A 77-year-old man claims he is a victim of identity fraud after he received a court order detailing how he owed a bank almost $5,000 in unpaid credit card charges.
Robert Roy said on Sunday, local deputies showed up at his door with court documents ordering him to appear before a judge this week. According to Roy, the documents detailed about $5,000 in unpaid debt Roy owed for credit cards. The only problem? Roy hasn’t owned a credit card since 1958.
“That can't be me,” he explained. “Somebody got my ID and made up a credit card."
Roy said he only uses money orders and cash to pay for things, and the only credit card he ever had was used to pay for gasoline back in the 1950s. Having to pay thousands of dollars as a result of the identity theft would put Roy in a tough spot.
“It would sink me,” he said. “I only get a thousand dollars a month from Social Security and I have to make a house payment."
Roy’s identity fraud case is far from unique in the metro area. In Roy’s hometown of Belton, Missouri, police say fraud cases are reported on a near-daily basis.
“We average three to four calls a week [about fraud] on most given weeks," Lt. Brad Swanson of the Belton Police Department said.
Identity theft cases are on the rise across the metro area, and Swanson explained that it doesn’t take much to be a victim.
“It can happen from a purchase made online, a card skimmer, or you might have been out at a restaurant and somebody got the card number,” he said.
Swanson said the two best ways to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft are to only use trusted sites when buying items from online stores and to keep tabs of your credit history.
“Computers have opened up the world of fraud amazingly to these people,” he explained. “They're very ingenious in how they get these things."
In the meantime, Roy said he would continue to fight his case. As of Wednesday night, an official response from the plaintiffs about the charges had not been received.
------
Tom Dempsey can be reached at Tom.Dempsey@KSHB.com.
