Complaint Review: Epassporte - Marina Del Rey California
- Epassporte 333 Washington Blvd Ste 345 Marina Del Rey, California U.S.A.
- Phone: 877-372-7790
- Web:
- Category: Internet Fraud
Epassporte Caters to Identity Theives. I'm out $2000 while my bank WAMU rolls over Ripoff Marina Del Rey California
*Consumer Suggestion: Banks are required...
*Consumer Suggestion: Change your bank account
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In September of 2006, I looked at my WAMU bank statement online and noticed something odd: parentheses around my account balance. Doesn't that mean "negative" I thought? I checked it out, and indeed, I had a balance of roughly -$1000.00. I saw that, among several overdraft charges and other fees, 4 withdrawals for $500.00 each were made to my account from a company named epassporte. Obviously I did not make the charges and purposefully ran my account into the red by a grand, so I checked epassporte out. It was my worst nightmare, but probably a dream come true to indentity theives. They sell prepaid "virtual" Visa cards online. These cards can be used just like a Visa. They can be used for online purchases or to simply take cash out of an ATM. They need not be sent to the customer, transactions never require a signature or social security number and the only verification they ask for appears to be a Credit/Debit card number, an address and 3-digit validation number. Needless to say, someone gained access to this information and set up an account with epassporte in my name, unbeknownst to me.
I called Washington Mutual immediately to dispute the charges to my account and they were very accomodating. They reissued the funds, including all associated fees and overdraft penalties within a few days.
It is now mid-November 2006, and I just received a letter from WAMU stating that the merchant (epassporte) has verified that the transactions were valid. Since they were able to confirm both a physical address and verification number, they claimed that I had indeed made the transactions. For their part, WAMU had now appeared to roll over and play dead. The letter stated that I now had ten business to submit a signed letter with proof that I did not make those charges. I did my best to make my case, but I felt that I shouldn't have had to even do that. Certainly, yes, I conceivably could have made those charges myself and then tried to claim fraud and have the money reissued to my account. But I'm not that stupid because I know that eventually, purchases made with these credit cards would be traced back to me. Which is why I am shocked that neither WAMU nor epassporte seemed interested in what was done with the cards after they were purchased. If they had investigated this further, it most likely could have proven my case. But they did not, and now I am stuck trying to prove that I was a victim of identity theft. How do you do that? If someone had used my information INCORRECTLY, it wouldn't be identity theft. Of course my address and verification number matched! They were stolen from me!
So now epassporte is taking the high road and refusing to acknowledge that their system of "virtual" transactions directly caters to the identity theft market and likely keeps many of them in business. And WAMU is making me jump through hoops to prove something that I do not have the ability or resources to prove. I thought this was a textbook scenario to illustrate why banks have these protections in place in the first place. I'm supposed to be insured against this kind of thing. Now I feel as though WAMU is accusing ME of fraud and if I am unable to make a convincing arguement, I could soon find those parentheses around my account balance once again.
Nicolas
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 11/17/2006 11:01 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/epassporte/marina-del-rey-california-90292/epassporte-caters-to-identity-theives-im-out-2000-while-my-bank-wamu-rolls-over-ripoff-221062. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content
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#2 Consumer Suggestion
Banks are required...
AUTHOR: John - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Friday, November 17, 2006
Banks are required to substantiate all claims of fraud to satisfy regulators when these amounts are written off by the bank as in the end, the bank would be the one absorbing this loss. Therefore, don't take their request to be a personal insult. Generally, what is required is a police report which gives credence to your claim that you (or a family member/friend) did not suthorize the charges. You will need to get this police report to them immediately if you are to be held blameless for these charges. I'd also recommend that you request a new account number as someone apparently has your current one and you could face this same situation down the road.
And finally, yes, I am a banker however I have no ties to WAMU or any of their affiliates. Good luck to you ; let us know how is turns out.
Banker John
#1 Consumer Suggestion
Change your bank account
AUTHOR: Dave - (Canada)
SUBMITTED: Friday, November 17, 2006
The first thing that I would do is to change my bank account, so that whoever has the epassporte linked to my account can't use it again and steal more money.
The second thing I would do is to put a fraud alert on my credit reports. Equifax has instructions for this on their website.
Try to protect yourself from any further damages first. Then to go after your money...
FTC complaint (against epassporte). Police Report.
The FBI website has a mechanism for filing a complaint but since I'm in Canada I'm not sure how jurisdiction between FTC and FBI is worked out. The FBI complaint about identity theft would back up an FTC complaint against epassporte.
As for WaMu, I'd probably move to another bank, if I could.
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