Paid Legit Bill-Employee Stole My CC Info & Paid Cell Phone Bills

[n8d]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? TENNESSEE

I will attempt to be as detailed as possible:
I paid a LEGIT parking violation over the phone to a collection agency based out of Pennsylvania (Penn Credit Corporation).
Yesterday I went to the ATM to withdrawl some cash, and noticed a large amount of money missing from my account.
I went to work and checked my online banking and noticed there were 2 payments from my account made to Sprint/Nextel this past Saturday (totaling $511.00). There are also 6 pre-auth holds from Verizon Wireless.
I have already contacted my bank and started that process and filed a report with the local police department.
Now, I called Sprint/Nextel and they were limited on the information which they could give, however, the lady DID confirm that one of the numbers that the card was used to pay was based out of Pennsylvania.
Since I have only used my card outside of Middle Tennessee 2x in the past 2 months, once being this collection agency in Penn and the other for Michael Savage Online store in California, I am putting 2 and 2 together here.

So here is my question: Assuming that it's traceable back to the collection agency in PA that the collector who called or someone in the office obtained my information from within their offices, do I have any legal recourse against the collection agency for allowing my private information to become compromised and thus causing me this huge headache?

One would assume that just like with other businesses, they are responsible for keeping your information secured.

I am so angry right now as I was going to be finishing my XMas shopping today, however, now I have no debit card as the bank needed to close that so this guy couldn't keep being Santa Clause and paying peoples cell phones with my credit card.

Any info? Can I sue them? The collector is probably a lost cause as he is probably a deadbeat anyways, but what liability does the company which employed him have?

Advice?

[n8d]

BTW...If I posted this in the incorrect forum, please forgive me.

There are so many forums that I didn't know if this would fall under Debt Collection or Civil Litigation....

[debtcollector`]

Calm down. Figure out what happened before you start accusing people. Someone stole your credit card info. Close the card and have another issued.

Let the police do their job and see where it goes.

DC

[n8d]

Thx for the reply.
The officer called me as I was writing the follow up and they confirmed that one of the Sprint/Nextel bills that was paid with it indeed belonged to the employee with whom I paid the bill with over the phone, so they are filing 2 charges for everytime the card was used (8 in total).
I plan on letting the police do their job.
I guess the main reason for seeking advice is to what legal (civil) recourse I have in this instance. Ultimately, a company is at least someone liable for their employees actions in a case like this, no? Its the employers responsibility for personal financial information to be kept secure, no? If it were a doctors office who left my medical files out in the open and an employee stole them, they would be under violation of the HIPPA act.

[cyjeff]

Actually, it would be a violation of the HIPAA act, but that really doesn't apply here.

Your card got stolen. Call your bank and have all holds stopped... NOW. Explain the situation.. they will respond with a speed you didn't think possible.

[Antigone*of*Greece]

You did all the right things. Just one thing to add: Once you get reimbursed from your bank you have been made whole; the bank is now the victim and will work with the local police or any other agency to assist in the prosecution (if any) of the crime.

If you do find out that this collection agency's employee took your information as you suspect, then you might consider asking the management of this agency to help pay for credit-monitoring for a period of time. I'm not sure whether that is something the agency would do but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask - DC what do you think?

[You Are Guilty]

That's the least I would ask for. Frankly, the employer could potentially be liable for all the acts of their "rogue" employee, so they ought to be quite willing to cooperate with the OP here.

[debtcollector`]

Originally Posted by Wirelessany1

You did all the right things. Just one thing to add: Once you get reimbursed from your bank you have been made whole; the bank is now the victim and will work with the local police or any other agency to assist in the prosecution (if any) of the crime.

If you do find out that this collection agency's employee took your information as you suspect, then you might consider asking the management of this agency to help pay for credit-monitoring for a period of time. I'm not sure whether that is something the agency would do but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask - DC what do you think?

You know those posts where I told people they would be lucky to talk to the floor manager and never to someone over the floor manager -- well, this is the exception. Credit monitoring is the cheap way out, but that will be decided by the company' senior management and counsel.

As a side note, the OP is a stand up guy that paid his debt and people believe him, how many other people did this employee do that to who were unable to address the issue because of their character flaws? Yes, the company will work with you to handle this quickly and quietly.

DC

[Country Living]

Credit monitoring is fine as an after-the-fact notification that someone has opened an account in your name.

My preference is a credit freeze at all three credit bureaus. A new credit inquiry would be rejected with a notice a credit freeze was in place. Sure, it could be annoying to have to temporarily unfreeze if you wanted new credit; but, a credit freeze provides much better protection against identity theft.