RENO - Roy Vasquez at first dismissed calls from collection agencies as bureaucratic mixups. Now, the 59-year-old Seattle resident is trying to reclaim his identity from a mysterious impostor who remains unidentified as a John Doe in the Washoe County Jail.
The calls began years ago and eventually were followed by threatening letters, Vasquez said.
''The first I became aware of it, I didn't pay much attention to it,'' he said in a telephone interview. ''It just didn't hit me that it was something I should be worried about.''
But the problem started to hit home when he wanted to buy a computer and applied for credit through his credit union.
He was told he'd have to clear up a collection problem first. A credit report listed credit cards he didn't own and two relatively small unpaid bills, one for less than $100 and another for about $200, he said.
''He was actually pretty good at paying his bills,'' Vasquez said of his impostor. ''But if it hadn't been for that, I never would have checked into it.''
A revenue processor for the King County Sheriff's Office in Seattle, Vasquez became curious. He asked someone at work run his name and Social Security number. Records showed he had a Nevada driver's license, although he's lived in Seattle for 32 years.
Then he received a letter from the IRS questioning his non-reporting of income from a job at Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno, a place he's never worked.
That's when the San Antonio native and Navy veteran booked a flight to Reno to talk to police.
Vasquez wants his name, date of birth, and Social Security number all to himself. Still, he finds some humor in the ordeal.
The impostor, he said, couldn't have picked a better identity to assume.
''He picked a guy who didn't get in trouble with the law and who paid his bills,'' he said.
