Thread: TN: Woman confronts identity thief at Koch Foods

Woman confronts identity thief at Koch Foods
BY ROBERT MOORE, Tribune Staff Writer

Jefferson County resident Virginia Ridley recently had a face-to-face encounter that few people will ever experience.

The person she met said her name was Virginia Ridley. Ridley’s namesake also represented that she had the same date of birth and Social Security number.

That’s where the similarities end.

The Virginia Ridley who lives in Jefferson County is a blonde, 5-foot-tall Anglo-American who speaks perfect English.

The other woman, who gave a Morristown address, has dark hair and is 5 inches taller. She also is Hispanic, and said she spoke no English.

The not-so-chance encounter occurred in the human resources office of the Koch Foods, a Morristown chicken-processing plant, Ridley said. Ridley went there with the sole purpose of meeting the woman who had assumed her identity on Feb. 25.

That’s the day she received a letter from the IRS indicating she owed almost $9,000 in federal income taxes and penalties on $48,000 she earned there from 2005 through 2007.

Ridley, who was seven months pregnant with her second child, and her husband, Claude, steadfastly maintain she never worked there.

When Ridley arrived, the "other" Virginia Ridley was working on the deboning line. Koch Foods human resources personnel summoned the Hispanic woman to the office, the real Ridley said.

Ridley showed the Hispanic woman her driver’s license.

"She dropped her head, and said she was sorry through the translator," Ridley said. "I wasn’t really sure what to think. I would like to know how it was accomplished, and if it’s still going to be a problem in the future."

Koch Foods personnel records provided to Ridley indicate the Hispanic woman was fired that day for providing false information. The records also indicate the woman’s real name is Patricia Flores.

The Morristown Police Department followed up on the identity-theft report, according to Detective Capt. Randall Noe.

When officers went to the address the Hispanic woman gave, she was gone, according to Noe, who isn’t optimistic the alleged identity thief will ever be caught.

The Citizen Tribune was unable to reach David Wilds, Koch Foods complex manager, for comment. He said earlier that the company has cooperated fully with all ID-theft investigations.

Wilds has said that federal laws prohibit prospective employers from questioning on ethnic group of job applicants more vigorously than others about the authenticity of their documentation.

The company executive also said that Koch Foods has begun participating in the "E-Verify" program, which allows employers to verify Social Security numbers submitted by applicants.

Noe says it’s unclear to him whether Koch Foods verifies only the Social Security numbers given by new job applicants or if it checks existing employees.

Ridley says late February wasn’t the first time she and the IRS had communicated about tax bills accumulated at Koch Foods. She says approximately 18 months ago, she received a tax bill for 2005 and 2006.

An IRS employee said he would check into the matter, and get back with her, according to Ridley. When she heard nothing for months, she assumed identity-theft problem had been solved.

Not so. And now, Ridley says, the Social Security Administration is proposing a cruelly ironic solution that would permanently rob her of her identity.

"The Social Security office told me that I might have to change my name," she said. "I don’t want to do that. I think I should not have to change my name over something I did not do."

http://www.citizentribune.com/news/view ... ticle=8652

The Social Security office told me that I might have to change my name,"

Why would you have to change your name? How about change the number instead?

The insanity continues!

"The Social Security office told me that I might have to change my name," she said.

This is OUTRAGEOUS!!! An American might need to change her name because an illegal alien invader stole her ID? WTH! We lose our identity for the sake of the 'hard-working family folk just trying to better themselves - no human is illegal' with a capital BS. The thievery never ends until the thieves are kicked out for good. They are working hard at stealing what is not theirs. Damnable.

Attention illegal aliens--Dual citizenship does NOT mean you assume and share the social security card number and idenity of a U.S. citizen.


Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.
Benjamin Franklin

Another reason to THANK "our" ELITIST POLITICIANS and their ELITIST CONTRIBUTORS especially Bush and the Congressional Leadership. They do not care about our names as long as we have a number to be taxed through so why not change your name when necessary?

