Celebs and Identity Theft

[pitfiend]

411lowdown.com/2008/03/28/celebrity-identity-theft-cases/

Mayor Bloomberg’s Identity Fraud Disaster

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has fallen victim to celebrity identity fraud. Two identity thieves forged checks on the mayor’s checking account, to the tune of $10,000! The celebrity identity fraud victim’s nightmare ended when the crooks got greedy. They tried to cash checks totaling more than $400,000 and they got busted during identity verification. The two men, Charles Nelson and Odalis Bostic, were charged with grand larceny and Nelson was also charged with identity theft.
Will Smith Becomes a Celebrity Identity Theft Victim

Movie hero Will Smith became a victim of identity theft when a man used Smith’s identity to open more than a dozen credit card accounts in Pittsburgh. The man ran up $33,000 in credit card charges before he was apprehended. At the time of his arrest, the thief was already on probation for identity theft crimes — against another celebrity victim! The man had already spent more than $80,000 on a credit card in basketball player Steve Smith’s name.

I thought that this would be a funny post, but now I’m beginning to get a bit nervous. Even the most famous names can get roped into scams without anyone being the wiser. We’re just cogs in the wheel, and no one will notice when the teeth fall off.

[darenite]

I read that one too, but it was on a different site. It just made me laugh out loud. Kind of funny, since we tend to think of our celebrities as larger than life, then almost-hilarious things like this start happening.

I guess Will Smith could have done with an IDfreeze or a trustedID. Maybe he forgot to have his PA freeze the yearly credit report