CHICAGO (CBS) — This is a story about a man named Marvellous, and his miserable experience with identity theft.
It started with a mistake he made, and then spiraled into a months-long mess. That is, until CBS 2 stepped in to help get his missing $15,000.
Marvellous Taylor left his wallet at the self-checkout at a south suburban grocery store. He canceled all his bank cards, but a crook still got their hands on his driver’s license, which is the holy grail for identity theft.
“A couple days later, I noticed transactions coming out from my bank,” Taylor said.
Turns out, the crook went into Fifth-Third bank branches and did an old fashioned withdrawal with Taylor’s driver’s license.
“The same guy took the money out over and over and over,” said Taylor. “He went in like five, six different times.”
Taylor shared his bank statements, identifying bogus withdrawals, totaling nearly $15,000.
Taylor filed a police report of the crime. The bank let him see videos of the transactions and Taylor told CBS 2 he looks nothing like the thief.
“You could tell us apart from down the street without knowing us,” Taylor said.
He disputed the transactions with Fifth-Third. He was stunned to learn of the bank’s decision: The bank researchers found the transactions were valid.
“They just deny it and throw it under the rug and not handling it very well at all,” said Taylor.
After Taylor contacted CBS 2, Fifth-Third took another look at the case.
Taylor returned to a Fifth-Third branch with his new ID, so bank officials could confirm he indeed was not the person captured on their cameras withdrawing all that money.
A few days later, Taylor’s money was returned.
Fifth-Third apologized to Taylor for the length of the investigation. It took six months for Taylor to get his money back.
They acknowledge he is not the man seen on camera withdrawing all that money.
They also encourage anyone to report suspicious activity as soon as possible and make sure the bank knows your ID was stolen as well.
