Just-seated AG nearly gets burned by fraud

In this age of online shopping, no one is safe from credit card fraud.

Not even Martha Coakley , the state's freshly minted attorney general.

Rushing to leave for a ski trip before taking office, Coakley got a phone message at home from Dell early last week to confirm a $1,200 purchase on her Visa card. A package was about to be shipped to an address in Texas.

"I immediately knew that it was incorrect," Coakley said in a telephone interview yesterday, her first full day in office.

She quickly canceled the transaction and cut up her Visa card without being charged for the merchandise, which she assumes was a computer. That was the end of the case.

As a prosecutor, however, Coakley said she couldn't help being frustrated that no one was going after the perpetrator. She doesn't know how someone obtained her credit card number -- or how Dell found her phone number.

In her new post, Coakley plans to work to strengthen the state's fraud and identify theft laws to catch more criminals and help victims restore their credit ratings. She said she talked about the issue during her campaign, but the first hand experience hit home.

"It certainly gave me empathy for the victims of credit card theft," said Coakley. "It reaffirmed for me that the attorney general's office has a role to play."

ANDREW RYAN