Once again the politicians and their contributors consider United States citizens only as "units of labor" and the sooner we become a Third World Country the better for their "bottom line"! Our elitist politicians and their elitist political contributors will not be happy until they transform the United States into a Third World Country for most of our citizens while furnishing the Chamber of Commerce and all their Elitist Special Interest Groups with their supply of “cheap laborâ€

I am wondering if this woman can sue this company for hiring this woman and NOT checking into her. Way back when I was first starting out, I applied and was accepted for a job in a big credit union, even then they did a background check on me (first reason was that I would have a great deal of access to peoples accounts, and they had a lot of well off customers, they needed to know I could be trusted), so if this was possible in 1988, then they can definitely do it now and should be held responsible as accessory to identity theft.

I feel so sorry for this woman. We can only hope the damage to her name stopped short of simply her SSNO and taxes, and not her credit record as well.

There is a reason they are named ILLEGALS and ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS!!!!

The Chamber of Commerce always claims to follow Immigration Laws but continuously become confused about the interpretation of the law.

Funny, I never hear Janet Murguia or the ACLU or the SPLC or MALDEF mention indentity theft. I do hear about hate speech and the rising rate of "hate crime" against hispanics and getting Lou Dobbs off the air. But, they don't talk about this very much Wonder why

Related thread:

Tuckered out


City Councilman Mel Tucker has heard the growing local clamor around the issue of illegal immigration. In response he has all but declared war on illegal immigrants and the companies that employ them.

Or at least one company.

It seems that Tucker – unsatisfied with inaction by the federal government – has decided that his position as a city councilman allows him to become Lord Protector of Morristown in the case of local employer Koch Foods.

To be sure Koch Foods has had a PR nightmare in the recent cases of its employees turning out to be illegal immigrants stealing the identities of U.S. citizens. However, no one outside of the company can know to what extent Koch Foods has been able to deal with the problem.

Federal laws are very specific about not treating one race different from another in the hiring process. If Koch Foods were to focus too harshly on prospective employees that are Hispanic, they could find themselves in hot water. The company is now using the E-Verify program, designed by the government to prevent just the kind of identity theft cases Morristown has suffered a rash of recently.

Tucker’s recent request to pursue civil litigation against the company may be legally viable, but it seems more like a former lawman’s vendetta. It appears as if the former FBI man and police chief has decided the company’s guilt and because of that guilt is now searching for the proper loophole through which he can bypass the federal government.

Maybe voices like Tucker’s are just the kind to put pressure on the federal government to act. But it seems to us that the problem is at the federal level. Companies that employ illegal aliens are either taking advantage of a broken system or are handcuffed by it. Either way, it seems to us that Tucker – like a hunter on safari – set his sights on bringing down an elephant, got a look at the beast and decided it would be better to hunt squirrels.

We would advise Tucker to tread more cautiously. Not only is he attacking a major employer in the area. He is attacking a company that assuredly employs many U.S. citizens and contributes to the city and county tax base.

It seems to us the problems facing city council – in fairness, some of those problems are aggravated by illegal immigration – should be more than enough to keep council members’ attention. Maybe Tucker should do as many have advised the federal government to do and fix the problems that city council is empowered to fix.

Finally, it seems Tucker is dragging any and all who don’t agree with him into the fray.

During Tuesday’s work session he laid blame at the doorstep of the Morristown Area Chamber of Commerce for whatever alleged transgressions Koch Foods may have committed.

The idea is absurd. What would Tucker have them do? As if the Chamber has an enforcement wing through which they can storm a member’s facility, pore through their records and fine them for any transgressions.

It certainly appears from the outside that Koch Foods has had problems with the hiring of illegal immigrants but to what extent is only known to those inside the company itself. The rest of us are just guessing.

Tucker would do well to remember that even big corporations in this country are innocent until proven guilty.
http://tinyurl.com/38rjyl
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-108766.html