Antonio Speed’s former boss in Buffalo, NY calls him a “rogue bill collector,” but after he stole her identity and ran up run up $1,900 in charges, I’ll bet Mary Reynolds’s family in Pittsburgh, PA has a few other choice names for him.
Speed began his attack by posing as a police investigator when he called Reynolds’s mother and threatened her with arrest if she didn’t give him her daughter Mary’s contact information. She gave him the phone number.
Then he called Reynolds’s house and threatened her with arrest over a $399 gas card bill from 2000. Ironically, that amount was fraudulently charged on Reynolds’s Shell credit card by a former boyfriend with a drug problem. Identity theft was confirmed then, and Reynolds was released from any responsibility for the bill.
When Reynolds balked at paying the $399 “Investigator Murdock” demanded, he brought up the legal problem she’d gotten into years ago for picking flowers on someone else’s private property. “Murdock” used that incident to intimidate Reynolds.
Finally, Reynolds’s husband urged her to pay the $168 compromise amount to put the entire mess behind her. Reynolds agreed to pay the $168 with a business credit card, giving “Murdock” the card number over the phone.
Reynolds’s bank called a few days later with questions about some strange charges on the card. They thought it a little odd that Reynolds’ business card was being used to pay for access to Internet pornography sites, three bowling balls, bowling shoes, bowling shoe covers and an additional $162 for overnight shipping to Buffalo.
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