$3M in Phony Credit Card Debt No Help to Weak Economy

Under almost any other set of circumstances the news that thousands of credit card transactions totaling more than $3M in purchases would have been hailed by the credit and collection industry—heck, by the whole country—as a bellwether of economic recovery and a symbol of the gritty fortitude of American consumerism.

Except that in this case, the cards in question were counterfeit and the real news here isn’t about credit card charges, it’s about criminal ones.

On September 9, 2011, Tony Perez III was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 14 years in federal prison. Perez, of Hammond, Ind. (if you’re unfamiliar with the great state of Indiana, Hammond is the Designer Imposter version of Gary, Ind.), pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft earlier this year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

When the Secret Service arrived at Mr. Perez’s apartment back home again in Indiana, they found evidence of an online credit card fraud operation that included more than 21,000 stolen credit card numbers and related account information. The Secret Service and DOJ officials were not happy—not happy at all. In a state as familiar with auto racing metaphors as it is with the fate of native son James Dean and his doomed Porsche 550 Spyder: speed kills; and there are no shortcuts on the road to economic recovery. So Perez is headed to the pokey for the next decade and a half. He’s also been ordered to pay a $2.8M forfeiture and an additional quarter million dollar fine. After that, he’ll have three years of Lindsay Lohan-style ankle jewelry to wear, courtesy of the DOJ.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose. But if you’re an agency licensed to collect debt in Indiana and are working fresh credit card paper, take note: should any accounts come across your desk with unusually high charges from Boot City in Terre Haute, Ind. (home of the steer-horned yellow Cadillac) it might be a good idea to do a little extra due diligence to validate those debts.

P.S. Mr. Perez III: you’re doing it wrong.

Michael Klozotsky is the managing editor of insideARM.com. He attended college in Evansville, Indiana, and has visited Boot City once or twice. He never had a fake I.D.