# Please help identity theft



## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

Anyone know of a good IDENTITY THEFT lawyer in Vancouver BC ?


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

first thing you have to do is report it to police , I went through this myself and didn't need a lawyer.If somebody you know stole your identity you have to file police report then the debt will be written off .I know this first hand.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

marina628 said:


> first thing you have to do is report it to police , I went through this myself and didn't need a lawyer.If somebody you know stole your identity you have to file police report then the debt will be written off .I know this first hand.


thank you for your quick reply. My situation is posted in another thread called " transunion " I was advised to get a lawyer.


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## plen (Nov 18, 2010)

sport303 said:


> thank you for your quick reply. My situation is posted in another thread called " transunion " I was advised to get a lawyer.


I suggested getting a lawyer in the case that Transunion will not cooperate with helping you remove the incorrect tradelines and it begins to adversely affect your financial abilities. 

If these are fraudulent activities and not simply incorrect entries on your credit report then it's a different story.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

It appear OP knows who stole his ID ,in this case the place to start is file police report and then contact credit card companies.I worked for BMO in loans and Mortgages for 6 years in the past and typical this is most bank position if you are victim of fraud and file the police report they will clear the balances.If you want to protect your family member then you have to accept the liability and work it out.Reason for this is because you could have been involved in the fraud yourself and benefited from this process.Also factor in the legal cost how much money are we talking?


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

first of all the family member is my wife's cousin and she isn't that close to him. He's been getting credit under my name for the past 3 years without my knowledge. He is now deported and I have to deal with this mess. We are talking about $6200.00 that I know of. That have showed up on my credit report.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

plen said:


> I suggested getting a lawyer in the case that Transunion will not cooperate with helping you remove the incorrect tradelines and it begins to adversely affect your financial abilities.
> 
> If these are fraudulent activities and not simply incorrect entries on your credit report then it's a different story.


Even if Transunion did cooperate and fixed the problem. Somebody has to pay for the mistake that was made with the mixup. This could affect my credit rating for years to come and someone is liable. Either Transunion, or the credit card company. I'm not exactly sure who's to blame yet that is why I want to consult a lawyer.


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## plen (Nov 18, 2010)

sport303 said:


> Even if Transunion did cooperate and fixed the problem. Somebody has to pay for the mistake that was made with the mixup. This could affect my credit rating for years to come and someone is liable. Either Transunion, or the credit card company. I'm not exactly sure who's to blame yet that is why I want to consult a lawyer.


What has the credit card company or Transunion done wrong? What is their mixup? Your cousin stole your identity, he applied for credit with your information? Transunion's db is based on name address and birthday or SIN. It is not required by law to enter your SIN when applying for credit, so the credit card companies use your Name/Address/DOB as the unique identifier.

The burden is now on you to prove that these were fraudulent applications and uses of your identity. You begin to do this by calling law enforcement. Transunion is simply reporting what the financial institutions are telling them.

The somebody who is going to have to pay for the "mistake" is your cousin if he gets charged and you for being a victim of identity theft.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

plen said:


> What has the credit card company or Transunion done wrong? What is their mixup? Your cousin stole your identity, he applied for credit with your information? Transunion's db is based on name address and birthday or SIN. It is not required by law to enter your SIN when applying for credit, so the credit card companies use your Name/Address/DOB as the unique identifier.
> 
> The burden is now on you to prove that these were fraudulent applications and uses of your identity. You begin to do this by calling law enforcement. Transunion is simply reporting what the financial institutions are telling them.
> 
> The somebody who is going to have to pay for the "mistake" is your cousin if he gets charged and you for being a victim of identity theft.


although my wife's cousin has the same first and last name as I do. he applied for credit using his address his phone number and his birhtdate on the application. he didn't use my information. I know that for a fact because the credit card company named Chase canada fraud department told me that the address and birthdate on my wife's cousin's application doesn't match mine. Someone made the mistake of going and approving him for credit under my name without my consent. he was new in the country at the time he applied and didn't have a credit history. When you apply for credit you have to sign a consent form in order for the credit card company to go and check out your credit history. Mistakenly chase canada approved his application using my credit history and not his.


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## plen (Nov 18, 2010)

Then it's not identity theft but creditor or reporting agency fault, but how would they possibly connect his application to your report if he had a different birthdate and address? Unless he knew your SIN, I can't imagine how. Otherwise every John Smith in the country would have constant problems.



> When you apply for credit you have to sign a consent form in order for the credit card company to go and check out your credit history. Mistakenly chase canada approved his application using my credit history and not his.


