After reading an article in the Wall Street Journal, Senator Jon Blair Hunter expressed his concern about Senate Bill #474 not passing.

"This is exactly what my bill would protect.... the customer and the business," said Hunter.

The article in the Journal explained an identify theft of a person who lived in Ohio. The woman received a phone call inquiring about her cable, offering her three months free service if she paid her bill a fullmonth early. She gave the caller her credit-card information, her Social Security number and other personal information. The caller at that point had stolen her identity.

Later, a bank representative called the woman to inquire about some $15,000 in unpaid credit card bills. She informed them that she didn't have a card because she had canceled it months earlier. The "thief" had obtained a credit card in her name and J.P. Morgan had opened a new account in her name with a new address. She was lucky, as she wasn't responsible for the charges.

However, it wasn't the same for the business. Neil Kugleman, owner of Goldspeed.com, lost not only his merchandise, he lost money as well.

"I lost $8,000 in merchandise and $5,950 in cash," said Kugleman. "We did everything right, verified everything and still lost." He checked and double-checked all the information provided by the customer and even questioned the bank.

Kugleman said the bank had carelessly given out a new credit card without a complete background check. "If the banks go about carelessly giving out credit cards, how can the businesses survive?" asked Kugleman. He said it isn't worth suing because of the lost of time and money involved.

And he said, "The banks are counting on this. They figure there is no single transaction worth legal efforts."

But that may change in the near future. Kugleman is working with two law firms to begin a class-action suit against the credit card issuing bank.

"It's become more of a national problem than a state problem," said Hunter. "Our bill would protect the businesses and consumers in West Virginia, particularly any e-commerce businesses. We had several of them that would have moved to West Virginia to get this protection had the Bill #474 passed," he added.

Hunter said he is going to continue to push to get the bill passed.
"I'm going to hold meetings and push the federal and congressional legislature to work on this bill."

"The problem we are having is all these big lobbyist in the blue suits in Charleston going around constantly trying to stop bills like this that could help the small business and consumer," said Hunter. He named Visa, MasterCard and American Express as those who lobby to prevent such bills getting passed.

"I'm real disappointed with the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce...that they haven't gotten behind this bill," said Hunter.

Hunter said if the bill is passed, the people making the mistake would be responsible. In this case, J.P. Morgan would have had to absorb all the cost since it was their error issuing a bogus credit card.