“Dear PoPville,
I have a long tale of identity theft. This issue started on June 2nd, 2024, and still hasn’t been resolved or even followed up on and I don’t know where else to go but to put them on blast on the internet.
On June 2, I got a call from a lender in Newport News, VA, who had warned me that my identity was being used in an attempt to purchase a car in Virginia. That afternoon, I checked my credit report and was made aware of 4 hard inquiries.
I worked diligently to freeze my credit, and put alerts on my credit report with all three creditors. I called all of the lenders to alert them of the fraud and was able, for the most part, stop this person from successfully taking out a loan. I even called the used car center where she first visited to alert them, and they had told me that she successfully purchased a car using my SSN, DOB– she even had a fake Driver’s License with my name on it as well as fake pay stubs. She was even successfully able to enroll with car insurance.
WIth many of these inquiries, you are required to file a police report in order for there to any action taken in the victim’s favor. I called 311 and they took down my info, but told me an officer had to call me back to file the report. I received a missed call later that afternoon, but there was no voicemail left on my phone, so when I called 311 the next day they said “Oh, an officer tried to call you, but didn’t receive a response so we closed the inquirity”. They reopened it on June 5th, and an officer finally took down my report. She told me that “You will eventually be reached out to by a detective in the financial crimes unit, but since it was pride weekend, they would be busy so I can’t tell you when they will call you.”
I let a month go by, but still hadn’t heard from a detective so I called 311 back, and they weren’t sure where to send me, so they connected me to the Ward 1 police department. When I explained my case, they told me that “You need to reach out to the financial crimes unit, but if I give you a phone number they just won’t answer so you should email instead.” So, I emailed them on July 3rd and never heard a response.
During the 4th of July weekend, I was alerted that one of the loans this person took out was successful and was now officially showing up as a $24,000 line of credit that is not mine, and in fact a couple months delinquent.
One of Nadeu’s staff members came to our neighborhood for a separate issue, and I explained to him exactly what had happened. I was assured that, “I will call you on Monday (July 22) likely with a detective because that is unacceptable.” He took my phone number and never called. I emailed him to follow up on July 31st and have never heard back.
I then got Nadeau’s email address directly, and she responded, to her credit, very quickly. She asked me to forward the unresponded to email to the financial crimes unit, which I did right away. She also cc’d Jerry and said that he would follow-up. That was sent to me on August 10th– still no response despite me following up. Update: After many weeks, Nadeau’s office got back to me on August 30th telling me they’d follow up with the police. As of September 14th, I still have not been contacted by a detective.
I am absolutely exhausted by how this has all been handled. I have a lot of information for the detective that I believe will result in catching this person who did this. I have their address, phone number– the used car center has video footage of her. I am afraid that she has been able to open up utilities, or apply for an apartment in my name. But absolutely nothing can be done until my local police reaches out to Newport News– which is incredibly disconcerting.
It has been 2 months with me having my hands tied behind my back and I fear that there is so much that has happened that I don’t know about because no one has investigated this person.
I have since gotten everything removed from my credit, but the lack of care that the city has paid me is just really gutting.
I don’t really know what I want from this– maybe advice from other citizens, maybe just to nudge them into paying attention.”