The Oregonian
If she had only driven a bigger truck. She could still be out there, buying furniture and power tools with credit stolen from Police Bureau employees.
When the 50-year-old identity thief walked into an Auburn, Wash., furniture store last month, she posed as a woman who, it turns out, works in the Portland police Records Division.
Fake ID in hand, she applied for a $4,000 line of credit. She got it. Then, police say, she went shopping, intent on spending every penny.
A bunk bed. Two queen-size mattresses. Recliner. Sofa table. Two end tables. Two table lamps. Coffee table.
“When she was done, she realized she could only squeeze the bunk bed, mattresses and recliner in her truck,” says Portland Detective Barbara Glass. “So, she decided to come back for the rest of the stuff later.”
She drove off, leaving the store’s sales staff with a pile of merchandise and a funny feeling. Not many customers apply for a big chunk of credit and then walk through a store saying, “I’ll take that, that, that, that, and how much more do I have left to spend?’ ” Glass says.
The next day, the woman sent two friends back to the store. As they loaded up the truck, the police arrived. The pair wound up ratting out the identity thief. Detectives found her in Milwaukie.
Glass says the woman is also suspected of stealing another person’s identity to run up $5,100 worth of charges at Home Depot stores at Jantzen Beach and Mall 205.
Weird thing: The victim in that case works . . . in the police Records Division.
Police say they don’t know how the woman wound up with the employees’ personal information, or why she drove all the way to Auburn to pull off her home-furnishings con.