January 22, 2009
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If you are an identity theft victim and someone steals your driver’s license, you’d think it is reasonable that if the police pull the criminal over for speeding or something, the crook would be caught.
Unfortunately, hundreds of drivers in British Columbia Canada are finding out that doesn’t always happen and are now getting denied car insurance.
According to CBC news, 1300 people a year apply to get tickets cancelled that were issued to people using their identities.
In BC, you can’t renew your drivers license or car insurance if you owe outstanding tickets. Normally I’d say that seems like a good idea, but what happens if it wasn’t you that got the ticket in the first place? You’re stuck.
The craziest part of the system is that the only one who can cancel the ticket is the officer who issued it in the first place. That means that they would have to admit that they made a mistake by not running the license through the system when they issued the ticket, and they are in no hurry to do that.
Records show that last March 2, a Vancouver police officer issued a $121 traffic ticket to a woman who produced Wutke’s expired driver’s licence and was driving a rental car that had been reported stolen. The police officer issued a citation for failing to obey a traffic sign and allowed her to drive away.
Wutke has since obtained a copy of the ticket, which shows the officer failed to tick off the boxes indicating he had checked the licence’s issue date and expiry date, which are clearly marked on the front of every B.C. licence.
ICBC spokesman Adam Grossman tells Go Public reporter Kathy Tomlinson that it’s up to police to cancel erroneous tickets. ICBC spokesman Adam Grossman tells Go Public reporter Kathy Tomlinson that it’s up to police to cancel erroneous tickets. (CBC)
“My driver’s licence wasn’t run. Had they run it, they would have realized that there is a more recently issued driver’s licence and that the one that he obtained from her should be void and you know — red flags,” Wutke said.
Wutke said she’s been informed by police in B.C. and Ontario that the stolen car has since been recovered, but her identity has since been used in at least two more thefts of rental vehicles.
What are the rules where you are? Can you renew your drivers license or insurance even if you have outstanding tickets?
Source; CBC
Posted in Cases, Identity Theft, Insurance 
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December 23, 2008
What would you do if you were sitting in Starbucks enjoying a beverage, and you realized that you recognized the woman at the counter – it was the woman that had stolen your identity 5 months earlier. Would you give chase?
That’s exactly what Karen Lodrick from San Francisco did, and it lead to a foot chase through the streets (and streetcars) of San Francisco, and to the eventual capture of the suspect.
“Ed, I’ve got to go,” she told her friend. “I’ve got to follow her.”
“Don’t do anything crazy, Karen,” said Fuentes. “She could have a gun.”
“I’ve got to do it.” She feared that if she didn’t act, the identity thief would disappear, along with any hope of ending her bad dream. The chase was on.
For five months, the thief had dipped into Karen’s accounts like they were her own private piggy bank. She scammed thousands of dollars more, using credit cards she opened in Karen’s name. The banks were unable to stop her. The police could do nothing. Creditors demanded payment for the thief’s transactions. Karen closed her accounts, only to have the criminal crack open the new ones she’d opened and drain those too.
Check out the amazing story in Readers Digest. Would you have done the same as Karen?
Posted in Cases, Identity Theft No Comments »
December 14, 2008
A while ago I posted about how your online job application could lead to identity theft.
iProfile, the company mentioned in the story, reached out to me and let me know that they had a new slideshow that they put together talking about “CV Identity Fraud” (in case you are not sure, a CV is what everyone else outside of North America calls a resume).
In the slideshow, they talk about how one woman lost GBP 14,000 (that’s 21,000 USD!) after she applied for a job online. Yikes!!
Here’s the slideshow.
Are you being more careful these days when you apply for a job online?
Posted in Identity Theft 1 Comment »
November 14, 2008
A $1 Million identity theft ring that targeted US Troops in Texas, involved homeless people, and had insiders in the Navy and a bank was brought down by… parking in a fire lane.
Here is how it went down: Cora Dixon is a former US Navy Petty Officer. She had access to the direct deposit information at the Fort Worth Reserve base.
She’d take personal information from sailors at the base and then her boyfriend, Seneca Willis, would reach out to a teller at Bank of America, Angel R. Mitchell, who would tell him how much money they had in their bank accounts.
Then Willis would go to homeless shelters in Dallas and offering homeless people cash or drugs to go to the bank and cash checks from those accounts.
Another member of the ring, Zachariah Long, would then make up fake ID with the homeless person’s picture and checks from the account.
Despite bilking 8000 servicemen out of more than $1 million, the group didn’t appear to have any long range thinking with this scheme:
Police believe members of the theft ring spent the money on luxury cars, trips and at Dallas strip clubs. At the time of their arrests last year, authorities seized eight cars, two motorcycles and a truck.
“They didn’t have much money left when they were arrested,” Euless police Detective Brian Brennan said Thursday. “They just blew it all.”
I guess since apparently WIllis and Long met at a Dallas strip club, they had a soft spot for them.
The plan was all going well until Zachariah Long parked in a fire lane. He ended up getting arrested (you get arrested for parking in a fire lane? yikes) and the police searched his car. They found counterfeit checks and a laptop with stolen identities on it. It all fell apart then.
All 8,000 servicemen impacted have been notified. I assume they went out and signed up for an identity theft service right away.
Source: CBS 11 and Star-Telegram.
Posted in Cases, Identity Theft No Comments »
November 9, 2008
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Just click here and when you sign up, you’ll get 10% off any of the listed plans. Not a bad deal.
