Therapist is victim of identity theft
by JOEL GALLOB - Ravalli Republic
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Pat Goldson of Hamilton, one of several million people whose private financial information was stolen from a data service company by an employee.
WILL MOSS - Ravalli Republic
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“The risk is still there because they could get hold of my stuff again,” said Pat Goldson, a Christian counselor with a Hamilton office who was recently the victim of identity theft.
It was only by a combination of timely action and luck that he prevented somebody from buying a $3,800 computer on his Amazon.com account. He deleted that purchase minutes before it was to be completed by the thief.
“What’s scary is that in this age of computer media, my financial well being is no safer than the least honest employee of some company with access to that information,” Goldson said.
In Goldson’s instance, the company was Certegy.
A Certegy employee walked out with millions of people’s data one day. Certegy stated the number was 2.5 million, but the law firm Girard Gibbs LLP, which has brought a class-action suit against Certegy, asserts it was 8.5 million.
According to the Secret Service, Goldson said, the theft occurred in January.
It was not until July 5, however, that Certegy sent a letter to Goldson’s Whole Heart Ministries, the entity for which Certegy had the data, describing the theft.
“They said the data loss included just name, address and birth date, not Social Security numbers, and that the thief sold the data to some marketing companies,” Goldson said. “They said don’t worry about it. I asked them what kind of information they have. They said, most everything available about you. We get it from banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies - everybody who you’ve done business with.”
According to the company Web site, Certegy Inc. “provides credit, debit and merchant card processing, e-banking, check risk management and check cashing services to over 6,000 financial institutions, 117,000 retailers and 100 million consumers worldwide. Headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, Certegy maintains a strong global presence... (it) offers a comprehensive range of transaction processing services, check risk management solutions and integrated customer support programs which facilitate the exchange of business and consumer payments.”
Certegy told him it had only information relating to Goldson’s business, Whole Heart Ministries, Goldson recalled, and no personal data.
The Ravalli Republic spoke to three individuals at Certegy’s offices in Florida, seeking someone authorized to speak on the matter. The third person urged that questions be sent to a company post office box in Tampa.
They are being mailed and the Ravalli Republic will print the company response.
Goldson has taken precautions to prevent the leakage of information about his clients. He has a one gigabyte removable card and card reader to store confidential information off-line, unavailable to any hacker. He is contemplating getting a flash drive, which also provides off-line storage.
“I took two weeks off from everything to take care of this,” Goldson said.
By the evidence, the crooks got, directly or indirectly, information about Goldson’s Amazon.com, eBay, and personal bank checking accounts.
The sequence of events
After receiving the notice letter, his first call was to Certegy. The response he got was not satisfying.
He then called the Secret Service Tampa office, nearest the return address on Certegy’s letter.
“The Secret Service man said if I had a credit card, replace it with one with insurance (against theft), and with a reasonable limit. I had one for $500 max, but I decided that was too high. I cut up the card.”
Goldson got a flood of junk e-mail, but it was all to Whole Heart Ministries. But how, he asked, did the thief or those the thief sold information to find a way to access his personal checking account at First Security Bank?
First Security, had a tech guy, Goldson said, “who immediately froze my account, created a new account, transferred the money into the new one and cancelled the old one. And they covered all the outstanding checks I had written on that old account. As soon as I said ‘identity theft,’ they took charge. I totally trust them,” Goldson said.
He contacted the county sheriff’s office to make a formal record of the theft, and the three national credit bureaus. And he called a Montana state agency, for which, he sheepishly admits, he has yet to fill out some forms.
He went to each of his e-accounts and changed the password, or cancelled it. He tried to enter his Amazon account and it said, “wrong password.” He clicked on “Did you forget your password,” answered the security questions, got in, and checked his account.
“I found this purchase in my ‘shopping cart.’ I thought, maybe my wife, or my son or daughter, bought this. I called them, no,” he said.
When you buy something on Amazon, one screen asks you to confirm they have the right mailing address and shipping address. The mailing was right, he said, but the shipping address was to Chad Biberstine at 504 Miami Street, in North Manchester, Ind. Goldson gave it to the Secret Service.
“I hit delete on the shopping cart,” he said. “And I cancelled my Amazon account.
“I think the Chad name was phony, but I think the address was probably a warehouse or some place they rented for a week, loaded up on identity theft purchases, then fled.”
Goldson also apparently stopped the crooks from accessing his personal bank account in the nick of time, too.
The Amazon.com account was a personal account, so he knew the crook had gone past Whole Heart Ministries to his personal account, or that the Certegy employee also had data about his personal finances.
If you make a credit card purchase at eBay and other outlets, the first thing that happens, Goldson learned, is that the eBay computer connects to the bank and checks to make sure it has the right account and there is money in it. It does this by making an initial $1 charge to establish a link, verify the account, and create the basis for information transfer.
“So this is Sept. 15, and what was this $1 debit from eBay doing there? I e-mailed eBay and they put me into a goofy customer support site, a chat site, slow as molasses. I’ve kept everything we said back and forth,” he said.
“I’m not sure what you are talking about, eBay said. I’m talking about identity theft, I replied. ‘Somebody was using your computer to access my bank account. eBay kept saying everything was fine and dandy. By Sept. 15, eBay was still sending me automatic canned messages after I had e-mailed them that I wanted a person to talk to. I finally got hold of somebody and they said, fine, we’ll cancel it on our end.”
Now, when Goldson goes to a store he asks, do you use a check approval service?
“If the clerk says ‘yes,’ I say ‘who,’ and if they say ‘Certegy,’ I leave the basket and walk out the door. They are not getting my new bank account. But the clerks look at me like I’m crazy, or like they think I don’t have any money in the account,” he said.
Reporter Joel Gallob can be reached jgallob@ravallirepublic.com or at 363-3300.
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