The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, act as legal, financial or credit advice; instead, it is for general informational purposes only. Information on this website may not be current. This website may contain links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser; we do not recommend or endorse the contents of any third-party sites. Readers of this website should contact their attorney, accountant or credit counselor to obtain advice with respect to their particular situation. No reader, user, or browser of this site should act or not act on the basis of information on this site. Always seek personal legal, financial or credit advice for your relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney or advisor can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this website or any of the links or resources contained within the site do not create an attorney-client or fiduciary relationship between the reader, user, or browser and website owner, authors, contributors, contributing firms, or their respective employers.
Credit.com receives compensation for the financial products and services advertised on this site if our users apply for and sign up for any of them. Compensation is not a factor in the substantive evaluation of any product.
Every year, various organizations like the Federal Trade Commission, Javelin, Gartner, Ponemon Institute, Pew and others issue reports that cite an array of victim counts anywhere from 9 million to 15 million Americans per year.
Why the variance? Well, aside from various designations and inarticulate categorizations among federal and state jurisdictions, or unwillingness or inability on the part of law enforcement authorities to investigate or prosecute due to lack of resources, a significant percentage of victims refuse to report the crime due to the complex nature of inter-personal relationships.
Take, for example, the recent incident where the senior pastor of a Florida church allegedly racked up $17,400 in credit card debt in the name of a member of his flock.
[Related: The Javelin Conundrum: Making Sense of the Latest Identity Theft Numbers]
According to detectives in the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, the New Hope Alliance Church in Land O’Lakes, Florida, received an e-mail in June 2010 regarding a delinquent Fifth Third Bank account in the name, but without the knowledge, of a church elder.
As reported in the St. Petersburg Times, a Detective of the Sheriff’s Office Economic Crimes Unit investigated the matter and determined that senior pastor Bruce Stutzman had opened the credit card account in January 2009 in the elder’s name and that he paid personal utility bills, made store purchases and wrote a series of convenience checks withdrawing thousands of dollars in cash advances.
The investigators allege that Stutzman used $3,400 in church funds to pay on the bogus account.
According to authorities, Stutzman confessed and surrendered to authorities pursuant to a warrant for fraudulent use of personal information. He was released on $5,000 bail.
[Resource: Understand your exposure to identity theft with the Identity Risk Score]
The Times reports that the church has declined to press charges involving the theft of church funds. I find this incomprehensible and I am hopeful he will face charges on the fraudulent account activity.
This is a case in which a type of familial identity theft was reported. However, every year hundreds of thousands are not, due to the nature of these types of relationships—especially when parents, children, siblings, other family members, friends and personal authority figures are involved. This is why we will likely never get a complete picture of the sheer magnitude of the epidemic.
October 19, 2023
Identity Theft and Scams
May 17, 2022
Identity Theft and Scams
May 20, 2021
Identity Theft and Scams