ID theft : Federal Trade Commission

What can I do to protect myself against identity theft?

IdentityTheft — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:15:00 GMT

Identity theft is one of the fast-growing types of crime, and is so widespread, that more than 11 million people were victims in the past year, with a total loss of about $54 billion.

Identity theft is defined as the stealing of personal information such as your name, credit card number, Social Security number, driver's license number or other personal identifying information in order to commit fraud.

Thieves use this stolen information to apply for telephone service, credit cards, lines of credit, payday loans, purchase cars, lease apartments, obtain medical care or apply for a job. They can even commit crimes, using your name, which means you would have the criminal record – and not the identity thief.

Identity theft is so common because it's so easy. Many people think it won't happen to them, and therefore take little or no precautions. How can you prevent being a victim of identity theft?

First, be sure to review your credit card statements monthly. Call your credit card issuer immediately if you see any fraudulent or questionable items. If you don't receive your statement at the usual time, call your credit card issuer immediately. Someone may have changed the billing address to prevent you from seeing unauthorized charges.

Don't throw away credit card slips, statements or other documents containing personal information. Shred them. You should also shred pre-approved credit card offers.

Go through your credit report with a fine-toothed comb at least once a year. Contact any creditors that appear as fraudulent or questionable items.

Be sure to guard your Social Security number and never carry your card in your wallet. Keep it someplace secure.

Never give out personal information over the telephone unless you initiated the call or are sure the person on the other end is trustworthy.

When shopping online, be sure to use secured sites, which have "https" in the URL. Don't click the box asking if you want to save your credit card number for easy ordering on your next visit. It's safer not to have this information stored.

If you fall victim to identity theft, report it immediately to the bank or credit card company. File a report with the local police or sheriff's department. You should also call the Federal Trade Commission at 877-438-4338, and call the three credit reporting bureaus as well.

Beware Ringtone Scams

IdentityTheft — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:13:00 GMT

The market online and electronic market for ringtones is full of scams.

Leave it to resourceful identity thieves to find a way to take advantage of our need for the latest ringtones and applications for our cellphones. Thieves have found a way to steal identities using ringtone web sites.

Kids make especially good targets.

Teenagers with cellphones invariably have to have the latest and coolest ringtones and, even worse, will almost always download “free” items without a second thought. Often, sites that advertise free ringtones will attach viruses to your download in order to steal personal information. or kids are enticed to text free ringtone sites to get free downloads.

The following tips can help keep you safe:

Teach your kids about identity theft and how thieves use the information they collect.

Use the ring tone that came with your phone. This isn't fun and it definitely isn't cool, but it's the only sure-fire way to avoid identity theft with ringtones.

Don't download ringtones from free sites. Too often, these sites attach viruses to your download, which can then steal personal information.

Don't send text messages to to sites in order to receive free ringtones. A common scam is to charge a fee or subscription that will appear monthly on your cellphone bill.

Don't keep sensitive personal or financial information on your cellphone (bank info, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers or dates of birth). The less personal information there is on your phone, the less thieves have to work with if you do get a virus on your phone.

Only buy your ringtones from established cell phone service providers.

If you do find yourself the target of ringtone thieves, file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – click on this link.

Be Careful Of Identity Thieves At Tax Time!

IdentityTheft — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:37:00 GMT

Once again, tax season is upon us. The documents and emails we send and receive at this time of the year contain a wealth of information for identity thieves: your name, address, social security number (as well as those of your dependents), bank and investment account information, etc. For an identity thief, tax time is a golden opportunity.

Its vitally important that you safeguard your personal financial information and not become a victim of identity theft this tax season. There are some concrete steps you can take to keep your personal data out of the wrong hands.

Understand what the IRS requires. According to the IRS web site, you will never receive an email or telephone communication from them requesting personal information. The IRS does business through the mail. If you receive an email or phone call that purports to be from the IRS, don’t respond to it. If you do receive what you believe to be a fraudulent phone call, call the IRS assistance line at 1-800-829-1040. If you receive an email that appears to be from the IRS, forward it to phishing@irs.gov. Once you file your tax return, the IRS will not ask for additional forms or information in order to process your return.

Keep your paper documents safe. Always keep your tax paperwork in a safe, locked location. Financial documents don’t belong in a briefcase, handbag, purse or in your car. They can be lost or stolen if left unguarded for even a few minutes. Invest in a document shredder and put papers you no longer need through it. Identity thieves love it when you leave receipts, papers with credit card account and Social Security Numbers (such as health benefit payment and income reporting forms), and loan documents where they can find them, like in your trash! All it takes is a few documents with your personal information on them for a thief to open a new account in your name. Even a seven-year old receipt can often be used by a thief.

