Identity Theft

The risk of becoming an identity theft victim, as we rediscover from time to time, does not end when a person passes on.  Losing a loved one is always devastating, and of all the things that could bring up memories of their lives, calls from creditors about loved ones is not something many would expect. No one ever imagines receiving a call from a collections agency demanding to speak to your deceased relative because credit accounts they supposedly opened recently are delinquent.

Is this a prank? You ask, but it is not. How did this happen? How did your deceased relative apply for and get a new Visa card and forget to pay the bill? 90% of the time it is not a mistake or a prank. This is the work of modern-day grave robbers, identity thieves who stop at nothing to take advantage of someone else’s identity.

How does this happen? Obituaries printed in local newspapers give short descriptions about the lives people leave behind, an identity thief could either randomly pick any name and research it on public records, which are freely available to all, for more information on the victim’s previous locality and in many cases their social security number is also retrievable. Armed with this information it does not matter if the victim is 6 feet under or vacationing in Aruba, the rest is easy for the identity thief.

Authorities believe that cases like this are rare and it is recommended that families of deceased identity theft victims act immediately and put a “fraud alert” on their relatives credit file. In cases like this there are still many types of identity theft that can happen on the credit files and with the social security numbers of the deceased for many years.

There are many types of identity theft that have not been uncovered yet, but with fraud alerts in place, the identity thieves are met with more obstacles. When fraud alerts are detected by companies that obtains credit information about an applicant, they’ll be alerted right away of the possibility of fraud. Typically this will trigger the company to do further verifications on the applicant by contacting the person directly.
When your loved ones pass on the last thing you worry about is that they would be victimized again in any way, but it is possible and it happens a lot with criminal rings who work in with the aid of social and medical workers to obtain information like social security numbers and credit card information.

What you can do to protect your deceased loved one? Here’s a quick list of things families can do to avoid this from tarnishing the memory of their loved ones:
•    Never provide specific details about your loved ones in their obituaries. Only provide the year of their birth, not the day and month. Also never provide their address, this is plenty of information for a thief to get started.
•    Contact the social security administration and inform them of the death of your loved one. Once the administration is informed they will always have a record that can be referenced in case the number is used. The social security administration can be contacted at 1-800-772-1213. You must be ready to provide the “death certificate” of your loved one should they request it.
•    Contact the credit card companies and banking institutions where you loved one did business and inform them as well. Their credit accounts and bank accounts should be frozen or closed. Again make sure you have a copy of the death certificate handy.
•    Contact all three credit bureaus and either fax them or mail them a copy of the death certificate. Find more information on how to contact the credit bureaus on our identity theft victims resources page.
•    Contact the DMV in your state and cancel the driver’s license and insist that they block any duplicates from being produced.
•    It would also be wise to order a copy of your loved ones credit report about a month after the death and following again a few more times in the following year.

Reported incidents about contacts that were made to victims of IRS & FBI related phishing scams show similar characteristics in the approach taken by the scammers to dupe victims into surrendering sensitive information. The emails sent to the victims all look official, in the sense that identity thieves use exact letter heads and official looking logos, even the content of the emails sound convincing.

The premise of these scams is to basically grap the attention of the individual and suck them into the scam by presenting a situation in which the victim must cooperate immediately or face serious consequences.

Those who are not familiar with phishing scams, may feel uneasy when they receive emails directly from the IRS and it is not tax time yet, or from the FBI. This is enough to get anyone a little nervous.

Email phishing scams are very common and identity thieves use any angle to get vicitims to follow through and volunteer the requested information. What we want to make sure all readers understand here about  phishing scams through email, is that you should never answer to them, or even open them. The IRS will NEVER send you an email asking you to verify any information or to communicate anything tax related. Neither will the FBI, these are governement organizations with strict security policies.

It’s a little harder for these scams to take place via regular mail, which is why you mostly see phishing scams go through email spam inboxes. A good policy to implement for yourself would be that if it’s in your spam emailbox then simply empty it out, don’t even bother sorting through the emails for you’ll find nothing of interest.

The phishing scams may also come through phone calls, it is definitely possible for the IRS to call you in order to handle specific matters related to your taxes. However, be wary of the person calling you. The IRS assigns ID numbers to all its employees and they typically identify themselves with these ID numbers and then their names. You should also take note of the phone number they’re calling you from. If you do not have a phone that shows the caller ID number, get one! They’re relatively inexpensive. If the area code and phone look out of the ordinary (something other than 1-800, 1-866, 1-888 etc) then you should be somewhat concerned especially if you were not expecting the call.

The IRS, FBI or any other government organization contact citizens through regular mail. If the IRS wants you to know that you owe taxes they’ll write you about it. If the FBI needs anything from you they’ll either write you about it or show up at your front door.
Again, the best thing you can do about these email phishing scams is to ignore and delete them.

Illegal immigration has a long and controversial history in the US, the topics surrounding illegal immigration concentrate on social and political aspects more so than anything else. But one issue that perhaps does not get enough light is the fact that illegal immigrants are a major cause of ID theft.

