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| Blackhawks legend Stan Mikita and his wife Jill. (CBS photo) |
Posted: Tuesday, 22 December 2009 8:50AM
Chicago hockey legend falls prey to ID thieves
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CHICAGO (CBS) -- More than $100,000 in two weeks -- gone. A Chicago sports legend, the victim of identity theft.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports that Blackhawks legend Stan Mikita has won virtually everything there is to win. But he thought he lost big, too, when cyber thieves created an online account and started paying themselves with his money.
Mikita is a Blackhawks ambassador now. He signed autographs and posed for pictures at 'Skate with the Greats' Monday night at Navy Pier. Last week, there was Heritage Night at the United Center.
With all that acclaim, it may be surprising that Stan Mikita and his wife Jill are just as vulnerable as the rest of us.
"It's scary. It's really a frightening thing," said Jill Mikita.
Stan is the only man to have won the MVP, scoring and sportsmanship trophies in the same year. And he did it two years in a row. Of course they made him pay for the trophies.
"Fifteen hundred dollars and my contract was like $8,500 a year," said Stan Mikita.
No million dollar salaries in the '60s. The Mikitas have always been careful with money. Still are. So you can imagine their shock when they realized someone had added online checking to their account and stolen $100,000.
The Mikitas say the bank never alerted them to suspicious activity, even though it was out of character for them since they never used online banking.
"They thought we were doing it," Stan said.
A spokesman for MB Financial says they are working to figure out what happened, are trying to keep the Mikitas informed and are fully cooperating with Burr Ridge Police.
"I can understand their frustration with it, but for us to build a prosecutable case, we have to take our time and make sure all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed," said Deputy Chief Timothy Vaclav, Burr Ridge Police.
MB Financial, which immediately reimbursed the Mikitas, emphasized: "Our customer, who is rightly concerned, has had no financial loss in this situation. It is the bank…which bears the financial impact of this fraud."
The Mikitas say that the bank has put the money back in their account. But they say that's not enough for them.
"How do we know who's out there with our identity? With our information? What's coming next?" Jill said.
Professor William Kresse of St. Xavier University say the Mikitas do have a reason to be concerned.
"Some folks will have their identities stolen and after an initial incursion into their accounts, then they can go away and come back and strike again," said Kresse.
A spokesman for MB Financial told CBS 2: "Since this incident, we continue to review processes to protect our customers" but maintains that "the withdrawals from the account occurred in small enough increments over a reasonable period of time to not attract attention."
The Mikitas argue that $100,000 over two weeks from a brand new account should have raised red flags all over the place.
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