As if having your credit card number stolen on line isn’t bad enough, now imagine the theft results in your being arrested for pedophilia. It gets worse: because of your arrest, you lose your job, and your family disowns you.
It happened to a man in England.
It all started with a US investigation of an American company called Landslide. Landslide handled e-commerce for a bunch of porn companies. For the most part, the companies that used Landslide’s services were legit–sleazy maybe, but legal. There were, however, a few companies that specialized in kiddie porn.
The US officials harvested all the credit card numbers used to buy the child pornography, tracked them back to the card holders, enticed the card holders to buy more child pornography, and then arrested them. They then gave to UK officials all the credit card information they’d gathered on British citizens—including Simon Bunce.
Remember the big UK child pornography round up of 2003 that netted Peter Townsend of The Who? Well, it also netted Bunce. The police seized his home and office computers and disks. When his employer learned the nature of the investigation, he was abruptly fired from his $250,000 a year job.
It took a lot of time and work, but Bunce was finally able to clear his name with his discovery that at the same time he was using his credit card to pay a restaurant tab in England, someone else was using it in Jakarta to buy more porn.
After a long, undoubtedly awkward job search, Bunce was finally able to find another job, though it pays only a quarter of what his last job paid. These days Simon Bunce makes his living selling computer encryption services. His family relationships have been restored. He’s suing the online retailer that allowed his credit card information to be stolen.
Simon Bunce used to be an avid internet shopper, but after his ordeal, he’s a strictly cash kind of guy.
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OMG! I’d slit my wrists! If I survived that I’d move to a cave somewhere! It’s unbelievable someone’s life could be destroyed like that!