Things You Need To Know

A lot of identity theft is done by computers and things like that but a lot of identity theft just comes from people. As a matter of fact the FTC said that 51% of identity theft comes from the work force. From your employer and other businesses that lose your information.

And then quite frankly people are not concerned. There not careful about where they show there information and how easy they give people access to their credit files and things like that.

I’m not sure if you had watched the dateline show that was on talking about catching an identity thief. They took a credit card and put it out over the internet and in a minute and 13 seconds later that credit card had been maxed out in 16 different countries.

Businesses farm out your information to other businesses and a lot of the medical information is sent out to people in their homes.

There are several laws that are in effect right now, that businesses should be aware of. One of the laws deals with HIPPA. That deals with a lot of the medical information and things like that. Most businesses are familiar with HIPPA.

What would happen if they would lose a customer or clients information, they could face fines of up to $250,000 and jail time.

But there is also the FACTA law. That law took effect in March of 2005. the problem is that most businesses that I work with only 3% of all businesses are even aware of that legislation.

From a consumer standpoint, FACTA is the law that gives us as the consumer the ability to get 3 FREE credit reports per year. You should get one from Equifax, one from Experian and one from TransUnion. I highly recommend that people do that. But it also holds businesses responsible for safeguarding customer’s information and if they lose NPI then they face very stiff fines.

TJ Max faced some stiff fines when they lost over 45 million identities. Choice Point just settled a lawsuit with the federal government and the FTC where they paid $15 million in fines.

But the big one is what we call the GLBSR that deals with businesses. That also took effect in 2005 if a customer applies to any business or organization that maintains personal information on its clients or employees, they lose that information, they can now face a $1 million fine per violation and up to 10 years in jail for the executive.

So the government is taking some steps to help us slow down identity theft. But, there are a lot more things they can be doing to help the individual consumer out there.

Q. How much of people’s lives, not only financially does identity risk or theft effect?

A. According to the FTC in 2005 23% of all reported identity theft was financial. So, the problem is, what about the other 77% of identity theft? In that same report that they send out talked about the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) was 45% of all reported identity theft. As a matter of fact on April 22nd in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Thomas Chapmen, who is chairmen and CEO of Equifax made this statement, “Checking ones credit report even several times a year is a kin to using a smoke detector, but only on weekends.” It is simply not enough!

Here’s the problem. If you pull out the October issue of Kiplinger's Magazine you’ll find the vice president of PC magazine saying, “It’s not me! I didn’t do it.” He was pulled over for going through a red light and when the police officer pull this gentlemen over he went back to the cruiser after getting his information, came back to the car and said, “Sir, you’re under arrest for failure to appear in court in a DWI” and he said that’s not me!

From 2003 to 2006 there was a decrease in a total number of victims but an increase in total volume of identity fraud of 56.6 Billion (That’s with a B last year) and the average fraud per person went from $5,249 to in 2003 to $6,383 in 2006.

The decrease only shows 23% of the problem! Medical identity theft which is the fastest form of identity theft increased in the same period of time 3 fold. So you see companies like City Bank and others saying were stopping identity theft, were slowing it down, well in truth all that there doing is the thief is getting a little more educated in other areas like your social security number to get jobs. So, yes financial may be decreasing, but what about the other areas like drivers license

Q. By the way, how do they get that medical information? Where are people getting medical information on me?

A. Here’s the thing. How many people right now have car insurance, life insurance, health insurance and other things like that? Remember, I don’t have to hack your computer system to get your information. I only have to talk with an employee at Blue Cross Blue Shield or whoever is covering your medical and how many employees work for that company? If I can get one of those employees to sell me that information for an average of $10 per account, how many times could I use that? As a matter of fact, the November, 2006 issue of Readers Digest, of the front cover, talked about medical identity theft and it said on page 88 that your insurance card is like a Visa card with a $1 Million spending limit.

I’ll give your readers here a tip! How many people are getting medical prescriptions on a daily basis? On your medical bottle in the upper left hand corner is a RX number. And on the medical bottle is your entire legal name, and your entire address with zip code. Most people throw them in the trash can when they get done. What they should be doing is sticking them in warm water and remove the sticker before you throw it away. That is just one simple step you can take to help prevent medical identity theft.

We have a client right now who owes $54,000 in back taxes because 30 people were using her social security number.

Q. Can she get rid of that debt or is she stuck with it?

A. This lady will now have to hire an attorney and pay huge attorney fees even though she was not doing anything wrong. She is a victim!

According to the FTC the average victim will spend 600 hours and to try to restore their good name. The problem is that most of that will have to be done during normal work time. That would be a customer leaving work Monday morning at 8:00 A.M. and gone till 5:00 P.M. 5 days a week, ir would take them 15 straight weeks.

Q. How do we give the government our information and still protect ourselves?
A. I don’t know a solution for that one yet because you don’t have a choice! You must give out that information! I believe that you need to have something monitoring your life! You can’t do it yourself. If you want to check with your MIB, SSI and your DMV and your credit reports on a regular basis you could probably do it yourself, or find a creditable company to do it for you.

Q. What other ways can a person protect themselves?

A. We know in the past there’s been Farming and Phishing over the Internet. Well, there is a bran new attack going on and it is catching hundreds of thousands of people. It’s called Vishing. And you need to alert the senior citizens because this came out in the AARP. The will receive a phone call weather there home or not, someone will leave a message on their answering system that says, NAME, this is ___ with your credit card and give the last 4 digits on the card. They then go on to say that there has been fraudulent activity on that card and they need you to call them right away at this tool free number otherwise we will shut your credit card down. 1. The problem is that we know that the last 4 digits of your credit card are listed everywhere. 2. When you call that toll free number the person on the other end will ask you to verify the first 12 digits on that credit card.

This is where people need to ask no matter if it’s the government or a hotel or whoever, why do you need that information, who else will see it and what is the purpose of it? Who are you working with? What other venders may see my information? Because if you give them the first 12 digits they will then as you to turn the card over and give them the 3 digit number, and that line will then go dead. You just became a victim of identity theft. That’s called Vishing.

People also need to shut off credit cards there not using. According to Kroll Background America, the number 1 risk consulting company in the world, the average individual has 8.6 credit cards on file that they have not used in years.

There’s a website online that I can go to and for $45 get your credit report, and if I see open credit cards in your name what do you think I could do?

Another thing to remember is that according to the FTC, 97% of identity theft starts with a change of address! So if I change your address to Portland, OR, how long will it take you to know what is going on? The FTC says it will take the average person finds out 14 months AFTER the theft. Then you’ll want to get the police involved then the problem is, 1. Let’s say you live in Detroit, MI, the thief lives in Beaver, PA and they changed your address to Portland, OR. Who’d going to prosecute that for you 14 months later? Who has that budget and how aggressive will they get?

There are some things people can do and that is shredding anything that has information on it that we call non-public information. And remember a thief needs 3 forms of information. They need your name, social security number and date of birth. Anytime someone asks you for that information ask them why! If you throw away a piece of paper with it on it shred it.

Many people aren’t aware that you can get rid of pre-approved credit cards for the next 5 years. You can opt out by calling 1-88-567-8688. consumers can also get off of junk mail list by going to http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html you can remove yourself from getting junk mail. You should also do this for yourself and any child living in the home that is over the age of 18 so they aren’t getting all of this junk mail.

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