The 40-year-old Adrian Gunn speaks with authority when it comes to his former lifestyle. He has all the poise of a man with money. His eyes are keen, his smile contagious and his wit sharp.
He could be a banker or a financier as he sat in front of the television camera this past year. His voice didn’t quiver, shake or stutter. He seemed to be filled with confidence, a confidence he has used many times.
It was in 2007, when Gunn first used that unshakeable confidence to buy a home in the Boise area – two houses to be exact. His confidence that led to his conviction in 2010.
“Once I get a social security number, I can do my own credit check,” he said in a recent interview. “From there it’s just a matter of a little detective work. “
That initial credit check opens a door on that person, and the ubiquitous Internet fills in the gaps. Social media have an insatiable amount of information.
“I don’t have to leave my home to find out who you are, or what you are about,” he says. “I can thwart through the security of the banks, the credit card companies, simply by fishing information from them.”
Gunn pleaded guilty in December 2009 to using the identity of a Texas man in 2007 to purchase houses two houses near Boise.
He also stole the identity of two women from Idaho and Montana and a California man to get credit cards. He ran up $100,000 in credit charges before federal authorities arrested him for stealing the identities.
“I learned early on the simplest way to get past the fraud department is call,” he says with a glint of a smile crossing his face. “The fraud department doesn’t think that the criminal is going to call in.”
He says by calling in, claiming to be the card holder, acting upset, followed up by answering a series of questions, most of the time the bank will reactivate the card.
“ They’ll ask you some security questions, and a lot of the times if you don’t know the answers, you can get the answers from them,” he says.
He says after its opened again, he would charge the largest out of the credit card knowing that the banking institution was on to the fact it may have been stolen.
“If someone wants your information, they can get it,” he says with authority. “But, don’t help ‘em out. Don’t help ‘em.”
Protect personal identity documents. Don’t put them on the Internet, don’t share them with anyone, he urges people. Don’t give out that information at all.
Court documents show in 2004, Gunn pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting grand theft and was sentenced in district court to twelve years.
Robb Hicken is the media contact for the BBB serving Snake River Region. Reach him at 947-2115 or rhicken@boise.bbb.org.
