Nearly half of Americans have had their credit card hacked, according to research from the Ponemon Institute. Mary-Kathryn found herself in that unfortunate situation after $3,000 was stolen from her husband’s credit card.
Mary-Kathryn’s credit card company called them to explain that someone had used her husband’s credit card information to wire transfer money fraudulently through Western Union. She was able to obtain the phone number, so she did some research and found a name. From there, she used Spokeo in the hopes of finding location history and prior addresses for that individual.
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Mary-Kathryn said, “The site was very easy to navigate. I popped in the first and last name, and the location of where the money was sent.”
From there, she found three known locations, which were all located in the next county over from where she lived. Her husband is in the military, and they live on base in Memphis, Tennessee, so she reported the incident to the authorities on base, as well as to the local and state authorities. From the information she obtained on Spokeo, they were able to narrow the locations and found the culprit at one of the addresses. They were able to confirm his identity after obtaining video surveillance from their local Walmart where he was shown standing at the Western Union counter, showing ID, and receiving the stolen money. He was immediately arrested, and a court date is set for February. It turns out he had used a scrambler to intercept and gain access to personal information of more than a dozen people, including Mary-Kathryn and her husband.
Mary-Kathryn’s research on Spokeo was very beneficial in finding this criminal, and she is relieved that he will be prosecuted for multiple scams.
“Without a site like this, it would have taken me months to track this person down. We did it in a matter of a week.”