Chiropractor Charged with Identity Fraud and Theft by Deception

A Paulding County, Georgia chiropractor, Dr. Christopher Lockerman, was recently arrested and charged with eight counts of identity fraud and theft by deception after the FBI discovered he was opening credit card accounts with his patients’ information and wiring the money from J.P. Morgan Chase Bank accounts. The suspicious activity led them to discover this financial identity theft, and led to his arrest after over a quarter million dollars in funds was found to be fraudulent.

If you or someone you know was a patient at Lockerman Family Chiropractic in Hiram, Georgia, it is essential that you contact the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office at 770-443-3015 to report any financial information. Signing up for credit monitoring services is a great way to help find out if anything has happened to your reports and to keep from any future fraudulent activities from occurring with your financial information.

Highway 101 Leaves Thousands at Risk for Identity Theft

A stretch of highway in Solano Beach, California was littered with paperwork which left thousands of individuals at the risk for financial and medical identity theft.

A moving company was transferring documents from one storage facility to another when approximately 20 boxes of files fell off of the trailer truck and scattered across a large section of highway 101. The files contained legal paperwork, medical treatments, financial documents, and other sensitive files which could leave hundreds of thousands of individuals at risk for identity theft if the paperwork gets into the wrong hands.

If individuals find paperwork from this spill, they are encouraged to shred the documents or turn them over to police. But this doesn’t mean that your information is safe from theft. Incidences like these may leave you feeling vulnerable, and investing in an identity theft protection service will help ease your concerns and give you the peace of mind you need to ensure your data is protected.

Spreadsheet of 20,000 Season Tickets for New York Yankees Leaked

All it takes is a simple accident–one wrong push of the button and a file can be emailed to thousands of people inadvertently.

This is supposedly what happened to an employee of the New York Yankees. A database spreadsheet including over 20,000 season ticket holders was sent out to about 2,000 newsletter subscribers, who received the file as an attachment. This spreadsheet included season ticket accounts, names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other identifying information. While no credit card numbers or SSNs were distributed with this file, it still puts season ticket holders at risk for identity theft, hacking of other accounts with the same password, and for unwanted emails spamming their inbox.

Season ticket subscribers and purchasers have been notified with an email regarding the recent leak, and apologized for the mistaken email that was sent. They confirm that no credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and other important numbers and accounts were not released with this file, but it is still a smart choice to invest in identity theft protection to feel at ease that your credit reports and financials have not been affected by such actions.

Can Weddings Cause Identity Theft

Weddings bring with them a lot of stress, with all of the decisions that need to be made and the sometime disgruntled relatives involved. Along with these well-documented problems, there is one that few engaged couples think about. It is the fact that they could be at a higher risk for identity theft.

An article last year in the Dallas McClatchy-Tribune explained some of the reasons why this elevated risk can happen. Basically, couples can be distracted at a time when their information is especially vulnerable.

Here are five reasons why:

1. The couple and their families are involved in a busy and hectic time, which can cause them to be a little more lax than usual in managing everyday affairs.

2. Couples may register for gifts over the Internet, which can give thieves both members’ full names, their address and a good idea of personal preferences they may use when generating their passwords.

3. The couple deals with many different vendors they may not be familiar with, from photographers to florists, opening them up to the possibility of scams more than usual.

4. The couple may be making a lot of financial transactions, which could increase the likelihood of thieves getting a hold of their account information.

5. The couple may set up a wedding website, which again exposes their personal information to the public at large, even if it only contains their names, their wedding date and the venue.

The most secure thing to do is to keep all wedding information off the Web. However, in this day and age this is not very practical. The next best thing is to keep the details posted to the absolute minimum and to change any passwords related to them in any way. For example, if you put a picture of your dog Pongo on your wedding website, don’t use Pongo as a password, or username, for any of your accounts.

Other ways to prevent ID theft from happening are the same in these circumstances as in any other one. For example, check your credit report three times per year using annualcreditreport.com, shred any mail that has personal information in it before throwing it out, put mail with personal information (such as the checks you have to send for vendor deposits) in a locked mailbox to send them out and consider enrolling both yourself and your future spouse in an identity theft protection plan.

