Identity Theft Victim Charged as Pedophile

August 27, 2008 – 12:23 pm

A man in England learned the hard way that something as small as a lost credit card can destroy your reputation overnight. Simon Bunce was arrested without any warning one day and put under investigation as a pedophile. Police seized his work and home computers, and all his electronic data. When his employer learned about the investigation, he was promptly fired from his $250,000 a year job. His own family disowned him and refused to let him near any of their children due to the nature of his accusations. This all happened to a completely innocent man solely because his credit card was stolen.

While Bunce was going about his daily life, completely oblivious to the impending danger, someone else had his credit card number. Rather than using it to purchase typical merchandise, this identity thief was buying up child pornography. When the United States mounted a massive bust on some of its biggest illegal porn companies, they sent the UK a list of all the credit card information that had been used to purchase their merchandise. Bunce’s credit card was on the list.

After a lot of work, Bunce was finally able to clear his name. They found records that he went to dinner in England at the same time as someone used his card to buy illegal contraband in Jakarta. After a long time of hopeless unemployment and disgrace, he finally found a job making about ¼ his former salary. He now sells computer encryption services which may help protect the credit of others. His family now speaks to him and he is currently suing the online retailer that allowed his credit card to be stolen.

Most of us have heard that LifeLock helps protect the identity of their customers and backs their finances with a million dollar guarantee*, but what does it do about our reputation? On top of financial backing, Life Lock carefully monitors new credit lines opened by identity thieves. Most identity theft happens when other personal information is used to obtain a line of credit in someone else’s name. If this had been a typical credit fraud and Bunce had been a customer of LifeLock, they would have helped his name from being tarnished and he would not have had to endure this nightmare.

*Guarantee applies only if you become an id theft victim because of a failure in our service. Other restrictions apply. See LifeLock.com for details.

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