Grave Robbers

He first became aware someone was using his credit when a salesman at Manufacturers Auto Leasing in Dallas called him in late April 2001 and asked him if he was relocating to Dallas and leasing a new car. He says Manufacturers was willing to go through with the deal and trap the thief, but nobody at DPD took them up on it. "I was told that until something was taken, there was no crime."

In the Tisdale indictment, Manufacturers Auto Leasing is listed as one of the ring's chief targets, the source of six cars. The Tisdales may be going to trial, but other scammers with similar methods keep walking through the door, says Gary Vaughn, a manager there. "We had one come in recently, and he was so convincing, he spent three days negotiating with us on the monthly payments," Vaughn says. It took a detailed look at the man's credit history and documents to spot the fraud, Vaughn says. "He'd been borrowing money at [a sub-prime lender], and that didn't fit." His proof-of-insurance card also turned out to be a fake, but it took a phone call to check it.

"They're getting sharper and sharper," says Vaughn, whose company leases mostly high-end European cars.

This summer, the Federal Trade Commission called identity theft "a crime of the times" and released survey results showing that 4.6 percent of Americans were identity theft victims last year. A third of those had people opening new accounts fraudulently created in their names, which usually adds up to five-figure losses in the accounts of the real account holders.

Bulban, at Texas Mustang Auto, says he expects things will get worse before they get better. With computerized databases, high-resolution printers and other tools widely available--and law enforcement slow to the punch--he believes ID theft is just beginning to come of age. "It's like the Internet was in 1994," he predicts. "It's only starting to take off."