Lawyer hunts thief who stole his identity
Website promotes fake law office in Orlando for timeshare scam
George Ackerman found himself arguing for his very existence when he phoned a website masquerading as his law practice.
The first time he called the phone number on the website, which bears his name and Florida Bar number, he was told the lawyer was unavailable because he was in court.
How odd. “I haven’t been in court for many, many years,” said Ackerman, a 40-year-old adjunct criminal justice professor at Palm Beach State College and who lives in an unincorporated part of south Palm Beach County.
Another time he called, the person on the other end said Ackerman couldn’t talk on the phone because he was ill with throat cancer.
“It was like being in the Twilight Zone,” he recalls.
Ackerman appears to be the victim of a crime that technically has been a criminal offense for only the past three years.
Before 2015, corporate or business identity theft was a civil issue. His case illustrates the extremes to which thieves go to set up fake businesses — in this case, a law firm — to defraud unwitting consumers, experts say.
For at least one Florida legislator, the ease in which it can be done makes the state’s openness with information an issue that needs to be re-examined in this new digital age.
Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, RNaples, wants to see information such as birth dates, business tax identity numbers and Florida Bar numbers available online to only certain users.
“One of the biggest problems is that Florida, if you want to do identity theft, is one of the best places to do business,” she said.
Attorneys have always had to put their bar numbers on any documents they handle to ensure accountability. Shanell Schuyler, director of the Florida Bar’s Attorney Consumer Assistance Program, said her organization’s mission is written into Florida law.
“We have to have some means of identifying who an attorney is and if they have a license in the state of Florida,” she said.
Ackerman, who has a doctorate in criminal justice, discovered someone was impersonating him in a Ponzi scheme when he received an email that looked like spam from a man in Illinois.
All it said was, “Is this you?” And there was a link for him to click with his initials and last name. Against his better judgment, he clicked and was stunned at what he saw.
Well-dressed “lawyers” sat at a conference table in front of huge windows. The address was to one of Orlando’s iconic buildings, among the tallest in the city, included in a shot of the city skyline on another page.
“I wish I had an office like that,” Ackerman joked, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I’ve never been to Orlando except to visit Mickey Mouse at Disney World with my family.”
Since then, he’s documented 150 steps he’s taken to stop what he says is a fraudulent timeshare buying and selling operation, for vacation rentals in Mexico, using his name.
He said he got three different website hosting companies to take down the website three times. But beyond an open case with the Orlando police, he’s no closer to knowing who is using his name and Florida Bar number.
Ackerman has a Google alert out on his name to see if something else pops up. He lives in fear that there’s one Google hasn’t found, though.
Orlando has been a magnet for these timeshare fraudsters since the bottom fell out of the real estate market in 2008, said Detective Michael Stevens. Because there’s no victim in Orlando, Ackerman’s case is not really his jurisdiction. But he’s taking it on.
“If we don’t get involved, no one will,” he said.
He offered words of warning for consumers: “These fraudsters can work up some of the snazziest websites you’ve ever seen.”