From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: The Road to Biometric IDs: Identity Theft Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 08:39:43 -0500 To: believer@telepath.com Source: ABC http://www.abcnews.com/sections/us/DailyNews/id_theft981006.html When Someone Else Becomes You - Identity Crisis Lost Privacy is Price of Information Revolution *** "You feel like [your credit rating] is a mark of integrity, and then you're treated like a criminal and the whole onus is on you to prove you didn't do it." - identity theft victim Amy DuBois *** Could someone morph into you? (ABCNEWS.com) By Jan M. Faust ABCNEWS.com Oct. 9 - Babies are targeted. So are ex-lovers, ex-roommates, ex-friends and ex-spouses. And oh yeah, strangers too. People who use the Internet are definitely at risk. And so are those who don't. When it comes to identity theft-the pilfering of someone's personal data to get a free ride on a clean record or bountiful credit-the scams are so wide-ranging that there can be no generalization about who will get hit and who won't. Although there are no definite numbers on the incidence of identity theft in the United States, it is believed to be on an explosive trajectory. Last year, Trans Union, one of the nation's three major credit bureaus, reported approximately 350,000 cases of identity fraud. And, the U.S. Secret Service, a wing of the Treasury Department that gets involved on the larger cases, arrested approximately 10,000 people for participating in organized identity theft rings. As the numbers keep mushrooming, so have costs-up from $442 million in 1995 to $745 million in 1997, says Assistant Deputy James Bauer of the Secret Service. "So there's been a significant increase in the losses that tell us they're doing it more and applying a certain level of expertise." Your Money and/or Your Life When your evil doppelgangers go for convertible sports cars, or chunky diamond necklaces, more than your credit rating can be damaged. "I can promise you the day you learn of it you are at least 18 months from being whole again, " says Bauer. "During which time you can't buy a car, get a loan, maybe you're turned down for a job, and you may not even know why. Amy DuBois knows this firsthand. The 34-year-old Boston surgeon was swindled in what seemed a simple purse filching from her locked desk at the hospital. She took immediate, and what she assumed was adequate, action by canceling her credit cards and checks. Once that might have been enough. But as Bauer points out, new safeguards in the credit industry, like real-time verification of credit cards, have forced thieves to get craftier. The end result is that now, "Pickpockets will steal your wallet, and I say this facetiously, but they'll give you back the cash, just to get the IDs," says Bauer. Instant Credit Can Be an Instant Headache Although DuBois never recovered her purse or the money in it, it was the identification that was the real commodity. "Nearly two years later," DuBois says, "I got a phone call at home from a collection agency about an overdue credit account of $3,500 from a jewelry store in Detroit. "And then they started coming-I got two more notices in the mail, and two by phone within the next couple of days." When she checked her credit report, she found that almost $30,000 dollars of jewelry, roaming cell phone charges, and department store items had been racked up in her name, from accounts made at department stores with instant credit, billed to addresses that weren't hers. "The instant credit folks, like the departments stores, they're not checking or verifying because they're so eager to have new customers, because it's so competitive," says Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, whose consumer organization publishes help for victims. "I think the blame for a good bit of this epidemic lays at the feet of the credit industry." Will the Real Amy DuBois Stand Up? The fake Amy DuBois, it turned out, was a serious shopaholic. The real DuBois said that seeing her own credit report was "eerie" "Your student loans are there, your own Neiman-Marcus account, and then next to those are nine accounts that just aren't yours, marked delinquent." After 30 hours of her own time, four uninterrupted days of her secretary's time, and about $1,000 in lawyer's fees, DuBois is gradually starting to sort things out. That's typical, explains Ed Mierswinsky, a consumer advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "The victims end up in a real mess. They sit on hold with the credit card companies, they sit on hold with the credit bureaus, they get on endless voice mail loops, the police don't care because the amount of money lost doesn't make their threshold for making major cases and getting promotions." For DuBois, what lingers now besides the voluminous paperwork needed to be filed whenever she legitimately needs to establish credit, is suspicion and mistrust about giving out her personal identifiers. Recently while trying to open an account at Blockbuster Video, she was asked for her driver's license and Social Security number. "I said, 'No, I'm not providing that. You don't need to have that.'" Although she eventually relented on the driver's license, she said she's much more protective of her Social Security number. Give Me Some Credit Here Guarding that precious number is one key to improving your odds, agree privacy rights advocates. Criminals will try to liberate it from you in a number of ways, as low-tech as sifting through your garbage can for records, and as high-tech as setting up application forms on Internet sites offering credit cards at the impossibly low, low rate of 1 percent APR. And since it's extremely difficult to eliminate risk, Givens suggests ordering your credit report at least once a year. "The key is to catch it early. We recommend just going to one of the three credit bureaus, and if you see signs of fraud, then order the other two." That would have helped DuBois, who's says she'll feel insecure and violated for the rest of her life. "It's a very strange sensation. I have a very good credit record, I've been very careful. You feel like it's a mark of integrity, and then you're treated like a criminal and the whole onus is on you to prove you didn't do it. The whole thing is very frightening." For all of her expense and troubles, DuBois' experience could have been worse. More damaging than run-of-the-mill credit theft are those cases where criminal records or vital statistics are affected, through marriage, divorce, an arrest, or even death under the cloned name. "I know of a case out West where a lady died using an assumed name," says Bauer, "and the true name holder had to get a death certificate undone." Recent Examples of Identity Theft In New York this week, the state attorney general warned of a scam being circulated through e-mail, faxes and fliers offering consumers a reimbursement of $500 from Gerber Baby foods as settlement in a phony class action. To apply, parents were asked to send copies of their child's birth certificate and Social Security card. Babies' Social Security numbers are plum because they allow for unflawed credit, and are rarely checked for fraud. John and Jane Smith's adult daughter obtained credit cards in their name and ran up debts of more than $40,000. She paid the interest fees so as not to alert her parents of her use of the credit cards, but was not able to keep up the payments. The credit card companies now demand the Smiths pay the bill, given that the debtor is their daughter. A thief stole Annette's wallet, and has since written bad checks in her name, and used her credit cards. Annette wonders if anyone pays attention to driver's license photos. The thief is white and Annette is African-American. To make matters worse, she has to pay $10 every time she needs a notarized affidavit stating she is not the crook. Meredith rented a room in her home to a woman who found her SSN. She collected the pre-approved offers of credit that were mailed to the house, filled them out in Meredith's name, and obtained 15 credit cards. She watched the mail and retrieved the monthly statements before Meredith saw them. She has since moved out, leaving Meredith with debts totaling $74,000. Francine was employed for a time as a writer for a publishing company. After she left, she found that her employer was using her SSN and driver's license number to obtain credit in her name. A police department detective investigating the case told Francine that the woman has a long history of identity theft spanning many states. Cheryl and her 7-year-old daughter went to the bank to open a checking account for the daughter. The bank told Cheryl her daughter had a bad credit report. Cheryl thinks that her ex-husband has been using the child's Social Security number to open credit accounts. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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