TMCnet News
Ex-call center worker sentenced for ID theft: Twenty-year-old man gets two years for using fake account to buy a phone, cell services.(Daily Press (Newport News, VA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 30--HAMPTON -- A former customer service representative at a Hampton call center was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Norfolk on Tuesday to two years in prison on aggravated identity theft. Tristan Lee Payne, 20, of Hampton, worked for TeleTech, which provides customer service on behalf of Nextel and Sprint mobile phone plans. Payne was charged with making $6,050 in improper payments to four separate accounts. He would change information on the account and use them to purchase goods and services from Sprint and Nextel, according to a statement he agreed to as part of a guilty plea. In one case, for example, Payne opened a separate account in the name of an existing customer with the initials "KD." He then changed the address to his own, added $1,800 in company credits to it -- 36 credits of $50 apiece. He then used the credits to order a cell phone, having it sent to his own house. U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Friedman ordered Payne to pay $6,155 in restitution, in addition to the two years behind bars. Payne pleaded guilty in September to one count of aggravated identity theft. Seven other charges -- three counts of aggravated identity theft and four counts of "wire fraud and deprivation of honest services" -- were dropped as part of a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office. To see more of the Daily Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dailypress.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Daily Press, Newport News, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |