By Kimmy Claussen Posted December 16, 2015
Jessica Green, a mother of two, was recently a victim of identity theft. She just had her second child and money was extremely tight.
“We’ve never had the best credit so when I found out my identity got stolen I was scared that it was only going to get worse,” Mrs. Green said.
The family had traveled to Oregon recently to visit family for Thanksgiving, the husband went to a “shady” looking store and used their credit card.
“He didn’t even really have that credit card scanner thing, he just wrote down my credit card number and said he would take it to the bank and just withdraw money from my account. Looking back I probably shouldn’t have let him do it,” the victim added.
Although the story looks bad now, this incident actually took a positive turn.
“So obviously this guy isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. He’s pretty big on online shopping, but when he put my credit card number in everything he bought came directly to us. I never thought I’d need 78 golf clubs, an endless supply of subway gift cards, and 15 of the panda Pillow Pets, but finders keepers,” Mrs. Green said.
Eventually, the family reported this strange activity to the police and they caught the man who was doing it and he was later arrested. He had to pay back their money and they did get to keep all of the items that were sent to them.
“It was that same guy from the store in Oregon, in case you haven’t figured that out. But we didn’t have to return any of the stuff that was bought for us, and we got some free things out of it. At least we’ll have some Christmas presents,” the victim said.
Joe Cavanaugh, the person who stole their identity, is facing up to ten years in prison for this. The Brand got an exclusive interview with Joe before his trial.
“All I can say is, I just want my Pillow Pets back if I get out of here,” said Cavanaugh.
