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Episode #2112
Identity Theft
Brown: What would you do if you went to the ATM tomorrow and discovered your account had been cleaned out, and you knew you had just made a deposit? Well, this story is becoming more common as officials reports identity theft as the fastest growing crime in our state. Find out what you can do to protect yourself next on Black Issues Forum.
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Voiceover: Funding for this program is made possible in part by UNC TV members.
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Brown: Hello and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Natalie Bullock Brown. Identity theft is a growing crime in America. According to a report by the North Carolina Department of Justice, there were 9.9 million victims of identity theft in the US alone in 2004. Two hundred and eight-six thousand of those victims were residents of North Carolina, and the number of victims reporting has doubled in recent years. Additionally, reports to the FTC by North Carolinians increased from over 1,600 cases in 2001 to nearly 2,900 in 2002, and the Social Security Administration reported a 490% in allegations of Social Security number misuse between fiscal years 1998 and 2001. Now how does this happen? What's the damage? And how can you reduce your risk? We'll try to answer those questions today with our panel of guests.
I'd like to introduce Ron Green, a senior vice president at Bank of America in Charlotte. He works with information security in their corporate investigations unit. We also have Caroline Farmer, special counsel on victims issues at the North Carolina Department of Justice. And we have Stone Tyler, who was a victim of identity theft and is still paying a hefty price to recover. Thanks to all of you for being on Black Issues Forum.
Let's start off with just understanding simply what identity theft is, and I'm going to start with you, Caroline, if you would just give us a definition of it.
Farmer: Basically, the short version of the law is, if anybody uses your identifying information for any benefit, it is a felony. So that means if they use it for criminal purposes, financial purposes, any type of gain, it is the felony of identity theft.
Brown: Now Stone, you unfortunately were a victim of identity theft. Tell us a little bit about what happened to you and how you're still dealing with the repercussions of it.
Tyler: Well, actually I didn't know anything was going on until I started getting stopped by the police. And once I would get stopped by the police, they would be like, "Can I see your identification?" I'd show it to them and they'd do their little thing in their car, come back to me, and say, "We're sorry but we have warrants out for your arrest." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And it's like, "We're taking you to jail." And I would go to jail, and they'd say, "Well, you have these warrants out for your arrest for marijuana charges, driving while impaired," and I was like, "I don't drink." And they were like, "Well, according to this, you do, and you have not appeared in court, so we are putting you in this holding cell." And I was just floored at that time.
Brown: How long had, or do you know how long your identity had been stolen prior to you beginning to be aware of the fact that something was going on?
Tyler: I had no earthly idea until I got stopped by the police.
Brown: So for how long-what's the total time period that you had to deal with this?
Tyler: I've been dealing with this probably about five years now or more, and this person, it's like an ongoing thing, you think you're at that point where everything is going to end, and then you find more stuff and people are still calling you, telling you, "Well, we found this on you, so you need to pay this bill," and you're like, "I've never had this magazine, I don't know who this company is or what's going on here."
Brown: Well, what are the things that you did find about, I mean, being arrested and the charges that were against you or your name, how long did it take you to clear all that, and what did you end up having to eventually do in order to clear your name?
Tyler: Well, actually I haven't really cleared up anything yet, but I had to get a new Social Security number, a new driver's license number, and it took quite awhile to get all of that stuff. You go through hoops and hurdles to get this stuff because it's not like you get a new Social Security number every day of your life, or a new driver's license number, and it took me quite awhile to get this stuff, so it had to be approved before I could even get it done.
Brown: And you have also changed your name as a result.
Tyler: Yes, I have changed my name too. I don't have my birth name any more, I had to change my name to something else, now my name is Stone Tyler and-
Brown: What was your name before?
Tyler: My name was Anthony Dwight Stone before all of this happened.
Brown: How much has all this cost you?
Tyler: It has cost me a lot of money.
Brown: If you don't mind, how much in dollars, because we want our viewers to know exactly what we're dealing with here.
Tyler: I've spent over $350,000 or more on this.
Brown: Are you saying $35,000 or $350,000?
Tyler: Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars on this.
Brown: My goodness. And it's still going on?
Tyler: It's still going on.
Brown: Ron, help us to understand how this can happen. How can someone get a hold of your Social Security number or whatever identifying information might allow them to wreak havoc on your identity.
Green: There is a myriad of ways that your personal information can be compromised. I think in Stone's case it was through a relative, they gave it out to someone they really should not have. But there are a number of ways. It could be you do business with a business online, or you have an account at some company, and they are the subject of a network intrusion by an outside hacker that attacks in. It could be when you're walking through a mall or an airport, you see little cards where it asks you to fill out information, you put that information in, you drop it into a little bucket or something like that. Where does that go? Who gets that? You never know. It could be your doctor's office. There is a number of ways that people can harvest your information.
Brown: We actually have a graphic that we can show that lists some of the ways that people can lose their identity. There is mail theft, which I understand happens quite often, right Caroline?
Farmer: Yes, it does. Very much so.
Brown: Fraudulent address changes, Dumpster diving, shoulder surfing, and we're going to explain what some of these terms mean, lost or stolen purse or wallet, insider access as Ron was speaking of, the Internet, skimming and pre-texting. Okay, now let's kind of define our terms. Caroline, what is Dumpster diving?
Farmer: Dumpster diving is __ basically, but it means somebody going through your garbage, simply put.
Brown: So there are people that exist that would actually go into your garbage Dumpster to find what, pre-approved credit card applications?
Farmer: Exactly. Old bills. I mean, credit card theft is the number one type of identity theft. Under that is utility theft. We sort of forget about our cell phone bill and our BellSouth bill and so forth, and the power.
Brown: What sort of information could someone get from your cell phone or your BellSouth bill that would help them?