Click here to get 10% off at TrustedID.
Posted in TrustedID No Comments »
October 30, 2008
It’s no big surprise that P2P networks can be full of scary stuff, and it’s no shocker that people need to be careful.
However, this is a new twist.
According to Fox News, people have been making campaign videos promoting John McCain and Barack Obama and putting them up on P2P networks.
When the unsuspecting user downloads the video, an alert comes up saying that their computer has problems and they need to install “antivirus” software. Of course, that software has a massive back door and lets criminals get in and steal personal information like Social Security Numbers.
The latest scam is one reason that Webroot’s Paul Piccard says that file sharing networks now “pose some of the greatest security risks on the Internet.” That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with P2P file-sharing itself — social networking sites have big malware problems as well, and spam and malware over email remains the largest threat by far. But P2P’s unique and valuable ability to link together so many computer users makes it an attractive target for criminal abuse. It also means file-sharers need to become more aware to make sure they aren’t unintentionally sharing their private data.
Again, no big shocker there, but watch out for those two shady characters!
Source: Fox News
Posted in Identity Theft No Comments »
October 23, 2008
Finally in this economy you see a job posting that is great for you. You get your resume polished, go to the website, and submit it.
Great idea right? Possibly not. It could lead to identity theft.
In the UK, a company called iProfile got together with the police and the Information Assurance Advisory Council (kind of an information risk watchdog) got together and made up a fake company and website. They then put a job in the newspaper (if its in the paper it must be legit right?) and waited to see what would happen.
The results were pretty predictable. 107 people submitted their resume, and of those “61 contained enough information to apply for a credit card”.
From a BBC article about the test:
The CVs that were submitted contained an average of eight different pieces of information that might have been useful to an identity fraudster.
The most common ones were full address and date of birth. One application included both a passport and national insurance number.
What should you do to prevent this? Before submitting your resume, do some quick research about the company. Google them. Do they have a “real” looking website? Are others linking to it? Do they have an office? Look up the address on Google maps.. is it real, or is it in the middle of a park somewhere?
To further protect yourself, limit the amount of personal information you put on your resume. Obviously you need name, phone number, and email address, but cut out date of birth, marital status, and place of birth. You might even be able to get away with not putting your address at the initial application stage.
Source: BBC
Posted in Identity Theft 1 Comment »
October 17, 2008
On November 1, your biggest problem might be the amount of Hallowe’en candy you ate the night before. However, banks and small businesses might have a different problem.
On that day, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) comes into effect. You might also know it by its more common name, “Red Flag Regulations”.
According to eWeek, the Red Flag Rules mean that organizations need to take a look at their existing identity theft policies (hopefully they have some!).
More specifically, FACTA requires a written ID theft prevention policy that includes polices that identify “patterns, practices or specific activities that could indicate identity theft,” according to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Violators of the new rules can be subject to civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.
The catch to this is that most people thought that it was just targeted to banks, but people have started to notice that FACTA actually covers “any person or business” that arranges for customer credit.
If you’re someone that sells things on eBay and takes credit card, you can relax. It doesn’t mean that if you take credit you are covered (yet).
What sort of things trigger a red flag?
The FTC added the Red Flag rules to FACTA in January. Businesses are required to define policies for recognizing red flags in identity verification. Typical red flags include discrepancies in address histories, fraud alerts on consumer reports, questionable use of Social Security numbers, credit freeze notifications and unusual patterns of customer activities.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Source: eWeek
Posted in Identity Theft No Comments »
June 15, 2008
One nice thing about identity theft (though not so nice for the victims), is that there is always something to write about. There were a lot of cases reported, as well as one of the worst data breaches I have ever heard of. There was also the first Identity Thoughts video (and it won’t be the last). Here are some of the best posts from May (in my opinion):
Since this is such a new identity theft blog, I’d love any and all feedback. What sort of information would you like? Do you prefer the “how-to” articles or more current events. Are you interested in videos? A podcast? Please leave a comment or email me atbd@identitythoughts.com.
Thank you!
Posted in Uncategorized No Comments »
June 1, 2008
I don’t really remember what I was up to at 15 years old, but I am pretty sure it was not breaking into my school’s computer files and accessing personal information.
However, that is exactly what an enterprising young lad from Downington, PA did on May 9.
Officials discovered (how is not released yet), that the kid had gained access to teachers’ Social Security, addresses, and their actual W2 forms (yikes).
All in all, there were 71 teachers that were impacted, but there was also apparently Social Security Numbers and other information for “thousands of school district taxpayers”.
What kind of system could this kid have gotten into that has that kind of information?
So far there has been no reports of any identity theft activity, but the student did share the info with some other classmates. Even though the flash drive that the information was on has been recovered, who knows where this stuff has ended up.
How could a school be so lax as to allow a 15 year old to get this kind of information? A comment on the Breach Blog post about this case is interesting:
I can personally attest that the schools technology administration is incompetent, i met with the asst. director of techology and he knew absolutely nothing pertaining to information technology, the kid in question accesed files that were UNPROTECTED and the administration now must lie to save themselves. its really sad they are telling the teachers and people that he “hacked” he just accesed the unprotected information. the administration should be prosecuted. people need to know the real story.
Obviously who knows if this guy is legit, but interesting nonetheless.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer via Breach Blog
Posted in Data Breach Sunday No Comments »
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