A case of stolen identity
Laura Jones, Reporter
October 24, 2007
A male magazine solicitor walked into a female Pennington Hall dorm room earlier this month, recalling the possible identity theft incidents on the George Fox and Linfield campuses in 2004.
Kristin Gnile, a first year art major and one of the residents of the dorm room, said: "We got a knock on our door and said, 'Come in,' figuring it was a girl on the floor or something because it wasn't floor hours. A college-age guy opened our door and without giving a name started rambling on and selling up magazines."
Gnile described the solicitor as a twenty-something male of medium height, casually dressed in jeans and a gray t-shirt. Gnile said that he ignored her and her roommate when they told him he was not allowed to be in their room after floor hours, and he pushed them to buy magazines so that he could take a trip to Rome.
After the girls had managed to get the magazine solicitor to leave, Gnile called Security Services. "Security was interested and asked if he was still there. He wasn't," said Gnile. "I gave a description and about 10 minutes later they came up to our room for further questions."
Oregon is ranked 13th in the nation for the number of identity theft cases, and some experts say that college students are the ideal victims.
On Nov. 9, 2004, solicitors came to the George Fox campus claiming they worked for CitiBank. They offered college students pizza and stuffed teddy bears for filling out a credit card application. The application included highly sensitive information such as social security numbers. About 40-50 students gave their information to the two male solicitors who drove away before security was called. Many of the students froze their bank accounts, and no one reported their identity stolen.
Ten days later, on Nov. 19, 2004, a related incident occurred at Linfield College. Credit card solicitors offered college students pizza for their personal information, including social security numbers and digital photos of student identification cards. The solicitors identified themselves with CitiBank, a company that often contracts to third-parties, but CitiBank said they did not need the student ID cards and guessed that the solicitors were conducting fraud or possible identity theft.
Solicitors are not allowed on GFU's property, and if you see anyone soliciting on campus call security immediately (ext: 2090).