![]() What Happened in Vegas.. He was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. ![]() What Happened in Vegas: Chick-fil-A’s Road Trip out West. Facebook; Twitter; More; Pinterest; LinkedIn; Email; Close; Sean Ward Jan 13, 2017 Inside Chick-fil-A. Maynard, a Valley native and former Marine, had seen some success in the late 1. Internet America, an early Internet service provider. He had owned a nice home in Ahwatukee with expensive cars in the driveway. He had bragged he would retire at age 3. Those days were gone. Still, Maynard was optimistic. He'd been through this before. He's the type who jumps back up after a fall — one of those edgy entrepreneurs who always seem to be on the verge of great success or great failure. His first personal bankruptcy was in 1. But even as his finances sunk to new depths, his next big business venture was taking off. Drawing on his experience in credit repair and with the Internet, Maynard dreamed up a service that would protect people against the dreaded crime of identity theft. Lifelock, as his new company would come to be called, began offering services to the public the same month in 2. Maynard filed still another bankruptcy. Life. Lock's primary service is nothing you can't do yourself. If you think someone has stolen your identity, you can call one of the three major credit bureaus, Trans. What Happens in Vegas has mediocre direction and a strained screenplay, so how can it be any good? What carries the film is its two stars. Read the What Happens in Vegas movie synopsis, view the movie trailer, get cast and crew information, see movie photos, and more on Movies.com. What Happened in Vegas - Kindle edition by Sylvia Day. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note. Raunchy romantic comedy has a softer side, too. Read Common Sense Media's What Happens in Vegas review, age rating, and parents guide. Union, Experian or Equifax, and place an electronic red flag, called a fraud alert, on your account. Here's how it works: The credit bureaus make money by selling information about you that helps lenders determine whether you're going to cheat them out of money if they give you a loan. Now, imagine a scraggly meth head trying to open a line of credit in your name at Circuit City to buy an HDTV because he stole your boss' laptop, which had all your personal data in it. When Circuit City calls one of the credit bureaus to check you out, there's a fraud alert on your account. Circuit City is supposed to use the contact information on the credit bureau's account to notify the account holder of the impending purchase. If everything goes according to plan, the meth head goes home empty- handed. The catch: Every 9. That's because fraud alerts are a headache to lenders like Circuit City — commerce would move like molasses if every account was red- flagged. Customers pay Life. Lock $1. 0 a month to call a credit bureau every three months and put a fraud alert on an account. By law, if one bureau is notified, it must alert the other two. Life. Lock also offers insurance. If a customer becomes a victim despite the service, Life. Lock says it will pay losses (if the claim holds up to scrutiny) of up to $1 million. The company says that has happened only three times, and the costs were far less than the million- dollar limit. Life. Lock was an immediate hit. The news media scrambled to meet Maynard and his business partner, Todd Davis, pimping them like crime- fighting superheroes. Maynard claimed he got the idea for Life. Lock after spending a week in jail in 2. The pair have told his story ever since as a frightening example of what can happen to victims of identity theft. The details vary slightly in articles and television news reports, but the story goes something like this: A few years ago, Maynard answered a knock on his door in Phoenix one morning to find five deputies holding a warrant for his arrest. They accused him of failing to pay back a $1. Mirage in Las Vegas and, despite his protests, hauled him off to the Maricopa County Jail. Maynard had not even been in Vegas when the casino made its loan. One of the guys who stole Maynard's identity and the casino's money is now doing time for murder. Maynard was released after seven days, but he spent more than $2. WHAT HAPPENED IN VEGAS. The movie police couldn't erase. A documentary by Ramsey Denison. While sitting in his jail cell, he came up with the plan for Life. Lock so other people could avoid being victimized by identity thieves. It's a story that stokes the public's worst fears of identity theft, a crime that induces a state of near- paranoia in many of us. Though not a crime of violence, victims are left feeling violated, even when financial losses are small. Nationwide, the problem is immense, costing at least $5. Horror stories like Maynard's are staples in almost any discussion about identity theft. Clearly, such stories may influence people to take counter- measures — signing up with Life. Lock, for instance. No wonder that Maynard and Davis, Life. Lock's chief operating officer, seem to relish repeating how Maynard became a victim. Maynard's life was soon looking up again — big time. Today, he's one of the heads of a multimillion- dollar company based in Tempe that employs dozens of people. The company claims to have more than 1. Last month, a trio of investors, including the local Biltmore Ventures group, gave Life. Lock an additional $6 million in seed funding. Life. Lock advertises heavily on the Internet and radio; its ads can be heard on the Howard