Protect your computer. If your computer is linked to the internet, make sure to have updated firewall, antivirus, and spyware software to protect you from identity theft hackers. e sure to password protect your files. Since many taxpayers file their taxes and store financial information on their computer or online, it is critically important not to let thieves steal your information electronically. Even if you do not file online, identity thieves can still get access to important information through an unprotected computer.

Watch for email scams. Tax time is an especially fruitful time for email scams. If you receive an email asking for your Social Security Number or other financial information, delete it or send it to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at spam@uce.gov for investigation. In some cases, you will receive an email stating that you are being electronically audited or notifying you of a refund and asking for bank account information. Remember – the IRS does not send emails to taxpayers!

Watch your mail. Uncollected mail sitting in a mailbox is an open invitation for an identity thief. If you plan on being away from home, arrange with the postal service to have your mail held until you return (you can even do this online!). When mailing your tax documents, always take them directly to the Post Office. Don’t ever leave tax documents in an outgoing mail box at work.

Be careful when hiring a tax preparer. Its always a good idea to check out tax preparation companies before entrusting them with your personal data! Many online tax preparation companies spring up around tax time, some of them nothing more than elaborate scams. Investigate tax preparation companies with the Better Business Bureau, especially new or seasonal offices. Unfortunately, even reputable tax preparation companies can hire an identity thief. Check to see how your information will be stored, what computer security software is used, and if the person working on your taxes has undergone a thorough background screening. Trust your instincts. If you see personal papers displayed on desks or are uncomfortable or doubt the firm’s commitment to protecting your private information, go elsewhere.

Tax time can be stressful. Don't make it worse by letting your personal financial information fall into the wrong hands. Be careful, and aware of the risks. Avoid identity theft. Protect your personal data - in the real world and online.

FTC "Red Flag Rules" August 1 deadline

IdentityTheft — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:05:00 GMT

There’s been a lot of confusion about the FTC’s definition of creditor, with many people assuming it applies only to financial institutions, mortgage brokers and finance companies. But it turns the definition is much broader.

If you’re still confused about whether or not the Federal Trade Commission’s “Red Flag Rules” apply to your business, here’s a simple quiz to help you sort it out: Do you provide goods or services and defer payments or accept partial payments toward the total balance? If so, you’re a creditor and have 10 days to meet the FTC’s August 1 deadline and get your ID theft prevention program together.

If you own a dry cleaning business that allows customers to run monthly tabs, or you’re an attorney who accepts a down payment for total services to be rendered, you’re a creditor. Orthodontists who set up payment plans for kids’ braces? Yep.

The good news is most creditors are small businesses, and meeting the requirements shouldn’t be a huge undertaking. The red flags are only common sense warning signs; they just need to be documented and your employee trained.

What to watch for

Be on the lookout for fake documents. Does the photo look authentic and match the customer’s appearance? Does the address match the information you have on file?
Watch for unusual use of an established account. If a normally reliable customer is months late on payments, or making uncharacteristically expensive purchases, it might be a sign of account takeover.
Fraud alerts and credit freezes are placed on credit files by consumers who are already ID theft victims, or think they might become victims—for instance, someone who’s lost a wallet. If you run a credit check on someone and find a fraud alert or freeze, take extra steps to confirm identity.

All that’s left is to put your plan in writing, discuss it with employees and determine who among your staff will be the go-to person.

Complaints about Experian

IdentityTheft — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:18:00 GMT

Experian knows a lot more about you than you know about them, and everything they know about you is up for sale.

You might think of Experian as “the credit bureau”—a repository of your financial history, the good, the bad and the ugly. And, yes, they’re all that … all that and so much more.

Experian knows all about your cars, businesses, insurance policies and lifestyle. And, if someone offers them money for it, they’ll even send someone to interview your friends, neighbors and associates to learn more about your character, reputation, personal characteristics and mode of living.

Experian boasts on their website that they hold credit information on 215 million Americans. They have title and registration data on 450 million vehicles. Every year, more than 100 million American households receive more than 20 billion pieces of advertising, all thanks to the databases Experian sells.

What their website doesn’t tell you about is the legal problems the Dublin-based company has in the United States.

Most of Experian’s problems are related to the “freecreditreport.com” marketing and sales of their Triple Advantage credit monitoring service—a subscription service that costs $79.95 a year.

The Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly investigated, found guilty and fined Experian for deceptive advertising, charging consumers’ credit cards without permission, failing to cancel subscriptions during the “free” trial period, or even letting consumers know they have the option of canceling.

The Florida Attorney General’s office has been investigating Experian since 2006. The AG’s office is looking into accusations that Experian’s marketing and sales of their Triple Advantage credit monitoring service violated the state’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Some of Experian’s problems are only public relations headaches, like the time Privacy International “honored” Experian with the Big Brother Award for being the UK’s most invasive company.

And then there’s the time FTC gave Experian’s customer service practices a grade of “F” because they refused to provide consumers with a customer service phone number.

FTC Red Flag Rules: Small business compliance made easy ... really

IdentityTheft — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:55:00 GMT

The FTC has finally come up with a tool to make Red Flags Rules more easily understood and small business compliance easier to implement.

Initially created in 2003, the FTC has repeatedly delayed enforcement of the rules for recognizing and responding to identity theft’s warning signs, largely because of confused interpretation of the term “creditor”.

In response, the FTC has developed a simple six-page, four-step outline for small and low-risk businesses along with guidelines for determining whether a business falls into this category. How can you tell if your business is at low risk for identity theft?

Do you have few clients or customers whom you know by sight?
Do you provide services in your customers’ homes?
Is your line of business frequently linked to identity theft?
Has your business ever been linked to an identity theft incident?

If you answered yes to the first two questions and no to the last two questions, chances are you have a low-risk business, and can easily meet Red Flag Rules requirements by using the simple form created by the FTC.

The Identity Theft Prevention Program designed by the FTC, available here, guides business owners, board members or senior managers through the process in four easy steps:

Identifying relevant red flags
Detecting red flags
Responding to red flags
Administering your program, including designating the employee responsible for implementation; training methods; identifying service providers that might detect ID theft; and deciding how to update your program and keep it current.

Child identity theft; be careful with those summer camp registrations

IdentityTheft — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:54:00 GMT

School will be out in just a few weeks, and if you haven’t already done it, it’s time to fill out those registration forms to get your kids into summer camp.

This year, take special care when completing those registration forms. Most summer camps ask for children’s birth dates and Social Security numbers, but—in most cases—they don’t really need them. And, every time those bits or identifying information are divulged and recorded, the child’s identity theft risk increases.

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that 500,000 children are identity theft victims every year, and the Identity Theft Resource Center discovered that more than half of those children are under the age of six; in fact, the younger the child, the more appealing a target he or she is for identity thieves.

Until people apply for credit, they have no credit file, but when that first application is submitted, a credit history is initiated, and whatever information—such as the birth date submitted by the applicant—becomes part of that file.

Most children and parents don’t discover the crime until the child applies for a job car loan, student loan or apartment lease. By that time the thief is long gone, and the victim’s credit record may show years of unpaid credit card bills, auto loans and even mortgages.

Worse still, the child could end up with a criminal history if the thief has used that stolen identity to acquire a driver’s license and been caught committing other crimes.

The first step in protecting your child’s identity is refusing to give out a birth date or Social Security number unless it’s absolutely necessary. So, when you fill out those registration forms for summer camp, sports programs, scouting, etc., leave those fields blank; chances are, nobody will notice. If they object, explain your reasoning. With any luck, they’ll not only let it go, but revise the forms to help protect the children they’re caring for.

FTC delays Red Flag Rules enforcement ... again

IdentityTheft — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:01:00 GMT

The Federal Trade Commission has granted yet another delay in the enforcement of the Red Flag Rules, pushing the deadline to November 1, 2009.

The initial compliance deadline was November 2008, but after five years of procrastination, retailers, health care providers and law firms that extend credit claimed to be surprised to learn they were considered creditors, and asserted they needed more time to devise their identity theft recognition and prevention strategies.

In response to their well-funded hue and cry, the FTC allowed creditors another six months to comply and moved the deadline to May 1, 2009.

The red flags businesses and creditors are to watch for are pretty straightforward:

Identifying documents that appear fraudulent (If it looks like the fake ID you used to buy beer as a college student, consider that it might be a fake ID.)
Photo IDs that don’t match the person offering them (If a white man offers a driver’s license with a picture of a black woman on it, that should be a red flag.)
Repeated or unreported changes of address (An established client’s address is changed to that of a storage facility.)
Unusual use of established account (a client’s increase in credit usage or change in usage pattern, e.g., a customer who historically paid off low account balances monthly suddenly exceeds allowed maximum balance.)
Fraud alert or freeze on a credit report (If a credit check reveals the credit applicant has been a victim of identity theft, consider the possibility that the person asking you to extend credit might not who they say they are.)

