Quote:
Originally Posted by taustin
I speak from personal experience. I am an IT professional, and deal with this sort of thing from time to time.
Heh. Just keep telling yourself that. Can you quote the specific part of the US Code on that? Because it seems to me that the Fair Credit Reporting Act would be about fairly reporting credit status, rather than criminal invenstigations. A quick scan of the actual text of the Act shows one section that deals with criminal investigations, and that (U.S.C 15 § 626) applies only to the FBI, only to investigations in to terrorism or espionage, must be signed personally by an FBI employee no lower than the head of a field office (whose time is very expensive), specifically allows credit reporting bureaus to charge their usual fees, and does not require disclusure of technical information like IP addresses.
So, which section, exactly, of the US code are you talking about?
Because police work for free, make nothing for their time, which they have infinite amounts of.
Nice planet you live on there son. All police investigations have a financial cost. Always.
But, since the OP seems inclined to go the more reasonable route of working with B&N to get a refund, it seems unlikely we'll ever know.
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I'm not sure what being an IT professional has to do with police investigations, but I've been a police officer for 17 years, and specifically a forensic computer examiner for 7. I deal with this type of thing every day, rather than from time to time.
The specific portion of the FCRA is as follows:
(e) Information Available to Victims
(1) In general. For the purpose of documenting fraudulent transactions resulting from
identity theft, not later than 30 days after the date of receipt of a request from a
victim in accordance with paragraph (3), and subject to verification of the identity of
the victim and the claim of identity theft in accordance with paragraph (2), a business
entity that has provided credit to, provided for consideration products, goods, or
services to, accepted payment from, or otherwise entered into a commercial
transaction for consideration with, a person who has allegedly made unauthorized
use of the means of identification of the victim, shall provide a copy of application
and business transaction records in the control of the business entity, whether
maintained by the business entity or by another person on behalf of the business
entity, evidencing any transaction alleged to be a result of identity theft to--
(A) the victim;
(B) any Federal, State, or local government law enforcement agency or officer
specified by the victim in such a request; or
(C) any law enforcement agency investigating the identity theft and authorized
by the victim to take receipt of records provided under this subsection.
I've used it literally hundreds of times. It has nothing to do with the FBI, or terrorism. Federal law applies to everyone. But even if you wanted to go so far as to say that it would require a search warrant because federal law has for some reason been suspended, here's what would happen: I would type a search warrant (an hour's work), drive to the District Judge's office and get him to sign it, and fax it to the merchant (another hour). Done.
You're right; police investigations have a financial cost. Someone has to pay my salary. But you know what? If he doesn't report this crime, I won't be investigating grand terrorism schemes, or serial killings; I'll be investigating the $200 fraud that some other citizen reported. You know why? Because that's my job. It is not my job to investigate drugs or embezzlment or murder; some other guys that work with me do that. I investigate computer crimes. You're an IT professional; if you aren't working on your network, do you go down and do some accounting work? My salary is already being paid by someone's taxes; how about if you let me investigate the crimes that affect that person; the ones that I am trained to investigate.
The bottom line is that you started out your recommendation for the OP to not report this by stating that the police would be unwilling and unable, due to lack of expertise, to investigate. When I stated that this was not necessarily the case, then you threw in the exorbitant expense and the fact that the police, basically, have better things to do. All he would be paying would be my salary (and he's already paying that, whether he reports it or not). And I don't have anything better to do; this is my job. So let me do it. And for all you know, there is someone just like me in the department that has jurisdiction over the OP's location. So let him do his job.
We all know lazy, ineffective cops. But you know what? I know lazy, ineffective teachers, attorneys, retail workers, and, yes, even IT professionals. But I would never advise someone against taking advantage of (and demanding proper service from) a resource that exists to serve him or her, especially on the basis that they
might be poorly trained or uninterested. We call that stereotyping, and it is generally frowned on.
The planet I live on is called Pennsylvania. And referring to someone as "son" might be seen as demeaning by someone less reasonable than me.