Held to answer

George Soros doesn’t have to worry about anyone swiping his name and $8 billion in wealth. It’s the ordinary people who have to fight to hang on to what they have.

Nevertheless, Soros wants to help the thieves.

As it is now in America, you’re lucky to find anybody who cares if your name and credit card number are in the hands of someone who’s about to charge $200 at Stop-N-Shop. How do you spend $200 at a place like Stop-N-Shop? Beer and cigarettes, I guess.

I didn’t even know there was a place called Stop-N-Shop until I tried to use my Visa card at my hairdresser’s, and it came back rejected.

“Maybe somebody’s been using your card,” she suggested.

Indeed, someone had. That $200 at Stop-N-Shop wasn’t the biggest purchase they made.

A couple of weeks before my card was rejected, I received a robotic-sounding voice-mail message telling me I needed to contact US Bank immediately because of possible fraudulently activity on my card.

But the man’s voice sounded kind of like the calls I occasionally receive telling me I’ve won a vacation or been approved for a loan I don’t want. When I Googled the 888-number on the voice-mail message, the first half dozen links warned: This is a scam! Don’t call! They will try to get information about your bank account!

However, there were a couple of comments saying: It’s safe. Go ahead and call.

I checked the back of my Visa card. It was not an 888-number. So I didn’t call. It was too suspicious.

After my card was rejected at the hairdresser’s, I did call the 800-number on the back of my card. It took several attempts to connect with a live person. She couldn’t explain why the 888-number left by the robotic voice from US Bank was linked on Google as a scam. She didn’t even seem surprised. She couldn’t explain why Visa had approved fraudulent purchases at stores I had never before visited but rejected the hairdresser where I had used my card many times.

She told me all I would have to do is sign a document attesting to not having made the fraudulently purchases, and I would receive a new card. I was never sent a document, never signed anything, but I immediately received a new card.

It was all a big ho-hum to US Bank and Visa. The retailers, the banks – they can raise everybody’s prices to make up for theft. The rest of us pay for it, except for the actual thieves. They don’t pay for anything.

It doesn’t have to be this way. I once saw a sheriff’s sergeant go after an identity thief and send her to prison. It was a beautiful sight.

In 1994 when I was a newspaper reporter in Southern California, a Redlands man named Lewis Holcomb called me, desperate because his Social Security number had fallen into the hands of the wrong woman.

For two years, an Ontario, Calif., woman passed herself off as his non-existing wife, “Shenetha J. Holcomb.” She racked up $20,000 worth of purchases at JC Penney, Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, etc. in Lewis Holcomb’s name. Police told him he wasn’t a victim because he hadn’t lost any money. The stores were the victims, but they wrote the losses off and tagged Holcomb’s credit rating.

“Nobody seems to think a damn thing about it,” Holcomb told me.

I called the Ontario Police Department to drum up some interest in his case and found a detective who was sympathetic – only because he was in the same situation. A man in New Jersey had obtained this detective’s Social Security number and was now all over the detective’s credit report as an “also known as.”

Even that detective seemed helpless. The credit reporting agencies, the stores, the Social Security Administration, the Postal Inspector – everybody had a reason why they couldn’t do anything to help Holcomb.

That was the story I wrote. Sgt. Robert “Bobby” Dean of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department read it and decided to do something. He had previously busted an identity theft ring involving a group of Nigerians.

Dean looked into Holcomb’s case, and within three weeks he had a search warrant and a list of property that “Shenetha J. Holcomb” had purchased with fraudulent credit cards. Her real name was Shenetha Jordan. She lived on a pleasant street in Ontario, and Dean came knocking on a sunny, late morning.

The warrant gave him permission to kick in the door if there was no answer. There wasn’t, and he did.

It was fascinating to enter this tastefully furnished, three-bedroom home (Oriental vases, cherry wood furniture, leather sofa) and watch Dean walk into the family room, open a desk drawer and find organized lists of names, Social Security numbers, credit card accounts and receipts.

Today, a Shenetha Jordan would do everything online – but that would still leave a trail. Somebody has to be willing to dig in and track it, though.

Jordan, her two children and her ex-husband arrived as deputies were cataloging everything and preparing to load it onto a van. She claimed she had received a settlement and bought everything herself.

Seven months later, I visited her in jail after she pleaded guilty to fraud, forgery, grand theft and false impersonation. She was on her way to prison to serve a two-year sentence. Years earlier Jordan had been convicted of forgery in Los Angeles and had been sentenced to probation, a few days in jail and a $250 fine.

She expected the same deal this time. She told me she never thought she would go to prison.

Jordan cried when she talked about her 3-year-old son who had been brought to jail to visit her.

“Mommy, come out from behind the window,” he called to her.

Today, that quote would be seized on by the social justice crowd, who would cast Jordan and her child as the victims.

Today, there’s a good chance Jordan wouldn’t go to prison because she likely wouldn’t be caught in the first place. Her victims would be left to fend for themselves.

Like author Rick Moody. In the current issue of Harper’s Magazine, he details his seven-year odyssey of identity theft at the mercy of thieves who appear to be Nigerian.

While Moody starts off with a light touch, couching his essay in a series of letters, leading with one to “Dear Most Honorable President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari,” his story quickly ceases to be funny.

The thieves transform Rick Moody into Hiram Moody. Eventually he loses control of his ATM accounts, his American Express account and even his own email account.

Along the way, others seem happy to make money off his troubles.

When Moody writes a check for his daughter’s day care, and it bounces because the thieves have cleaned out his account, the day care director immediately dings him another $50.

“(S)he observed that, alas, my identity theft was not her problem,” Moody writes.

Like many identity-theft victims, he wants somebody to care. He briefly finds a teller at Citibank who called him every day to keep him apprised of his account status, but this teller was no Bobby Dean armed with a search warrant.

Perhaps Moody’s own story will prompt an enterprising detective to take up his case. Will it do any good?

Two decades ago when I wrote about Shenetha Jordan’s thieving spree, I had never heard of George Soros. This billionaire has taken up the cause of criminal justice reform on behalf of offenders. He has funneled money into organizations and political campaigns that condemn prosecution and punishment. In this world, only crimes that have a popular political component –  domestic violence, sexual abuse, police brutality, racism – are  acceptable for prosecution.

The media have been giddy that Soros and the conservative Koch brothers are on the same page when it comes to emptying America’s prisons. This is portrayed as a kind of idyllic promised land: No more prisons equals no more crime.  The lion will lie down with the lamb and become a vegetarian.

Even in Oregon, hardly one of the nation’s high-profile states, Soros’ money has been linked to the Washington County District Attorney’s race. While the media fixate on the dollar amounts being contributed, what isn’t considered is what Soros-style justice would really mean in the day-to-day lives of people.

It could mean that if you are a crime victim seeking justice you will be made to feel like a criminal. As Moody notes in his essay: “(I)dentity theft begins to confer criminality, or at least the veneer of criminality, on the victim.”

Meanwhile, the actual criminal is sharpening his skills to become a pro.

Look at the early career of Garrett Luke Pruitt-Rexroad who was arrested in Forest Grove, Ore., in March. Only 27, he is suspected of aggravated identity theft in Washington, Clackamas and Clatsop counties.

What’s really remarkable is that Pruitt-Rexrod was found in possession of thousands of credit cards. The only reason he was caught was because he was driving a U-Haul van recklessly and tried to outrun police.

One detective estimated Pruitt-Rexroad could have as many as 11,000 credit cards.

Maybe your name was on one of them. You can bet George Soros’ name wasn’t.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

The Politics of Progressive Justice