ACCOMAC -- At least two Northampton County residents received letters from Accomack County notifying them their personal information may have been subject to unauthorized access as a result of the theft of a county-owned laptop in Las Vegas earlier this month. The two men, who are related, do not own personal property in Accomack County and have never paid personal property taxes to Accomack County, one said.
Accomack County Administrator Steve Miner said he has spoken to one other Northampton resident who also received a letter, and he thinks there were others.
"I saw the article in the Eastern Shore News, and I was thinking, 'Oh, those poor people in Accomack County,' " said Craig Richardson, who lives near Seaview in lower Northampton County and whose mailing address is in Cape Charles.
Then he received one of about 35,000 letters sent by Accomack County informing him that his name and driver's license number were on the stolen laptop. He called Accomack County the same day to ask why.
"I couldn't get a straight answer from them as to why they have this," said Richardson, who moved to Northampton County about five years ago from Fairfax. His father, Robert C. Richardson, a Northampton County native, also received a letter.
Someone in the Accomack County Attorney's Office took his phone call and after checking with an information technology employee told Richardson the county got the information from the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Richardson said when he moved to the Eastern Shore he went to the DMV office in Onancock, in Accomack County, to register his two vehicles, but his registrations correctly stated the vehicles are located in Northampton County and he has never received a tax bill from Accomack County. His neighbor, who has never used the Onancock DMV office, did not get a letter from Accomack.
"That's what made me think, anybody from Northampton County who has ever gone up to that office in Onancock, they've got your records," he said.
DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes said it should not matter to which office an owner goes to register his vehicle. She said she was unfamiliar with the issue of Accomack County having information about Northampton residents.
"We weren't asked to look at this ... DMV was just told what the data was; we did not look at it," she said about discussions held between the agency and Accomack County officials about the theft.
Miner said Monday in an e-mail that the county "is working with the state DMV to understand this list better."
Miner said the county has received a number of calls from people who received a letter "and had no apparent reason to be on our list, since they have not ever lived here and, hence, had no reason to be taxed by us."
But he said the county's priority was to notify those potentially affected by the theft, whether they were properly on the list or not.
This does not surprise me in the least! Keep those toll free telephone numbers nearby. You're going to need them for a long, long time. I made a phone call to the Accomack office to ask some questions and was told in so many words that calling the fraud hotline would be something the citizens would need to do every 92 days. Why every 92 days??....... so we don't have to pay for the service!
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