么。满屏幕显示的大量的提款记录，短短的几天，大约一万美元不翼而飞。Karen的账户余额已经为零了。在窃贼把她的常用账户清空后，透支防护方案自动从她的储蓄中扣除了1200元以弥补差额。
Karen向警方提交了报告，并关闭了现在的空头账户，发布了声明。由于账户上没钱签单，就没法付账，没法交房租。她甚至连吃的都买不起了。滞纳金伴随着她的金融信誉不良记录而来。但这还只是个开始。
和那个拿着褐色麂皮外套，将近6英尺高的女子比起来，5英尺2英寸、110磅的Karen Lodrick实在是太娇小了。在旧金山的商业区，一个街区又一个街区，她跟随着那个女子，并和911的接线员一直保持着电话联系，以便让警方知道自己的位置。
在转过一个拐角后，那名女子消失了。但就在Karen向一座高大古老的公寓楼前的法式入口望去时，她又在那儿出现了。她扫了Karen一眼，就走下斜坡，向商业街方向去了。那是一条各个方向分支众多的主干道。
车流呼啸而过。两旁的人行道上栽满了树木，附近的人们漫步其中，不时有人进进出出路边新潮的咖啡厅。还有人提着装满了空瓶和铝皮罐头的袋子碾转向垃圾回收中心走去。形形色色的人沿着商业街走着，但却看不到一个警察。
噩梦在继续
就在那个女贼走过一辆废弃的购物车时，Karen看到她甩了下胳膊。她把什么东西扔进车里了。Karen急忙跑向那辆购物车。“我拿到了她扔下的东西，”她告诉911接线员。“是个钱夹。一个普拉达钱夹。”Karen想打开看看，但时间却容不得她这么做了。
那个女贼冒着红灯，跑到了一个交通繁忙的路口，招手叫了一辆出租车。Karen有些慌乱。“她不会溜走的，”她对着手机叫道。“我不会让她逃掉的。”还没等司机发动汽车，她就拦住了那辆出租车。
“别让她跑了！”她恳求司机。“她是个偷窃身份证的小偷。”司机把双手从方向盘上举了起来。看到无法逃走，那女子从车中钻了出来，面对着Karen。
“你为什么老跟着我？”
就在那一瞬间，Karen甚至疑惑了。如果她不是窃贼怎么办？Karen试图说服她等警察来解决。但她却再次走下商业街的斜坡，朝川流不息的Octavia高速公路方向而去。Karen继续紧跟其后。
一辆橙色的老式电车在车站停下了，那名女子跳上车，Karen也跟着上去了。她的肾上腺素一直在急剧上升，但她却顾不了这么多了，她的注意力完全放在了窃贼身上了。
“请别开车，”她告诉司机。那贼却低头又下车了。“你为什么不等警察来了跟他们解释清楚呢？”Karen在后面喊道。
而那女子的回答却出乎Karen的意料。她说自己还在缓刑期，会被逮捕的。现在Karen确信无疑自己找到了那个颠覆了自己生活的人。
银行信用卡部门花了足足两周时间处理这个问题并重新为她的账户入账，这简直让她快崩溃了。在接到银行的电话得知监视录像拍到了那个窃贼时，她又看到了一线希望。在录像中，自动取款机前，一个高大黑发的女子出现在Karen眼前，她穿着麂皮外套，戴着时尚的墨镜。随后，Karen签署了一份书面材料声明她跟本不认识那名女子，并打印了她的图像，这些就是问题处理程序了。
与此同时，窃贼却越来越深入到Karen的生活中。她利用Karen社保号码和其他信息伪造了一张驾驶执照，上面显示的是Karen的驾照号码和窃贼的照片。有了驾照和社保号码，她又把几年前Karen关闭的账户重新开开了。
一天，戴尔电脑公司有份“她”价值7000美元的订单，由于送货地址和账户上的地址不一致，于是致电Karen进行确认。
“把那账户关掉，也不要送那些电脑过来了，”她告诉戴尔的客服，并解释有人窃用了她的身份。她向戴尔公司询问窃贼要求的送货地址却遭到拒绝。戴尔公司称她必须写一份书面请求材料。
Karen向信誉消费举报机构递交了欺诈警报。但这不能阻止窃贼以Karen的名字开设更多的账户。一次又一次，她要求在她的账户上加设警戒，而她检查时却什么都没有。窃贼又进入了她的新账户，又一轮循环开始了。她已经无计可施了。
雪上加霜的是，银行称她不能再观看监视录像了。她曾经签署过一份书面陈述，但银行却找不到了，并切断了她的储蓄的使用权。她又观看了一次录像，签署了另一份书面陈述。而银行连这份也丢失了，她只好再来一次。
而现在，凭着一张伪造的驾照，窃贼正在潜入她的第三个账户。
半个小时，街头街尾，街角到小巷，Karen Lodrick有几分害怕却又十分坚决地跟随着拿麂皮外套的女子。她曾两次溜进楼里使得Karen无法找到她。终于，在一个室内停车场旁边，Karen第三次失去了她的目标。“完了，结束了，”她告诉911接线员。精疲力尽却又出离的愤怒了，她拉开了普拉达钱夹的拉链。
大大的皮夹一侧，塞着两张银行结单。而另一侧就是在十一月份清空了她的账户的两张信用卡。她还发现了一张自己开的支票。但是最让她兴奋还是那沓小小的“分镜头提示卡”，上面有她的名字、社保号码、驾照号码和地址。
911接线员向她保证一名警官处理完一项紧急呼叫后会尽快赶过去，Karen同意在车库入口等着。几分钟后，警察赶到了，Karen告诉了他发生的一切，并对他找到那名女子几乎不抱希望了。
然而，几分钟后，警察就发现了那名女子——她躲在那幢楼和一辆车中间，正吸着烟。
“笨蛋！你应该继续逃跑的，”Karen对她说。
后记
拘捕警官称，那名窃用身份的女贼玛利亚·尼尔森至少有60次前科，她也确实处于缓刑期，并由于同样的罪行正在被司法部门通缉。44天后，尼尔森来到法庭前，由于原告的请求，她只被判了有期徒刑缓期执行。
同时，Karen却还在继续为自己并没有购买的电话服务和百货公司的商品买单。而且她也在担心自己的身份证可能在黑市上被出售，这会让她的噩梦继续。