I saw a news story today about a guy in Muncie, Ind. who’s been getting calls about late payments on his new Jeep Cherokee.
Yeah, I know, millions of people get calls like that every day. This guy’s calls are a little special, though, because he doesn’t own a Jeep Cherokee, but a favorite relative of his, Cory S. Kortman, just got a new Jeep Cherokee! Small world, huh? (more…)
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Employers know a lot more about you than you know about them. Anyone with access to your human resources file has your name, address, phone number, date of birth, Social Security number, place of birth, credit history, work history, salary history and physical description.
But who are these people who hold all that information about you? (more…)
If you read a lot of identity theft stories, they might all start to sound the same. But every once in a while you run across one with a refreshingly different twist. It’s the “stupid criminal” element that sets this one apart.
Johnny Opara, of St. Paul, Minn., has been charged with seven felony tax crimes and one case of identity theft, according to the Minnesota Department of Revenue.
Some of Opara’s victims say they hired him to prepare their taxes, but he never filed them. In other cases, Opara, 55, allegedly filed taxes for people who hadn’t hired him and knew nothing about his activities. (more…)
Financial identity theft is on the news, in the newspaper, and a topic of conversation wherever you go. It seems everyone you talk to either knows someone who’s been a victim, or has been a victim themselves.
Findings on the impact and scope of financial identity theft:
Dayton Diaz admitted in court that he provided another man with the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of roughly 75 customers from the car dealership where we worked.
Until September, Diaz was sales manager at Rick Case Acura in Plantation, Fla., which gave him easy access to the information. He sold that information to Fitzroy Carter for $9,000, or $120 for each set of information. Carter then used the stolen identities to buy $130,000 worth of computers. (more…)
If you haven’t seen President-elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech yet but are still interested, find it on the Internet from a reliable source. But whatever you do, don’t fall for the spam flooding inboxes everywhere. Click on the link for an Adobe Flash Player update, and what you’ll really get is malware carrying a Trojan horse that’s going to steal your data, according to an article that ran Friday on WashingtonPost.com.
Besides the message offering a chance to hear the acceptance speech, there are others with subject lines “election results winner” and “the new president’s cabinet?” and “fear of a black president.”
Clinking on the link sends the recipients to an official-looking site, where they’ll be asked to download “adobe_flash9.exe”. Don’t do it–that’s the Trojan horse. (more…)
Express Scripts has gone public today with information that they were contacted early in October by extortionists who threatened to disclose personal and medical information on millions of the company’s customers if Express Scripts doesn’t meet their ransom demands.
The ransom request was sent by mail and accompanied by the names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and, in some cases, prescription details, of 75 of the firm’s 50 million customers.
George Paz, Express Scripts’ chief executive, said the company will not pay the ransom, but declined to say how much money the extortionists demanded. (more…)
Much of the information that makes up the outline of our personal histories exists digitally. We have records, medical charts, college transcripts, military records, county clerk’s files, credit scores, and personnel records. And we’re learning the hard way that we can’t necessarily trust the accidental archivists with our information. (more…)
Identity theft is something we’re all familiar with by now – some of us have become painfully familiar with the ensuing aggravation, paranoia and financial damage. But there’s a new and growing subset of identity theft whose ramifications can deadly.
Medical identity theft is a crime wherein your medical or insurance information is used to obtain medical care or to falsely file for payment of medical care. Perhaps it’s best illustrated by example: (more…)
