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September 17, 2009

LifeLock hires new Chief Marketing Officer

LifeLock, the scam of a company, has hired Marvin Davis as its new Chief Marketing Officer.  Davis is the former Vice President of Verizon Wireless.  That's fitting.  I've sued Verizon a couple of times in identity theft cases.  Verizon has this strange, baseless notion that it need not comply with 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(b)'s duty to reasonably investigate disputes lodged by a consumer with a credit bureau regarding a Verizon account if the consumer previously did not provide something to Verizon that Verizon requested.

In my case, my client was the victim of a fraud account opened by Verizon.  The identity thief used my client's name and SSN to apply for a phone.  Verizon pulled my client's credit report but did not bother to actually look at it (according to sworn testimony).  If it had, Verizon should have noticed that the birth date given by the perp was completely wrong and that my client lived in North Carolina, not Illinois where the account was being opened.  Alas, less than 10 seconds after the application was submitted, the perp had his shiny new fraud account.

My client learned of the fraud when, of course, the identity thief did not pay the $1000 or so in charges racked up on the cell phone.  Verizon then was able to look at my client's credit report, realize he was stationed in North Carolina, and start trying to collect from him there.  My client was in the military and set to be deployed to Afghanistan a few days after he first learned of the fraud account. 

When he called Verizon to dispute the account, Verizon requested copies of his SSN card, driver's license, and a police report.  My client provided the SSN card and driver's license but could not provide a police report.  His local North Carolina police would not take a report, since the crime occurred in Illinois.  And the Peoria, Illinois police would only take a report in person which, being on the way to war, my client was not able to do.  My client told Verizon all this and even provided a statement from his superior officer that he was in North Carolina and never in Illinois where the account was opened.  Verizon refused to listen and took the stance of "no police report, no correction".

After repeated phone calls to Verizon from Afghanistan (and even being hung up on once by a rude Verizon employee), my client disputed the fraud account to the three credit bureaus.  Each of these bureaus relayed his disputes to Verizon, which triggered Verizon's duty to investigate pursuant to 1681s-2(b).  Keep in mind that this duty to investigate is triggered even if my client had never contacted Verizon directly.  What did Verizon do in response to the credit bureau disputes?  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Verizon claimed that it did not have to investigate because my client had never provided a police report which he was not physically able to do (short of holding a gun to a cop and forcing him to do a report) and, of course, is not even required by the FCRA.  The law is clear.  Verizon had a duty to investigate.

Three credit bureau disputes later and still no investigation or correction.  Finally, after being denied a home loan due to the Verizon fraud account on his credit report, my client found me and we filed suit.  The lawsuit triggered something that nothing else had ... removal of the fraud account.  And a confidential settlement approximately a year later.

Based upon the above, I am sure Marvin Davis will fit right in with LifeLock's shenanigans.

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