Are you terrified about identity theft yet? If not, consider this: It could get you killed - At least that's what John Gardner, a smooth-talking lawyer and spokesman for a company called Pre-Paid Legal Services, would have you believe.
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/22/pf/idtheft_0509/
Source: CNN Money
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The popular view is that expanded use of the Internet by consumers is the chief cause of growing crime figures. But James Van Dyke, a research analyst for Javelin Strategy, told TechNewsWorld that using the Internet for banking and paying bills actually reduces the threat of identity theft and banking fraud.
Link: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/32622.html?welcome=1210360708&welcome=1216232582
Source: eCommerceTimes
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Why did Todd Davis, CEO of Lifelock, need to contract with an outside firm when his own identity was stolen last summer? Because true resolution does not come easy.... and is not a marketing gimick. Who did Mr. Davis choose to handle his personal financial recovery when his fraud alert system failed? An Identity Theft America partner, National ID Recovery.
Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/438988/lifelock_ceo_becomes_identitytheft.html
Source: AssociatedContent.com
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Over the last three years, some 49 million Americans were told that their personal information was lost, stolen or improperly disclosed by government agencies, banks or various other companies, according to a recent survey by Harris Interactive.
The solution, say the nation’s three major credit bureaus (among many other independent companies), is credit monitoring. For $60 to $180 a year, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion claim they’ll protect you from identity theft by regularly watching for changes in your credit report. About 24 million customers have signed up, according to Javelin Strategy and Research, a California-based company.
If you’re a confused and frightened customer (like most of us are when it comes to identity theft), you could end up believing one of these “Identity Theft Protection” promises, influenced by the fanfare of the marketing campaign.
But you really shouldn’t. Some of the most effective identity theft protection tools for consumers are... free. Yes, you read that correctly: Free. Or, at the very least, at a nominal fee.
These tools include Fraud Alerts, Credit Locks and Credit Freezes, Pre-screen/Opt-out Lists, the National Do Not Call Registry, and everyone’s favorite, Free Annual Credit Reports.
Any quick Internet search will provide you with a limitless selection of identity theft protection choices – from a variety of companies ready to offer you (and charge you for) tools that revolve around what is essentially free to you already. But instead of offering them to you at no cost, they’ll instead charge you as much as $100 or more per year.
BUNK ALERT: As you might expect, like any burgeoning industry, there’s going to be a lot of opportunists out there alongside the legitimate businesses. The best will offer real services the ordinary customer either doesn’t want to do themselves or would spend a lot of time doing (if they chose the do-it-yourself route). Charging a fee to monitor the Web for you to find out if your personal information is being released without your permission is a helpful tool, but simply offering credit freezes for $100 a year is not.
Still, there’s also the argument that you can wash your clothes by hand instead of using a machine. People are often too busy to worry about checking their credit reports every quarter. So if you’re one of those I-like-the-convenience customers, knock yourself out.
Hence, it almost seems inevitable that consumers will continue to pay as much as $100 or more per year for services that they could essentially have for free, or for a nominal fee, if they were to be properly directed...
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Every day, your personal information is used by someone, somewhere, for something. Most of these uses are perfectly legitimate and legal.
Most companies vow to keep your personal information safe and secure. But what happens when a company you’ve done “business” with, such as a retailer, a grocery store, a magazine publisher, your Internet, phone, or cable service provider, (oops!) loses your personal information?
It happens more than you might think.
OOPS #1: The theft of millions of customers’ credit card information from a major discount retailer continues to wreak havoc on the retailing giant. The retailer reported that in 2007 more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from its IT systems over an 18-month period. It’s considered to be the largest customer data breach on record. Read more here
OOPS #2: An "unauthorized individual" infiltrated the computer network of a third-party payment processor and may have stolen up to 40 million credit card numbers. All brands of credit cards were exposed in the attack, including 14 million MasterCard accounts, the firm said. Read more here
OOPS #3: A major discount warehouse club experienced a security breach that exposed credit card data belonging to an unspecified number of customers who purchased gas at the wholesaler’s stations. In a brief statement, the company said it was alerted to the problem by credit card issuers who reported that customers were complaining of fraudulent charges on their statements. Read more here
OOPS #4: A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed more than 4 million card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the chain announced. Credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique card numbers were exposed, placing the case among the largest data breaches ever. Read more here
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