Those Elusive Identity Thieves

While it can be a huge hassle for victims of identity theft to recover their good names, it can be even harder for law enforcement to catch the thieves. Sadly, although thousands of Americans fall for online scams each year, scambusters.org asserts that only 1 in 700 were prosecuted in 2006. Why so few when the crimes are so many? There are several reasons:

· Not all thieves operate inside the United States. Though law enforcement tries to work with international forces, red tape and logistical problems can make it exceedingly difficult.

· Cybercrimes are pretty low on the totem pole when there are more severe problems such as drugs and violence. If departments are understaffed, they may not get enough attention.

· Crimes are often reported months or even years after they occur because people don’t notice they’ve been victimized right away. Say, if you report a credit card account fraudulently created in your name in January in July, the initial thief could have sold the number, pocketed the cash and hopped a plane to Tahiti in the six month “grace period.”

· Many people don’t know how to report cybercrime so they often don’t bother reporting it at all. They simply cut their losses and move on, especially if they are small. (The proper procedure is to contact the Federal Trade Commission and then report the situation to law enforcement where the crime occurred. The FBI has set up an Internet Crime Complaint Center to assist victims with the process. It can be accessed at http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx.)

When identity thieves do get caught, they really have to pay for their crimes. At minimum, they have to reimburse the victim for the money they stole and the legal fees. However, if the crime is severe enough to be considered a felony, which many more are now, thanks to the Identity Theft Penalty Act of 2004, a thief can face seven years of prison time for phishing and even more if the crime is considered to be a terrorist act. Plus, a thief can be charged with more than one crime for an identity theft offense. For example a thief that steals someone’s credit card statement and then uses their account information can be guilty of aggravated identity theft as well as mail fraud. Again, the penalty would be increased.

So what can the consumer do to help identity thieves get brought to justice. The simplest answer is catch them right away.

1. Always thoroughly read monthly account statements to make sure the charges are legitimate.

2. Check credit reports from each of the three bureaus at least once a year.

3. Sign up for credit monitoring services or place a fraud alert on your credit report at all three bureaus. Since consumers cannot watch their accounts 24/7, these services are there to be the eyes and ears at all times.

4. Finally, report the crime, even if it is only the matter of a few dollars. Most serious identity thieves don’t only have one victim but rather dozens or even hundreds. The more times the person is traced back to a crime the more clout the case will get with law enforcement.

Cancer Scheme Shows How Identity Theives Have No Morales

Whenever you think an identity theft can stoop no lower, you will always be surprised. For instance, take into account the case of Steven Nelson, a 29 year old from the Bronx, NY, who allegedly committed tax fraud. While that in itself is not unusual, what make the case even worse is how he allegedly went about it.

Authorities claim that Nelson, along with his partners in crime, stole records from hospitals and other similar institutions and used those records to fraudulently file for tax refunds. The really low part is that a lot of the people he targeted were parents of juvenile cancer patients. He allegedly claimed the children as dependents in order to get bigger amounts of money back.

So far, the names of the institutions that were targeted have not been released to the public.

While this is definitely not the first time a crime like this has occurred, it does say something about the identity theft moral code: Frankly, there isn’t one. Identity thieves have no problem charging tens of thousands of dollars in your name, asking for health care under your plan – and having the charges come right back to your doorstep – or even targeting your kids and setting up accounts in their names. You can’t just assume that a thief won’t target you for whatever reason. To identity thieves, you are just letters and numbers on a piece of paper, not an actual person.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t fight back and gain your person-ness back. To do this, sign up for an identity theft protection service. That way you have a company going to bat for you specifically to make sure that your identity isn’t compromised and that, if something does happen, you are still protected from having to sacrifice a lot of money and time.

You can also cater your plan to your needs, which makes it more individualized, since there are so many different ones available. This site is a great starting point for you if you want to find exactly what you need to keep your information safe to your satisfaction.

Four Women Charged for Identity Theft in Texas

Four women from Waco, Texas were charged with numerous counts of aggravated identity theft after the four worked together to collect and utilize personal informational obtained through Fingerprint Applicant Services of Texas (or FAST) in order to open fraudulent credit cards and purchase goods and services under these aliases.

One of the women, Angela Cueller, 32, is charged with six counts of aggravated identity theft as she was the one employed by Integrated Biometrics Technology. After working with the company for three months, she stole thousands of applications for background checks through the company and used the sensitive information to obtain credit card accounts.