I'm well aware of how our whole credit system works and I just don't understand how Chase Canada looked up his credit report with his name, his address and his birthdate and got your report back. It makes no sense from a technical standpoint unless he put down your SIN.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

Maybe he did I don't know because chase Canada will not release that information to me and that is why I need a lawyer. Having said that and going back to my original question , does anyone know of a good identity theft lawyer in Vancouver ?


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## GeniusBoy27 (Jun 11, 2010)

I don't want to interupt the thread, but I'm confused as to what you're trying to pursue. In Canada, you either go through criminal or civil court.

Most identity theft lawyers work in defending against criminal prosecution. There's no criminality here, as far as I can see, except to maybe your wife's cousin. if you're going to pursue this, it's NOT done by hiring a lawyer, but by going to the police.

If you're pursuing civil, who would you pursue? Chase and TransUnion will say, it's based on information that was given to them. You won't get far. Your wife's cousin can't really be sued, if he's not in the country.

Hiring a lawyer will cost you about $500 an hour for a competent identity theft lawyer (that's the rate my wife says it is, who's a corporate lawyer), and you won't get very far. But that's your choice. 

I know you're mad that this has happened to you, but the right thing to do is construct a letter to TransUnion outlining the problems, let them go through the process and correct it. Also, inform your bank and your credit cards that this is a problem that is under dispute. I will agree with Plen, there's no way they mixed this up without a SIN # match up.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

GeniusBoy27 said:


> I don't want to interupt the thread, but I'm confused as to what you're trying to pursue. In Canada, you either go through criminal or civil court.
> 
> Most identity theft lawyers work in defending against criminal prosecution. There's no criminality here, as far as I can see, except to maybe your wife's cousin. if you're going to pursue this, it's NOT done by hiring a lawyer, but by going to the police.
> 
> ...


I just came back from the RCMP and told them everything that is going on. He gave me a file # and they will contact the Credit card companies that are delinquent and find out exactly what was on the initial credit card application. The constable also mentioned to me that he investigated a similar case a year ago. In his case it was mortgage brokers who where giving out mortgages falsifying information in order to give out fake mortgages. That's why I believe Chase canada may be at fault here too. Chase Canada get clients from Sears, Futureshop, Best Buy. Now the person who's employed by Chase Canada finance has a quota and gets paid a percentage on each credit card gets issued by him. All he has to do is look at the name of the application, cross reference it with someone with a similar name with a high or provable credit rating. It's very easy for them to do that . If my wife's cousin's refugee claim would have been approved, then he would have stayed in the country kept up with the payments on those chase credit cards and I wouldn't have known about it . When I talked to chase security dept. They told me that mistakes happen all the time where people with the same name get cross identity, but I don't think so I think it's done on purpose just to issue more credit cards, and that's why I'm gonna sue there ,excuse my language, there ***. They have no right going into my credit profile without my consent.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

As a former victim of Identity theft The police was the correct first step but you are dreaming if you think you will get compensated for a family member stealing your ID.Best you can hope for is that they fix your credit file and remove the debt.Your SIN had to be compromised ,maybe the cousin came for visit and went through your wallet when you were sleeping.Many financial institutions would feel the fact you 'know' your wife's cousin did it as your own guilt by association.In my case I had no clue who stole my ID until i got a chance to view a video tape file from Durham police.It was a Canada post employee where I had a PO box for my online business for many years ,I do not drive so he accepted my SIN as a second piece of ID.Too bad Canada Post don't publish these sorts of fraud as the guy stole over $200,000 in coins, money orders and parcels plus client IDS.He made a financial settlement so I have no clue what if any jail time he did .Obviously my small loss was nothing in big scheme of things.


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## GeniusBoy27 (Jun 11, 2010)

As I said above, there are 2 different courts: criminal and civil.

You can't sue in criminal court. You have to sue in civil court. Maybe you hope that you can find something in criminal court to proceed in civil court, otherwise, you're talking an awful lot of money spent for no benefit.

This is what you'd have to prove for you to sue Chase, and you really have to have strong proof. One: Chase systematically orders its employees to fraudulently put your name and link it up with someone similar. Two: it happened in this specific case with a Chase employee. 

So, how are you going to prove this? You don't have the million dollars to go through every email from every Chase employee, with a subpoena. So, you have to hope the cops would be willing to do this? You talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, to do this. May work in a class action lawsuit, but the cops aren't going to do it for one individual. So just remember, unless you can prove to some lawyers that there is proof, and to work on contingency in a class action lawsuit, you're going to be spending $500 an hour for nothing.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

The other thing is that your credit report does not actually belong to you and you do not get to approve any inquiries on your credit in advance. 

