Alberto González is 38 years old and a native of Valdés and resident of Figueras (Castropol). Since last summer real ordeal. During a routine check by the Civil Guard, he learned that he was wanted and arrested for allegedly selling concert tickets over the internet. So he realized his identity had been stolen and has continued to receive criminal subpoenas ever since. He has already participated in five trials and was acquitted because justice prevailed over the presumption of innocence, but he lives in agony because he does not know when his nightmare will end. “It all seems surreal to me. I know the problems this can cause me, but I prefer not to think about it too much.“says the affected person.
“The problem is that there is no solution to this and it creates a ball that is difficult to stop. Once your identity is stolen you can no longer stop them from using it, something we have all been exposed to.“That’s why you have to be careful when giving out your information on the internet,” says Marta Fernández-Catuxo, a lawyer who is handling González’s case from her office in Tapia. The first step they took was to file a complaint with the Guardia Civil and the prosecutor’s office. Castropol Court reports on identity theft. “The main way to defend yourself is to report that you are a victim,” says Fernández-Catuxo. Since then there have been five trials in Orihuela (Alicante), Madrid, Cáceres. , Malaga and the last one in Luarca.
They don’t know when it will happen the scammers They seized the man’s data, but they know that they have hidden his identity and opened an account in his name at a bank in Madrid. They also registered several phone lines and opened at least two profiles in their names on the social network Instagram. Individual tickets are sold for different concerts from these profiles. Tickets are offered, someone gets in touch and asks for a bizum in exchange for the amount. All the cases they know of occur from February this year and in all cases the amount defrauded is of low amounts, ranging from 15 to 150 euros. The low amount means that fraud always remains a minor crime.
“The problem is Minor crimes can lead to a criminal record and more serious problems, such as having your bank account blocked.. For now, we are lucky and the sentences are in the direction of acquittal, but the damage lasts forever because no one pays you compensation,” says the lawyer. For the victim of identity theft, this not only causes personal disruption but also significant loss of money and time.