IDENTIFYING THE THIEF

The first clues that something was wrong started popping up in my e-mail in-basket one morning.

First one online service was thanking me for asking about their mortgage refinancing and then, scrolling down, I saw e-mails from cellphone companies, from the CD folks at Columbia House, an offer of vacation packages, one for computers and even a note from Disney’s ornament-of-the-month club.

Soon after, my phone started ringing off the hook.

I didn’t order or solicit any of this attention and very quickly – like before I could finish my morning cup of coffee – I was irate. I had become the latest victim of identity theft.

Only this wasn’t a case of some anonymous cad lifting my PIN or social security number. I had a good idea of who the dirtbag was who was making my life hell.

Like many apartment dwellers, I had recently feuded with my upstairs neighbor over his failure to clean the lobby.

But instead of reacting as many would – giving me the silent treatment or, how about this, apologizing – this idiot neighbor decided to steal my ID and break the law. So I decided to get even.

Working with what I think is just a slightly better-than-average knowledge of how the Internet works, I started a year-plus fight to legally prove that my neighbor was the perp who stole my home address, e-mail address and telephone number. Some quick action alerted the companies to the crime before its was time to bill me for the phony orders.

After calls to a few of the marketers e-mailing me, I was able to identify and document the unique internet protocol (IP) address of the computer used to impersonate me. Plugging that information into one of the free online IP trackers led to a specific account.

However, the Internet provider, Comcast in this case, refused to voluntarily turn over the info. So I turned over whatever evidence I had to Det. Al Lopez of the Jersey City Police Department, where I live. After a little more than a month, Det. Lopez got back to me with a good-news-and-bad-news answer.

Though the neighbor’s actions qualify as identity theft under New Jersey law, pressing charges was not so easy. Not used to handling such cases, the local prosecutor’s office refused to pursue it. They suggested I go to civil court.

But I wasn’t about to give up. After bugging them for weeks, the D.A. relented and agreed to take the case. With the evidence I had, the case was a slam-dunk.

My neighbor was charged with a felony and faced up to six months in prison and fines of up to $1,000. But he wasn’t going easy. I loved the fact that he had to spend some money on a lawyer, but didn’t like it that he forced more than a dozen re-scheduled court dates.

Finally, this past winter – 16 months after the charges were filed – prosecutors offered him a plea-bargain that reduced the charges to a misdemeanor in exchange for a guilty plea.

I can’t tell you the satisfaction I got that day when Daniel Tang, 27, of Jersey City, my upstairs neighbor from hell, stood up in court and admitted his crime.

You can fight back against ID theft – and win!