Your credit rating belongs to the rating agencies, who promise they will not release information about you except to authorized users. 

Normally that only means institutions that (1) you already do business with or (2) you are contemplating doing business with. 

As counter-intuitive as this seems, one way to prevent the kind of mistaken credit allowance to someone with a similar name is to have your SIN on your credit report - because the SIN is a unique identifier. 

You can also request that before credit is advanced (as opposed to checked) that you be called specifically to confirm - and you can set the questions they will use to confirm with you. I did that a few years ago after one of my credit cards was fraudulently used...this ensures you will know if any credit is advanced in your name/on your file. 

It is unfortunate that you were caught by having a similar name with your wife's cousin and (I presume) by not having your SIN on your file. Put a fraud warning on your file now, get the mistaken transactions removed, and move on.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

MoneyGal said:


> The other thing is that your credit report does not actually belong to you and you do not get to approve any inquiries on your credit in advance.
> 
> Your credit rating belongs to the rating agencies, who promise they will not release information about you except to authorized users.
> 
> ...


Sounds like sound advice. I would like to say thanks to all who responded.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

MoneyGal said:


> The other thing is that your credit report does not actually belong to you and you do not get to approve any inquiries on your credit in advance.
> 
> Your credit rating belongs to the rating agencies, who promise they will not release information about you except to authorized users.
> 
> Normally that only means institutions that (1) you already do business with or (2) you are contemplating doing business with.


The credit report may not belong to me but by law you are not authorized to access it without my consent.

" 
Who can look at my credit report?

Federal and provincial laws are very specific as to who can review your credit file and for what purpose. An individual or company may only obtain a copy of your credit file with your consent or after having told you that they will be reviewing your file. A company must have a legitimate business reason and a permissible purpose, as stated in government regulations, to obtain your credit file. A credit reporting agency may only provide a copy of your file when the request relates to a permissible purpose as provided for under law. "


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Agh. I probably should have written a longer response before, because I thought about this. 

For lenders with whom you have an ongoing relationship (i.e., your bank), by doing business with them as a lender you have given consent to have your credit reviewed. They do not have to seek your permission in advance - so long as you have either outstanding debt or rotating credit (even with no balance) they are entitled to review your report. 

For lenders with whom you are seeking to establish a relationship, they are entitled to pull your file, and they will tell you so. 

In your case, it sounds like what happened was when consent was given (by your wife's cousin), the lenders accidentally pinged YOUR file, not either established a new file for your wife's cousin, or pinged HIS file. 

From everything you've written, this sounds like a legitimate, even fairly common, mistake. The remedy is to clean up your report and remove the inaccurate items. 

Nothing you linked to provides evidence that your report was deliberately pulled in error. From what I can tell, the lenders made a legitimate inquiry (or series of inquiries) but they were routed to the wrong file. Mistakes happen and the credit rating system is not perfect. 

If they can restore your rating, would that be sufficient for you? What is the harm to you other than your rating?


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

I routinely pull credit files on potential renters and by and large they are accurate. 

Last year I saw the weirdest credit report I had ever seen. It was two credit reports combined. One guy had really awesome credit and the other was a total deadbeat. 

Another thing that commonly happens to people is that they get into collections and the collection goes on their credit, then the original credit claim gets sold to a new credit collection company. So you can have multiple occurences of the same collection event. 

This happened to me personally with Rogers...my stepson signed me up for cable with a door to door guy. When I found out I called Rogers and cancelled, I told them I wasn't going to pay because I never signed up for it. Outstanding balance was $100. They put it into collections. 

Next a few years later I went to their store and paid it when I needed internet from them because I was cancelling internet and phone with Bell. They refused me service without me paying them. 

A few years later long after I lost the receipt, I pulled my credit. There was Rogers on my credit report, plus several instances of the same debt being sold to other companies. So this debt that I never owed grew like a weed. Not to mention that it was way beyond the original 7 years. 

See when a collection company has a debt they sell it before it expires and a new report is made by the buyer of the debt for another 6 years. 

When I called Rogers they had no proof of my account being paid or even existing. I really get upset about it, maybe this year I will tackle this stupid problem once and for all. 