The Rules were established by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act), in an effort to force businesses to better protect consumers from identity theft and credit fraud. While creditors will undoubtedly accept the delay gratefully, it does make a thinking person question the sincerity of the FTC’s stated intent of protecting consumers.

Summary of the 2008 FTC report on identity theft

IdentityTheft — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:40:00 GMT

The Federal Trade Commission’s annual report on fraud and identity theft was just released and it’s full of discouraging if not unexpected news.

The Consumer Sentinel Network Complaint Data Book shows 313,982 complaints in 2008, a 20% increase in reported identity theft over 2007.

Among the other significant findings reported:

Credit card fraud (20%) was the most common form of reported identity theft followed by government documents/benefits fraud (15%), employment fraud (15%), and phone or utilities fraud (13%). Other significant categories of identity theft reported by victims were bank fraud (11%) and loan fraud (4%).
Government documents/benefits fraud is now the second most common reported type of identity theft after credit card fraud. Fraudulent tax return-related identity theft, a subtype of government documents/benefits fraud, has increased nearly six percentage points since calendar year 2006.
Electronic fund transfer-related identity theft continues to be the most frequently reported type of identity theft bank fraud during calendar year 2008, despite declining since calendar year 2006.
Arizona is the state with the highest per capita rate of reported identity theft complaints, followed by California and Florida.
Only 35% of those who filed identity theft complaints with the FTC contacted their local law enforcement agencies. Those consumers who did report their identity theft incidents to a local agency might have experienced frustration; 73% of the time, the police didn’t take a report.

If your identity is stolen take the following steps:

Contact your credit card companies, bank and any government agency that issued stolen government documents—for instance if you discover that someone is using your Social Security number for employment purposes, contact the Social Security Administration.
Contact all three credit reporting agencies and place a fraud alert on your credit records. Place a reminder in your calendar that the fraud alerts must be renewed every 90days.
Contact local law enforcement and insist that they make a report. Keep a copy of the report in your files.

Beware of "free" money from credit card companies

IdentityTheft — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:10:00 GMT

Free money! Who can resist an unsolicited $10 check that just appears in the mailbox like manna? The answer is, anyone with young eyes or bifocals easily within reach; the fine print (and it is very fine and very faint) is the deal killer.

A recent example was found in a coworker’s mailbox. In this case, the fine print reveals that cashing the check automatically and immediately enrolls the endorsee in a yearlong membership in Great Fun, a discount program offered to “valued Travelers Advantage members.” Great Fun savings include deep discounts at restaurants, hotels and stores, PLUS 2% back on $5,000 worth of credit card purchases. What a deal!

Now, get out the bifocals. The annual membership begins with a free 30-day trial period, but members’ credit cards are automatically billed for an additional 11-month membership. And, at the end of that first year, an annual fee of $139.99 will be automatically charged to your credit card. And in all subsequent years, your credit card will be automatically charged at whatever the current rate is at the time.

To be fair, there is a limited opportunity for the “valued member” to cancel their Great Fun membership during the 30-day trial period by calling a toll free phone number. To be frank, the program is a product of Trilegiant, a corporation with a history of consumer complaints and class action lawsuits pertaining to unauthorized credit card charges and members’ enrollment in Trilegiant programs without informed consent.

Las Vegas mortgage broker faces federal charges for dumping applications

IdentityTheft — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:20:00 GMT

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure … or it might be another man’s mortgage application, credit report, tax returns or bank statements. In this case, it’s the basis for charges filed by the Federal Trade Commission.

Gregory Navone, a Las Vegas mortgage broker, stored in his garage roughly 40 boxes of mortgage applications, tax returns, bank statements, photocopies of driver’s licenses and credit cards, and at least 230 credit reports. After that, he threw them all in a public dumpster.

The boxes of documents were found December 20, 2006 by a neighbor who’d complained before about loose trash and litter blowing into his yard from the nearby office building’s trash containers. A closer look revealed that the papers came from First Interstate Mortgage, which had an office just down the street.

Navone was registered as the president of First Interstate Mortgage, and First Interstate Realty and BNG LLC, which had offices at the Decatur Boulevard address where the documents were found.

The FTC filed a complaint with in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on Dec. 30, 2008.

Navone is charged with violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Disposal Rule because he didn’t take reasonable care in protecting consumers’ information. And, because he gave his clients a written statement assuring them that the companies maintained “physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to store and secure information about you from unauthorized access, alteration and destruction” (though apparently the companies didn’t), Navone is also charged with violating the FTC Act.