Why did Allan Warrington have the cops banging on his door at 3am one Sunday morning?
Allan Warrington is a accountant for a large firm of consultants where he has worked for 10 years. He’s a quite sort, hard working and good at his job. He keeps himself to himself although he does like to let himself go occasionally. I expect that you do too. Allan has never been in trouble with the law – he hasn’t even ever had so much as a parking ticket in all of his life. So why did the police have an arrest warrant for him and why did they practically break his door down that morning?
Have you had your identity stolen?
It all started 3 years ago when Allan left his wallet in a coffee bar one lunchtime. He had put it on the table and left without picking it up. Have you ever done this? I know that I have. He realized what he had done as soon as he got to work and decided to go back for it right away.
When he got to the table he had been sitting at, the wallet was gone of course. Luckily it had been handed in to the staff who had put it under the counter for him. Allan was very relieved to get his wallet back and made a quick note to himself to never do that again. Then he forgot about it – until 3am that morning.
Your wallet only has to be out of your sight for a few minutes for someone to get all the information that they need to steal your identity and this is what had happened to Allan. They took his credit card numbers, his drivers licence details, his address and any other information that they could find. He even had some receipts for ATM withdrawals that the thief could use to verify his account with.
Identity thieves can get you into a lot of trouble with the police
Somehow the thief had managed to get a duplicate copy of his drivers licence and opened a credit card account in his name but this was no ordinary thief. He didn’t go on a spending spree right away like you might imagine. Instead he used Allan’s identity as a get out of jail card when he finally got caught for one of his many crimes.
The thief had been caught committing a serious crime but nevertheless he was granted bail and let free. Of course that was the last the police saw of him so the court issued a Bench Warrant for his arrest. Except that he had given the authorities Allan’s name when he was arrested so the police were now looking to arrest him and not the thief.
Allan’s story is fictitious but it does happen and it could happen to you.
The cops can serve an arrest warrant on you at any time
Unless the crime is very serious it may take some time before the police catch up with you. They might arrest you if you get pulled over for a traffic violation. They can do a check on you and find the warrant. If not then the police will search you out when they are ready which could be some time later.
Find out about warrants for arrest before the cops knock on your door
You will usually get much better cooperation from the authorities if you take steps to deal with any arrest warrants before the police come to arrest you. This applies whether you committed the crime or not. But if you didn’t commit the crime then how do you know that you have a warrant?
It’s easy to do an online background check on yourself
The simplest way to keep one step ahead of the law is to make regular checks on yourself using an online public records database. There are web sites that allow you to quickly search through arrest records and other publicly available records from all over the country. This is good because you never know where the crime might have been committed or where the arrest warrant is issued. When you discover that you have a warrant then you can seek legal advice and set about repairing the damage that the thief has caused you.
Author: Steve Gee
Tags: active arrest warrants, arrest, Arrest Warrants, identity theft, warrant, warrant for arrest