Though it may seem nontraditional, you can even ask for a year’s payments on an identity theft protection service as one of your wedding gifts. Just select the plan that you would like and add it to a registry that is not store specific, such as one you put up on that aforementioned wedding website. You can have people send you money through PayPal to pay for it as well, since they cannot sign up at LifeLock for you due to evident security reasons.

It is a good thing for a couple to have when they are starting out. In fact, it could be the most important gift you get on your special day.

Sony Company’s PlayStation Network Hacked

If you are part of the PlayStation Network and/or Qriocity, your personal information may be at risk for identity theft.

Sony recently released information their company blog that their PlayStation Network and Qriocity network had been hacked between April 17th and April 19th by an unauthorized individual. While this mainly affects personal information used to sign up for an account, such as names, emails, and passwords, there is still concern for the credit card numbers which may have been used by Sony customers in order to purchase or rent Sony content through these avenues.

Sony turned off their PlayStation Network and Qriocity in order to allow a security firm access to investigate and improve security before returning service to their customers.

If you have used the PlayStation Network or Qriocity and have rented or purchased content with a credit card, it is essential that you use a credit monitoring service to ensure your personal information has not been used by an unauthorized third party. All members of these services are highly encouraged to change their passwords to protect them from any further online intrusions.

Teenage Hacker Steals Identities for 10 Years

Almost 700,000 credit card account numbers have been stolen by a 26-year-old individual in Lithonia, Georgia by the name of Rogelio Hackett Jr. He pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft, having stolen and sold credit card numbers for approximately ten years, starting as a teenager and continuing into adulthood. It is said that he made about $100,000 a year just by selling these account numbers for $20 to $25 each. In addition, he racked up over $36 million in transactions on the accounts as well. He is currently facing up to 12 years in prison after this ten year stint.

It is so important that you track and monitor your credit reports and bank accounts for fraudulent activity to avoid the risk of identity theft and catch it as it occurs. This can be done on your own or with the help of credit monitoring services and identity theft protection services, which are available through a number of companies.

Largest Texas Information Breach Leaves 3.5 Million People Exposed

The FBI and the Texas attorney general’s office are investigating one of the largest data breaches in Texas, as well as one of the largest exposures of personal information in the nation. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts inadvertently exposed 3.5 million individuals’ personal information, such as Social Security numbers, on a computer server for over a year–one that was accessible to the general public.

The data covered a number of groups, including the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the Employees Retirement System of Texas, totaling 3.5 million exposed individuals, making it one of the larger security breaches in the nation.

There appears to have been no incidences of identity theft due to this public file, but it is not unusual for identity theft rings to sit on personal information such as this for a while before utilizing it for identity theft activities.

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts has started a website at TXsafeguard.org for those who feel they may have been affected by this security breach. If you believe that you may be a victim, you are welcome to post a free 90-day credit freeze on your credit reports, and you can enroll in credit monitoring services for extra protection from unwanted activity on your financial accounts.

Dentist Patient Information Found Publicly Accessible

An employer inadvertently through out sensitive paperwork from a Longmont, Colorado dentist, leaving an unknown number of patients with personal data at risk for identity theft. It was unsure how it happened, but the dentist, Dr. Andrew Ranucci, feels it was entirely accidental.

If you are a patient of Dr. Andrew Ranucci’s in Longmont, Colorado, and have had an issue with identity theft, it is pertinent that you contact his office to report the incident in order to have the issue resolved. However, you can also ensure your safety by enrolling in credit monitoring services to guarantee that your financial identity is protected.

Improper Disposal of Medical Documents Raises Concern for 2,500 Veterans

Veterans who have utilized services at the V.A. Medical Center in Aiken, South Carolina are worried about their personal information after an employee of the medical center threw away some 2,500 medical and appointment files instead of shredding them per HIPAA regulations. The files were in the dumpster, and could have been found and used for identity theft.

While there appears to be no reason for concern regarding these documents at this point, it is strongly encouraged that veterans who have utilized services at this location contact credit monitoring services to enroll in the appropriate protection to ensure their financial security.