As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
This is information regarding, when someone attempts to steal your identity or attempts to ruin your credit, as TL suggested that I post on the subject, after the experience we had.
Last year, some people showed up here, unannounced, acting like they owned the place, and I threw them off here with gusto, hurling the Wrath of Cherry as they slunk back into their car. I state this, without being too precise, to let them know we know who they are, and so do the State and Federal authorities, as even in a pandemic, I am going to make a point to appearing for the arrest, take selfies of them in jail and just enjoy the first phase of the long arm of the law.
It was upsetting, but God gave the victory and I did not think much more about it, until before TL's birthday, a letter arrived from Shell, for a gas card application. As TL had not applied, it was fraud, and TL phoned Shell, and put the necessary flags onto the account to be notified, and again, we thought that was the end of it, and it would have been, except we blundered into national crime syndicate.
About the time the coof appeared in America, another UPS delivered package arrived, with CITI Bank Shell on the letterhead out of, Sioux Falls South Dakota, but when we checked the phone number, it was listed as a fraud scheme, so the letter was tossed, after TL phoned CITI Bank and they assured us that no card was linked to our phone number.
When this all started, the Holy Ghost played detective with me in motive of operation. It seemed odd as there are no Shell stations in our area. TL and I are careful with our information, and the fact is, in order to obtain any kind of debit, credit or gas card, the companies and banks require the golden triad of information, whichi is four parts.
Your address obviously.
Your date of birth
Your Social Security Number
Your telephone number.
All of you have been through this, in the checks to activate a card once issued, as it has to come from the home phone number listed, or a red flag goes off, and they are always asking birthday, zip code and some even go to the lengths of Mother's Maiden Name.
It is almost impossible to obtain all of this data, unless it is off a rejected application, unless of course it is someone like a family member or ex, who you should be able to trust, as this kind of fraud is jail time in a federal felony.
That is what the Holy Ghost started clicking in my mind, as TL's information is not listed, except with a finite group of people, and then I thought, "Shell card", that was odd, and then the Holy Ghost said, "You know there is a Shell station not too far from that person in the metro, and I knew who was behind this as it clicked on all of the above.
The one thing which did not match, is this person had an old phone number of TL, and as I have stated, we change our phone numbers, so no one can obtain them. By using an old phone from the metro, it targeted the people and the date, and that is why Shell had not phoned to check, as it was the wrong number for the information, so Shell rejected the card as they told TL they would, and we received a rejection letter, and I thought it was done.
That was until the UPS delivery of the odd and vague reference to this card, which had never been issued, and we had never been sent a bill. In 30 days, we received another letter from a cut throat Ohio collection company of:
MacCarthy, Burgess & Wolff of Cleveland Ohio
You will notice, I am posting the names of the people involved in this, because they deserve full credit for being absolutely not interested in our innocence. With that letter, I knew we had a problem which was not going to go away, but the proof of the fraud and who was behind this, is the collection thugs did not phone us, because the phone number which was listed was not our phone number, so all we got was a threatening letter of additional charges if we did not phone, and pay up.
Phoning would mean they would have our phone to harass us, even though the law states, they must upon written request provide who was behind the account they are collecting on, and that they can not phone you again if you tell them only written communication.
I give all credit to this in the Holy Ghost Who always gives great solutions, so I informed TL that we were going to contact our State Attorney General's Office and report the fraud, and ask what could be done with Consumer Protection.
Our AG's Office could not have been more helpful or serving the public. We had mailed a photo of the threatening letter, and just like that, the Attorney General's Office fired off a letter of inquiry to CITI Bank, demanding an answer to what was taking place in this fraud.
We were told it would be 40 days with the coof, but within 3 weeks, we received a written reply from Shell Investigative Department, which stated they had completed their investigation and found that this was fraud and that they would notify the collection thugs and that would end it all.
They told us to give it 90 days for the collection thugs to cleanse it from the system, but that was the end of it.
Our Attorney General's Office will monitor this now till it ends. As I mentioned to TL, that AG letterhead appearing at corporate made them take notice, as our pleas would have gone on the ignore pile with more threats. I should add that the "office of the president" of CITI Bank also wrote in the meantime stating that an investigation into the "claimed" fraud would be taking place.
This is the correct means of dealing with fraud like this, The brier patch we live in, is very good as this is small state helpfulness. I would cringe in being in someplace like California, New York or Ohio, where you probably would not get the kind of help we did. God knew though that this was something which required the big dog to pounce on, and there is no bigger dog than a state or federal government, as once they go into motion, their pockets are limitless and they will harass the hell out of corporations until the stockholders start bitching at the CEO to step down.
I hope this helps, as there really is not any information online, as most is from people who are perplexed and small time, so they have no idea what to do. Oh and as TL and I discussed this, this was apparently a widespread problem in America, but it goes to how does a card never issued, end up being charged to, and that concludes to only one reality, and that is there is an inside network operating which takes the information on rejected applications. It might be Shell, CITI, it might be the credit rating services, but someone is working there and deliberately with cooperation is marketing gas cards which have been rejected. The rejection gives cover for months, and in those months, I would bet that the cards are used to buy gasoline for smuggling dope or Mexicans into the United States. They could print up cards, but I'm guessing what is done is the card number is listed to dozens of people, and the card number is entered at the gas pumps, instead of swiped. Free gas for organized crime, and none of this is cracked down on, as the money generated goes into the big banks and Wall Street.
People whose cards are rejected, are poor, will not know who to deal with the situation, and 200 dollars in gas, to 150,000 in illegals or 30 million in dope is a good investment, and I would wager most of these poor people have bad credit and collection agencies hounding them, so no one believes them when they say they are innocent. It is the perfect scam and it would be logical that this is scammed on 10,000 people at least a year, and 1000 of them will just pay the charge to get these thugs from bothering them, and 200,000 dollars a year is a pretty good incentive for those in the banks and collection agencies to support the scam.
We are now awaiting God's Judgment on this, as God was very good in protecting us, and moving people and seeing us through this entire unsavory episode of people going to hell daring to touch our lives.
There is absolutely no excuse for any of this, in a card was never issued, no bill was ever sent, and the collection thugs are summoned. That is fraud, fraud and fraud, and those who started this in revenge can no sweat it, as judgment is coming.
Oh and I will NEVER do business with CITI Bank ever again and I will never buy gas at a Shell station ever again, and I will never forget that Ohio thug collection agency, and hope one day my connections to power are enough to audit that entire ownership and everyone of the foreigners they employ to stick it to Americans.
Nuff Said
agtG
