The Bonnie and Clyde of credit card fraud

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, July, 1998 by Kristin Davis

First, they stole identifies, then this husband-and-wife team committed financial crimes in their victims' names. Is your identity safe?

Tall, white-haired and bearded, the real Edward M. Peters Jr. looks the part of a medieval-history scholar--especially in his cluttered office, where towering shelves of books include a few volumes of his own with titles like Inquisition and Torture. At lunch in the University of Pennsylvania's faculty dining room in downtown Philadelphia, the professor lights up a Chesterfield, orders crab cakes and a martini, and says he'd like to "beat the hell out of the crook" who stole his identity.

The inmate known as Edward M. Peters Jr. is shorter by several inches and younger by a dozen years, with a beard just beginning to gray. His real name--the one that appears on his economics degree from Syracuse University--is Roger Cullen. But Peters was the alias on the warrant when he was arrested, so Peters is his name in Delaware's prison records. "When I go to see him, I have to ask for Ed Peters," says his lawyer.

That name was just one of dozens that Roger Cullen and his wife, Cheryl, adopted during an identity-theft spree that spanned at least six years and seven states. A modern-day Bonnie and Clyde armed with vital statistics rather than automatic pistols, they hit banks and credit card companies for tens--possibly hundreds--of thousands of dollars, and jeopardized the financial life of each of their victims.

An escalating threat

The Cullens' story--the ease with which they morphed from one purloined identity to another and the serendipity of their ultimate arrest--is an indisputable warning: Identity theft is becoming more and more pervasive as government and business increasingly rely on numbers to identify citizens and consumers, and as technology simplifies the collection and dissemination of personal information. A support group for identity-theft victims founded last fall by CalPIRG, a California consumer-advocacy organization, received 8,000 to 10,000 calls for help in its first six months. Trans Union, one of the three major credit bureaus, says calls to its fraud division have risen from 300 a month in 1992 to 40,000 a month this year.

For victims, unraveling the damage typically takes a minimum of several days of phone calls and paperwork when the fraud involves just a credit card or two. But for those whose names are used to open checking accounts, rent apartments, or get driver's licenses or jobs, the cleanup can be a devastating burden that never ends (see the box on page 70). Stained records play havoc with victims' attempts to rent an apartment, get phone service, open a bank account, cash a check or qualify for a loan. If the thief uses your name to get a job, the IRS can come after you for tax due on the earnings. The worst of all scenarios: You could be arrested for crimes committed in your name.

So maybe the real Edward Peters was lucky. Apart from Delaware's prison records, his name has appeared on at least one fraudulent bank account, a drunk-driving citation in Maryland, and arrest warrants in Delaware, Florida and Tennessee. Amazingly, he was unaware of any of this until a phone call from Kiplinger's broke the news. The arrest warrants have been withdrawn, eliminating the most hair-raising hazard: "Poor Edward Peters. He runs a red light in Florida and eight cops are ready to shoot him if he sneezes," says Detective Scott Garland, one of the Delaware state troopers who apprehended the Cullens.

Peters and most of the others the Cullens impersonated had a common bond: They were profiled in Who's Who in America, a directory of prominent Americans that includes biographical information such as birth date, place of birth, mother's maiden name and home address. "It gives enough information in the biography to request a copy of a birth certificate," Roger Cullen says in a videotaped police interview obtained by Kiplinger's. Not surprisingly, the Cullens racked up a rather distinguished list of victims. "These are all people who obviously are creditworthy," Roger says.

(The Cullens declined requests for interviews. But Roger relented just before we went to press; see the box "Roger and me". Most of the details in this story come from police and court records and from interviews with police, attorneys, victims and others connected with the case.)

Fire? What fire?

The Cullens' life on the run ended March 19, 1997, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Detectives Scott Garland and Dennis Spillan met eye-stinging smoke the moment they burst through the door of the Cullens' home, a nicely furnished Victorian on the Chesapeake Bay. It was about 8:30 A.M., and the Cullens acted as if they'd just been awakened. "She turns over like she's just getting up and there's black soot around her nose and mouth," says Garland. "I ask, `Where's the fire?' And she says, `What fire?'"

In a second-floor bathroom, the tub and sink were clogged with water and charred paper. A blue plastic trashcan stuffed with smoldering papers had melted in on itself, ironically preserving the contents. In a three-and-a-half-hour search, the detectives seized boxes of bank checks, birth certificates, marriage and driver's licenses, gift certificates, mailbox rental contracts--and about $6,000 in cash.