Philadelphia ranks well in cybercrime report, but concern remains

Mary Lou DiMaggio is still trying to resolve her father's identity theft

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

Like so many others, Kenneth Swope, a hard-working tile setter and self-described family man, was taken advantage of when his identity was stolen.

“[Someone] got a hold of my social security number, and opened up a couple accounts in my name,” Swope, 50, says.

He didn’t find out that his identity had been compromised until he applied for a home equity loan to pay for his daughters’ college tuition. When he applied, he found something on his credit report that shouldn’t have been there. “I had to call the credit company to find out who opened the account, and they wouldn’t tell me. They said it was me,” Swope says.

After some investigation, he found that the accounts were listed under his parents’ home address, where he had never lived.

Swope suspected a relative who had been living at the address, but
because he wasn’t sure—no charges have been brought against anyone—he faced difficulties with credit agencies. “Every creditor and credit agency wanted me to prove everything,” Swope says, “but nobody wanted the person who opened the fraudulent accounts to prove anything.”

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