Feds charge man with identity theft

An Everett man is charged with racking up more than $75,000 in fraudulent charges over the past year by applying for and using credit cards for businesses he claimed to work for.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says the man — Shane Michael Renecker, 33 — used information available in the phone book to apply for business credit cards in the names of seven small local companies. He is charged in a federal complaint with credit-card fraud and identity theft.

Renecker used the businesses' real names and addresses but made up federal identification and phone numbers, authorities said. He signed his own name and showed his ID to open the accounts. One clerk photocopied his driver's license.

Renecker used the credit cards to buy computers and other items at Best Buy, CompUSA and Lowe's, the complaint says. He made dozens of purchases before he was arrested this month at his Everett home.

In July, Renecker charged nearly $10,000 worth of computers, DVDs and telecommunication equipment at CompUSA stores using an account he opened under the name of Cascade Strategies, a Bellevue market-research company.

"It was remarkably easy for the guy," company owner Jerry Johnson said.

Johnson said he hadn't heard of Renecker. He reported the fraud when he got a bill for purchases he hadn't made.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Lincoln said he doesn't yet know where Renecker got the information he used to open the accounts, which he used for a few days each before he abandoned them.

"These identity-theft cases usually involve fairly easy schemes or schemes that are fairly easy to commit," Lincoln said. "In this particular case, they were able to get the name, the address — that's all there is to it."

Similar cases are becoming more common as big-box stores extend instant credit to people based on pre-approval, Lincoln said.

Lowe's spokeswoman Jennifer Smith said in an e-mail that Renecker "was able to supply enough correct information about the business entity to get the credit approved." The chain's fraud department shut down the account within a week, she said.

No one at Best Buy or CompUSA could be reached for comment.

When Washington State Patrol detectives began investigating, they talked with fraud investigators at HSBC, the national bank that handles credit-card accounts for the stores. The bank investigator said he had been looking for Renecker for more than a year, court documents say.

A spokesman said the bank takes fraud very seriously but that he cannot comment when a case is open.

U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Emily Langlie said it took awhile to find Renecker because the crimes were committed in several cities in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties.

Lincoln said he didn't know what Renecker did with the items he bought.

Renecker has been released from a federal detention center and is staying in a halfway house.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Christopher Schwarzen contributed to this report.