Integrated Biometrics Technology is unable to determine whose information was used for these fraudulent credit accounts, but encourage anyone who feels they may have been a victim to contact the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office (254-757-5100) and to obtain a copy of their credit reports to determine if their financial data has been compromised, and if so, sign up for credit monitoring services to ensure no more attempts at compromising their data is continued.

Some 1.5 Million Usernames and Passwords Exposed by Anonymous Hackers

Gawker.com fell victim to a group of hackers that openly accessed, encrypted and posted sensitive usernames and passwords—even those for Gawker.com’s owner, Nick Denton. The information, as well as a few nasty posts about the company, were posted anonymously and publicly online, causing Gawker Media to scramble removing the information and notifying their registered readers to immediately change their passwords due to the database hack.

Although nothing specifically, personally identifiable like Social Security numbers and personal addresses were made available in this database, the emails and usernames can be used in combination with the passwords to perhaps log in to other sites, such as bank accounts, email accounts, and other sensitive sites that contain more “damaging” information. This is due to the fact that a number of people utilize the same password for all of their websites, which makes a security breach of 1.5 million usernames and passwords a big deal!

If you were registered with Gawker.com and utilize similar passwords for other sensitive sites, it is strongly recommended that you immediately change any and all of your passwords and log ins for other websites as soon as possible, as well as sign up for any credit monitoring services if any of your credit card or bank login information was the same as your Gawker.com account usernames and passwords.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Affiliates Hacked, Includes Access to Social Security Numbers

An investigation has been in place since October 26th in regards to unauthorized access to the systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The files accessed through the computer network included files that stored the Social Security numbers of approximately 60,000 people that were affiliated with the campus.

The Social Security numbers were linked with student and university ID numbers, from back before the time where SSN’s were no longer allowed to be used for campus identification purposes. There was no other identifying information included with the Social Security numbers, however, which lessens the ability of someone to participate in the act of identity theft.

However, the sheer volume of people involved in such a security breach leaves many people unsure about their risks of identity theft, and those who have been affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison are encouraged to participate in a credit monitoring service in order to protect their financial integrity.

Identity Theft Via Cell Phone Cloning

A lot of people think of computers when they think of identity theft, but not too many people think of cell phones. This is too bad because they probably should. One reason why is that nine individuals in White Plains, New York, were recently charged in a cell phone cloning scam, to the tune of $15 million.

All of these individuals worked for a cell phone provider and used customers’ confidential information to create fake or cloned accounts. They were then able to use the customers’ numbers to make thousands of toll phone calls, including a whole lot of international ones. While the phone company refunded the charges to all of the affected customers, this is a sign of a disturbing trend.

Since these individuals legitimately had access to customer information, they didn’t have to perform any kind of extensive research to get it or purchase it on the black market. Consequently, there is nothing that the customers could have done to prevent the identity theft. Instead, they were just lucky that the company discovered the fraud – too bad it was after it was seen to be quite extensive.

One thing that they could do, though, is sign up for an identity theft protection plan, and then they would be able to possibly detect the unauthorized charges. Some plans will let you know if something out of the ordinary is happening with any of your credit accounts. According to prosecutors, the calls began within days of the numbers being accessed. If they were caught right away, a lot of the lost funds could have been prevented.

Another interesting thing is that the criminals were not high ups in the company brass but simply workers in one of the company’s retail stores. This means that almost anyone can get access to your personal information. You don’t have to be an experienced hacker or someone with privileged account access. Only makes getting an identity theft protection plan in place seem more imperative; doesn’t it?

Sheriff’s Information Available Online, Puts Lives and Security at Risk

An employee has been let go from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office after information was inadvertently uploaded onto a public site online that can put hundreds to thousands of people’s lives in danger.

Files including communication on homicides and investigations, personal information regarding sheriffs and their families, as well as sensitive personal information on crime victims, was accidentally posted by an information technology employee, and the sheriff’s office was notified the information was public and online on November 24th when they were notified by someone that had found their name on the files.

In addition to sheriff’s personal information, it even included their home addresses, spouse’s information and even the schools that their children are attending. This can put the sheriffs and their family’s, lives in danger. Especially since the information that was available dated back 20 years, putting former sheriffs at risk as well.

There is an investigation underway, and it is highly recommended that those affected register for credit report monitoring services and identity theft protection services to ensure the safety and protection of their financial information.