Stern, Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh shows. The adorable pair sing hits from their album Cheek to Cheek during their New Year's Eve performance at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.Against a backdrop of unrelenting hype over identity theft, credulous news reporters gulped Maynard's story down like cold beer. But a simple Google search reveals Maynard's credibility in the business community was long ago shot. His credit- repair company was shut down by authorities in the early 1. Forced closure means that a federal court order has banned Maynard from working in the credit- repair industry — forever. That he continues to work in the industry, despite the court order, should surprise no one who knows his history. It also shouldn't surprise anybody that Maynard's story about how he became a victim is only partially true. Maynard did, in fact, spend a week in jail in 2. Mirage. It was Maynard's marker. The casino took a copy of his Arizona driver's license when he took out the loan. There was no identity theft. But an even more serious reflection on Maynard in his new role as Mr. Identity Theft can be found alongside the paper trail of lawsuits against him in Maricopa County Superior Court. American Express sued Maynard's father in 2. Maynard Sr., a prominent local eye doctor, denied he ordered the card. Records show that someone with Maynard Sr.'s personal information ordered the card. But that someone didn't have the bills sent to Maynard Sr.'s home. Instead, the bills went to a company called Netshield, at a Phoenix address used by one of Maynard Jr.'s former firms. Though Maynard Sr. Coincidentally, Maynard Jr. Maynard ordered the card for his son. But that's not what Dr. Maynard tells New Times. The elder Maynard says he's still in litigation on the matter and cannot fully comment. But asked whether Maynard Jr. Maynard, who says he hasn't spoken to his son in more than two years, replies, . Employees press an electronic fingerprint reader to gain access beyond the reception desk into a hallway with lockers. The personal effects of workers must be put into the lockers before they pass into the main offices, and workers mustn't take anything in or out of those offices. Mike Prusinski, the company's bald and beefy spokesman, explains that Life. Lock is proud to be the smallest company in the world with ISO 2. Such high- level security must be a reassurance for customers, who must release to Life. Lock exactly the kind of personal data that would make them prone to identity theft. To deal with the credit bureaus on behalf of customers, Life. Lock must become a legal representative of these customers. Trust, then, is one of Life. Lock's key selling points. Past the lockers is a secure room with glass walls next to a larger, open office space. Inside the room, which requires a magnetic card swipe to enter, about 1. They're taking inbound calls from people signing up with Life. Lock, people who are giving out Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers and bank- card numbers, so that the company can debit $1. On the wall hangs a large, flat- panel computer screen with a map of the United States that shows where the calls are coming from. Life. Lock's business and administrative folks work in the less- secure part of the suite. Smaller enclosed offices for the company's executives line the wall at one end. Prusinski had set up a meeting for New Times with Robert Maynard and Life. Lock CEO Todd Davis. But a few days before the interview, Prusinski had called to say Maynard was too busy to make it. Maynard was going on a business trip, meeting with shock jock Howard Stern to discuss radio advertising options. And after that he was, well, . A laptop, next to his desktop computer, is open; half- empty cups of coffee and water sit next to paperwork. Davis, about 4. 0 with blondish, short hair, invites the reporter and photographer into his office, which is adjacent to Maynard's but is smaller. As he explains Life. Lock's services, it becomes clear that if trust is one of the company's key concepts, another is fear. Davis is a wealth of scary statistics: Americans are 2. Authorities in Clark County, Nevada, tried to have him extradited. Davis integrates selling points into the tale. But he says Maynard would have had to spend weeks in jail before authorities allowed him to prove he was innocent with a simple comparison of photos. Davis again switches to sales mode: . That's clearly not our client.' Our client would not have stayed in jail. He would have been exonerated quickly. Questioned pointedly on this issue, Davis appears nervous. His foot starts bouncing under his desk. He insists that he believes Maynard's yarn is perfectly accurate. Asked why Maynard would have to forfeit the $1. Davis says Maynard eventually did get his money back. But that contradicts part of the story Davis has told many times — that the experience . It's a way gamblers avoid the risk of carrying around big wads of cash. A high- roller submits a form for the marker with his or her checking account number and obtains a stack of chips. The casino then has the right to deposit the marker at any time but usually waits a few months. That way, Zadrowski says, if the gambler's losses are high, the casino gives the gambler time to pay the money back. And everyone is happy. If the check bounces, the casino makes a number of collection attempts, and if that doesn't work, the case is referred to authorities.
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