Categories | Health & Medicine Article

Florida Woman Really Not Comfortable With Being Herself

March 27th, 2017 • Health & Medicine • 2 minute read
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Author Sara E. Teller

Florida Woman Really Not Comfortable With Being Herself

20-year-old Nyaira Thomas really isn't comfortable with being herself, in person or on paper.  The vain and desperate Florida woman has been accused of stealing another’s identity in order to foot the bill for thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery.  She is currently on the run and Lakeland Police are on the hunt for the woman.

identity theft - when one doesn't want to be herselfImage Courtesy of WalletHub

Fourteen Central Florida women were eventually arrested in the scheme and charged for participating in a plan to steal the identities of over a dozen people.  The stolen information helped to pay for cosmetic surgeries, including breast implants, breast reductions, and tummy tucks.  When interviewed by police, more than fifty percent of the women captured stated that 28-year-old Riggins had aided them throughout the entire process.Riggins was able to tap into the credit card accounts of her victims and impose a small fee to people looking to get procedures done, in turn covering the charges for them.  This became a full time, lucrative gig for Riggins.  In some instances, the medical offices involved were able to spot the fraud before moving forward with surgery, but this wasn’t always the case. Investigators discovered Riggins’ cell phone number was used to call a credit card company over 300 times in less than a year, and that the phone number was tied to sixteen accounts with the credit card company.  Some of the victims of identity theft were observant enough to spot the charges, while others paid their bills without noticing.  Much like the charges Thomas will face if caught, Riggins was arrested and charged with several felonies, including grand theft, scheme to defraud, and identity theft. Thomas will also face charges of forgery if caught.The 2017 Identity Fraud Study, released by Javelin Strategy & Research, found that $16 billion was stolen from 15.4 million U.S. consumers in 2016.  This number has continues to climb year by year.  Anyone with information on Thomas' whereabouts should call the Lakeland Police Department at 863-834-8993.  

Sources:

Florida Woman Commits ID Theft To Pay For Plastic Surgery: CopsWoman Used Identity Theft To Fund Clients’ Plastic Surgery Procedures
Sara E. Teller

About Sara E. Teller

Sara is a credited freelance writer, editor, contributor, and essayist, as well as a novelist and poet with nearly twenty years of experience. A seasoned publishing professional, she's worked for newspapers, magazines and book publishers in content digitization, editorial, acquisitions and intellectual property. Sara has been an invited speaker at a Careers in Publishing & Authorship event at Michigan State University and a Reading and Writing Instructor at Sylvan Learning Center. She has an MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, graduating with a 4.2/4.0 GPA. She is also a member of Chi Sigma Iota and a 2020 recipient of the Donald D. Davis scholarship recognizing social responsibility. Sara is certified in children's book writing, HTML coding and social media marketing. Her fifth book, PTSD: Healing from the Inside Out, was released in September 2019 and is available on Amazon. You can find her others books there, too, including Narcissistic Abuse: A Survival Guide, released in December 2017.

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