Identity Theft – The Michelle Brown Story

The most famous and widely publicized identity theft story was that of Michelle Brown, a 29-year-old bank clerk. She appeared before the US Senate Committee Hearing on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology Terrorism and Government Information on July 12, 2000 and testified to her appalling experience as a victim of identity theft.

Michelle Brown is an ordinary citizen who started working at the young age of fifteen to help finance her college studies. She had a good credit standing for the last eleven years since she was seventeen years old. She has never committed any crime, not even the slightest offense. Until one day, January 12, 1999, she received a call from Bank of America asking her about paying for a truck she apparently bought a month ago. She took the necessary steps: she placed a fraud alert on her credit reports, canceled all of her cards, and even placed a fraud alert on her driver’s license.

For almost two years, from January 1998 to July 1999, someone posed as her. The thief has spent $50,000 on goods and services. He practically damaged the credit standing of the real Michelle Brown and, worst of all, got involved in the drug trade and dragged the name of the real Michelle Brown into the federal courts in Chicago. Erroneous entries were filed on her arrest record. She had an instant prison record when the impersonator was captured and detained at Chicago Federal Prison.

Michelle Brown’s story was made into a movie in 2004. The plot began when the thief stole her rental application from a property management office. The thief immediately subscribed to a phone service and other public services. She also tried to get credit cards from different stores. She bought a $32,000 truck and had $5000 worth of liposuction. She got a duplicate driver’s license. The highlight was when the copycat got involved in drugs. She was on the run for half a year and was caught trafficking 3,000 pounds of marijuana in May 1999.

The real Michelle Brown, on the other hand, experienced severe trauma when she was accosted at Los Angeles Customs on her return trip from Mexico. A typical identity theft victim, she explained to herself in tears as authorities continue to treat her as guilty until she is proven innocent. She smoked the fear out of her even more. She was tormented by the pain of having to prove her innocence every time. She was forced to submit various forms, make many phone calls to different companies, and have many documents notarized to prove her true identity. She experienced hell as she regained her character that she had kept clean for the past 29 years.

In his statement before the Senate, he urged the government to promote initiatives to help victims of identity theft clean up their records. He also expressed his support for Senator Feinstein’s Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2000.