The social security numbers they use to get employment are sold to them by identity theft criminals and in many cases they simply put together a random 8 digit number and sometimes they just happen to be the number belonging to an actual person. Although they simply do not know any better, the issue remains that the victims affected by their actions face serious consequences when their information is used. The financial burdens, emotional distress and often legal proceedings are more than anyone should bare due to someone else’s ignorance of the law.

Federal law imposes a mandatory two year prison sentence on anyone who commits identity fraud. An article on the NY Times talks about Supreme Court Justices who are not sure whether workers who use Social Security and alien registration numbers must know that they belong to someone else to be prosecuted and be subject to the two year prison sentence.

There is a flaw in the way the law is stated for it says that the law makes it a crime to “knowingly” or without lawful authority use a means of identification of another person. Federal appeals courts in Boston, San Francisco and Washington interpret the law as “the prosecution must prove the defendant knew the social security number belonged to another person to be found guilty”.

Should they or should they not be held accountable for using someone else’s identification even if they did not know it? Not knowing the law or being aware of wrong doings has never been a good excuse in any court of law in the United States.  The crime is still Identity Theft and the victims are real people with real lives who are being negatively impacted by this crime whether committed by someone who knows they’re doing something wrong or not.

There were plenty more cases of identity theft in 2008 than the previous year according to the FTC, the authority that enforces identity theft laws. 638 confirmed data breaches occurred in 2008, which is nearly 20% more than in 2007.

These data breaches expose consumer information and occur due to the inadequate security implementations by companies that handle consumer information. They also occur due to employees from these companies simply helping themselves to the available information in their databases and either committing the crime themselves or selling the information to criminal rings.

So what’s the outlook of identity theft in 2009?

Experts predict that the schemes used in identity theft will get more sophisticated in 2009 and occur with more frequency. Conditions are seemingly perfect for scammers right now, we’re in the midst of a really bad economy, with high unemployment and foreclosure rates. So there is a lot of opportunity to expose information from consumers in these predicaments.

Expect more real estate scams that involve bogus mortgage rescue loans targeting home owners facing foreclosure. The same goes to consumers with poor credit or overwhelming credit card debt, plenty of chances there for bogus offers that promise debt consolidation at low rates and claim that poor credit history doesn’t matter.

Unemployed consumers will also run risks by being contacted by scammers with the promise of a job, when in fact all they’re doing is physhing for information.

As consumers continue to tighten up their wallet and cease unnecessary spending, thieves may resort to more conventional methods like check stealing and dumpster diving. Check out our free identity theft prevention guide for tips on how to avoid these.

Online identity theft will continue to rise and it will become the main playground for identity thieves. More websites are popping up that cater to the black market of identity information and credit for thieves.

Data breaches show no sign of slowing down, as more and more companies are not able to keep up with the high costs of implementing information security systems that can properly protect data. 638 cases of data breaches is way too many in a single year and it’s an indication that companies are struggling as much as consumers to keep up with costs.

More scams will be uncovered this year, and more methods will be revealed as well, it’s unfortunate that there aren’t better methods in place to prevent identity theft completely but with availability of information on the internet and through public records it’s nearly impossible to keep up.

While the current economic conditions cause concern for most people, experts believe that scammers will take this as a chance to exploit the many opportunities created by the economic downturn. Identity theft cases could be on the rise.

Financial Scams – Take for example the banking crisis, ridden with folds, mergers and takeovers and the constant news coverage that keeps consumers on the alert. This gives scammers the opportunity to send out phishing e-mails claiming that personal account information is needed because of the many changes taking place in the banking sector. McAfee, the virus protection company began seeing phishing reports related to the crisis shortly after the failure and sale of Washington Mutual Bank in late September of 2008.

Job Scams – Thieves may also run their scams in the job sectors, with the numbers of companies folding under economic pressure and laying off so many workers. Identity thieves once again will phish for those unsuspecting victims who are hoping to get a call from a job recruiter, with the intention of simply getting the candidates to provide personal information.

Foreclosure/Mortgage Rescue Scams – The number of foreclosures will continue through 2009 and this is another area where scammers will continue to take advantage of desperate home owners who are trying to save their homes from repossession, especially if the home has retained some equity value. Scams in this area may come in the form of mail or even phone calls.

Phony IRS Scams – These scams will almost always occur in the form of email, since it is more difficult for scammers to use regular mail and too risky. The premise of the scam is always the same, you must follow links included in the email to update your records or to sort out a problem in which you owe back taxes. The phishing scams are always made to sound urgent and severe consequences are suggested if immediate action is  not taken.

Credit Debt Consolidation Scams – Once again due to the bad economy, some of us may be inclined to use our credit cards to get us out of tough times, but when the balances begin to grow and payments are not affordable anymore, you may consider consolidating your credit card balances. Many scammers are aware that these are often the opportunities that consumers seek in bad economic times to avoid the high interest rates, and may take the first step in contacting consumers about great consolidation offers that promise to repay their debt for pennies on the dollar.

Whatever approach the identity thieves take, please consider that if you did not request for the information you must proceed with care. Particularly if the offers come to you via email. For more information on email and other online security measures review our related articles.