Quick Answer: A newspaper deliveryman joined the growing list of unlikely fraud suspects when Andre Tyler pled guilty to stealing credit cards from mailboxes along his delivery route in Maryland. Tyler’s scheme netted $5,000-$10,000 in fraudulent charges over five months before his arrest, demonstrating that fraud can come from trusted professionals with routine access to personal information.
Amanda Miller’s list of “People I Wouldn’t Suspect of Fraud” just keeps on growing week in and week out! Amongst the already listed TSA employee, postal carrier, United Nations employee and firefighter I now introduce to the list: a newspaper deliveryman.
A guilty plea was announced last week by Andre Tyler, a Maryland newspaper deliveryman, to unauthorized use of an access device and aggravated identity theft.
According to his plea, Tyler was a newspaper deliveryman for WilCan Services, a delivery contractor for a Washington newspaper, whose route included addresses in the Damascus/Laytonsville area of Montgomery County, mainly off Route 108 in Maryland. From December 2010 until his arrest on May 19, 2011, Tyler occasionally took mail from mailboxes along his route, kept the credit cards and threw the other mail away. Tyler would attempt to activate the stolen credit cards and if successful, use the cards for his personal benefit until they stopped working.
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On at least one occasion, after the credit card company had suspended the stolen card Tyler called the company claiming to be the account holder and succeeded in having the card re-activated.
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The total loss as a result of Tyler’s fraudulent use of the access devices was between $5,000 and $10,000.
Tyler faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for the unauthorized use of access devices and a mandatory two years in prison, consecutive to any other sentence, for aggravated identity theft. Chief U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow has scheduled sentencing for January 30, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. – Source.
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