I had the same kind of problem with PraxAir. When my ex and I split and he got the business, he also got two leased oxygen/acetylene tanks. He got the bill and didn't pay it. When I pulled my credit I discovered the tanks had never been returned. So I called him and he supposedly returned the tanks. He had the paper somewhere. I didn't have it. I settled with PraxAir for 50% of the balance but they never did update the credit issue like they said they would. The got their tanks back and $400 but my credit is still affected. 

If there is anything I have discovered about these issues it's that people are way too happy to put things on your credit report and never seem to want to update the changes. Nor, like in Roger's case once they get the money, they don't want to abide by their contracts with these credit collections and send them part of the money that you paid them. 

Their focus is on putting stuff on your credit report not taking them off. Plus you need a lot of proof before they'll take errors off. Proof that you are unlikely to have 4-5 years later. Or you may have it, but it's location may be unknown. 

I have found it so frustrating to deal with these issues that I can't even begin to express how angry it makes me. Yes, I have some fault in the matter, I could be a better record keeper but these companies make it very difficult to correct your information.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

MoneyGal said:


> Agh. I probably should have written a longer response before, because I thought about this.
> 
> For lenders with whom you have an ongoing relationship (i.e., your bank), by doing business with them as a lender you have given consent to have your credit reviewed. They do not have to seek your permission in advance - so long as you have either outstanding debt or rotating credit (even with no balance) they are entitled to review your report.
> 
> ...


Other than my rating ? My identity has been compromised. This violation of privacy has caused me emotional stress, and can cause long term consequences. Recovery can be a lengthy process which will make it difficult to obtain loans, and interact with governmental and private institutions. It may be difficult to prove, but someone didn't do their due diligence and have to pay for their mistake. It can even be an inside job. The police will let me know what information was on those credit applications, and I know for a fact the his birthday on those Chase Credit card applications is different than mine, so why is my name getting pinged ? I've also noticed at the bottom of my credit report that there was an inquiry by Honda Canada finance inc. My wife's cousin financed a brand new Honda Accord. Why Honda pinged my name up when he applied to finance his car ? You don't need to provide a SIN when applying for a car loan loan through a car manufacturer either. I didn't authorize Honda to access my credit profile either.


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

That's exactly what I'm afraid of also Berubeland. That's why I'm seeking legal help to speed up the process and to give those idiotic creditors a kick in the ***. When I filed a claim with the RCMP yesterday, the constable told me about a case regarding Mortgage fraud and he said it was an inside job, someone who had authorized access to check out your credit and falsify mortgage documents. Apart from financial losses, commercial and financial institutions face increased scrutiny regarding their ability to protect personal information. The trust in businesses and financial institutions can be damaged, which can in turn affect the confidence of us the consumer.


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## Larry6417 (Jan 27, 2010)

Sport303:

You may find this article interesting http://technology.canoe.ca/Columnists/Canton/2011/02/11/17265896.html

Basically, an individual successfully sued Transunion. Please note, however, that the amount of damages was small, and the complainant had to represent himself.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

MoneyGal said:


> [ ... ]
> 
> As counter-intuitive as this seems, one way to prevent the kind of mistaken credit allowance to someone with a similar name is to have your SIN on your credit report - because the SIN is a unique identifier.
> 
> [ ... ]


Hmmm ... the problem with giving your SIN number is that it adds to the number of people who can steal your identity. The gov't uses the SIN for income tax, Canada Pension Plan and benefits programs etc.

It's bad enough when an identity theft takes out credit cards, messes up the credit report etc. but with the SIN number they could collect tax refunds, CPP benefits, claim welfare etc. 

In fact, CRA explicits says


> Your SIN card is *not* a piece of identification, and it should be kept in a safe place.


http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/ncm-tx/rtrn/cmpltng/prsnl-nf/sin-nas/menu-eng.html
http://www.priv.gc.ca/fs-fi/02_05_d_02_e.cfm
http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/privacy/a/sinprivacy.htm


Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Eclectic12 said:


> [ ... ]
> 
> In fact, CRA explicits says
> 
> ...


When you take a step back and think about it, this is a pretty funny statement!

The issue is the SIN *is* a piece of identification for gov't services such as taxes, CPP, benefits etc. It gives far too much access if it is used widely where it is not required, such as credit checks, employment interviews etc.

Cheers


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## sport303 (Feb 11, 2011)

ameliawalker said:


> I read the whole thread and was thinking/wondering how it happened too. Usually as SOP, basic information such as full name, birthdate, and address are the main factors to check and re-check before anything is processed/approved by any service company for that matter. Quite strange I should say.


I'm thinking it's an inside job . Someone working on the inside issueing credit


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