ID theft probe in Southern California

[Henry Brown <hbrown () knology net>]

I.D. Theft Probe Focuses On O.C. Car Dealership

(CBS) ORANGE, Calif. Investigators carted away 350 boxes of business 
records from an Orange car dealership as part of a probe into 
allegations that loan applications contained stolen identity 
information, an official said.

Orange County District Attorney's office spokeswoman Susan Schroeder 
said it could take months to go through the materials, such as loan 
records, computers and hard drives from Douglas Nissan of Orange.

The DA's office received complaints that "stolen ID was used to 
facilitate loan documents," Schroeder said.

She said did not know if the allegations centered around individual 
customers who "all happened to shop" at Douglas or if any workers were 
involved.

As to the number of potential victims, Schroeder said, "It's just too 
early to tell."

"Basically what happened is that (party) A would come in for a loan 
document and fill it out with (party) B's information," she said.

The victim may never know about it unless something happens like a 
default in payments, she said.

The investigation began three months ago when the DA's office realized 
that a common thread in a rash of reports was Douglas Nissan, she said.

"We believe that thousands of applications possibly have stolen 
identification," Schroeder told reporters. "We're in the beginning 
process of the investigation and we'll be looking at this to determine 
how many identities were stolen to process false applications."

http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_191030940.html

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