Farmer: Your account number. And just think about how easy it would be to say, "Hi, my name's Caroline Farmer, this is my address, this is my account number. I need another cell phone, would you start a new account? I've got a phone here with me, would you help me program it?" They're happy to service you and start the new account. So if your phone bill jumps up $30 one month, don't assume you've gone over your minutes, you might want to check it a little harder to see if a new account's shown up.
Brown: Gotcha. Ron, can you talk a little bit about some of the misconceptions that people have about how people access their information?
Green: Some of the misconceptions I think are when-I see a lot of focus on threats involving attacks-there are certainly a number of different attacks that take place where hackers break into network systems. But increasingly, I've seen more and more corporations harden up, make it harder for an attacker to actually penetrate the network, but then what then follows is, the attackers, instead of attacking the hard networks, the hard targets, they go after softer targets. They go after consumers at home. When people buy a computer, they run down to an electronics store, they buy a computer, they take it home, that have high-speed internet, they connect it together and they're on the internet. Well, it's kind of like buying a house. You don't buy a house without having locks on the doors and making sure all your windows are locked. When you buy a computer, you need to make sure that you have all the appropriate security measures in place, a firewall, antivirus, antispyware, and that their security updates are all in place.
Now that will make you a lot less vulnerable to some of the threats that are out there, threats as simplistic as phishing, where they send you an email and say it's from the bank, to as intrusive as them planting malicious code on your machine that as you type in, there's code that will wait for a bank URL-uniform resource locator address-and as soon as they see a bank address, they'll turn on and they'll capture your keystrokes, your username and your password so that's harvested by the threat, and then they can come back and use that information to do harm.
Brown: That's mind-boggling. And I'm glad that you're talking about the internet because in this information age, where so many people are now doing shopping online, banking online, paying bills online, it's just crucial that you understand that there are people that are sending emails-I get them all the time, and I feel like I'm kind of savvy with the internet, but even still, I'm like, "Is this really from EarthLink, or is this really from SunTrust, and should I send my information?" Let's stick with this for a moment. How can you tell when an email is coming from someone who is trying to perpetrate fraud, and when it's legitimate? Caroline, can you answer that?
Farmer: Sure. In general, no legitimate business is going to send you an email saying that there's been a problem with your account or they've lost your information; that is not how they're going to reach out to you.
Brown: How will they reach out to you?
Farmer: They're either going to call you over the phone, they're going to contact you by mail usually is the most prominent method, and they're going to ask you to contact your local bank, something that you feel more comfortable going to. So when you get those calls or emails and you're not really sure, you really should contact your local bank to see if it's legitimate, so somebody that you trust to look it over.
Brown: Now you said earlier, I think you said credit card fraud is the most-
Farmer: --common identity theft. It is.
Brown: Yes. And mail theft, is that also--?
Farmer: Mail theft is, but usually mail theft leads to credit card fraud or leads to utility fraud; it's just a means of getting access, and back before I knew about all this, I used to take those pre-approved credit card applications and pour my old spaghetti on top of it; I figured there's nobody who wants to go through my garbage! You know, there's people who are willing because it's profitable; $6,000 in one day, one person, that's a lot of money for somebody.
Brown: And Stone, coming back to you, how much money-let me put it this way: the $350,000 that you said identity theft has cost you, does that include what has been actually taken from you as well as what you've paid to get your name cleared?
Tyler: It's money I've paid to clear up my name. I haven't even dealt with the credit part of it yet.
Brown: So there's still money that you've lost as a result of someone using your credit that you have not been able to clear up.
Tyler: Yes.
Brown: Do you know who took your identity?
Tyler: Yes, I know exactly who did it. That's the fortunate thing, most people who get their identity stolen, they have no earthly idea who's doing it. But occasionally it's mostly a family member or someone that you closely know that's doing it to you. And I was just lucky that I did know the person who was doing it.
Brown: And how did you find out that this person was doing it? Tell us who it was if you don't mind and then how you found out.
Tyler: His name is Thomas Earl Batts [ph], and the way I found out is I get arrested in Nash County, and they took me to the jail and I stayed overnight. The next morning I asked them, "Since you all have arrested me several times, do you have a photograph or anything on file for me?" and the guy was trying to be snobbish and said, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure we do." Then when he got it he came back and brought me up front and he says, "We're sorry, but we got the wrong person here." And he showed the picture to me, and he said, "Do you know this guy?" And I was like, "Yes, I know him. That's my sister's boyfriend."
Brown: And can you give us the straw that broke the camel's back, is your sister still dating this person?
Tyler: Yes, she's still dating him. They still live together, and she's like, "It's okay, it's something that happened that's old, so let it go," but to me, it's an everyday thing that I wake up to.
Brown: And still having an effect on you.
Tyler: Yes, exactly.
Brown: Well, we have some laws that we want to share with you because North Carolina is one of only several states that has enacted expanded legislation to help protect consumers from identity fraud. In December, legislators signed into law the Identity Theft Protection Act of 2005. Now this law gives consumers the option to freeze their credit. It limits the use of Social Security numbers and ID numbers and restricts their sale and display. It also ensures that businesses that dispose of personal identification information about their customers destroy or shred those records, and it requires businesses to notify their customers if a security breach may have compromised their personal information and placed them at risk of identity theft. It also prohibits state and local government agencies from unnecessarily collecting people's Social Security numbers or from disclosing those numbers to the general public if they do need to collect them.
Now, Ron, I want to talk about this thing of collecting Social Security numbers, or actually providing your Social Security number legitimately to maybe your credit card company, your bank over the phone, or by internet. What is the general rule that people should follow so that they can avoid some of these problems?
Green: That's kind of a tough one. For your financial institutions, when you're doing financial transactions, a lot is tied to your Social Security number. I don't know if that was the original intent of the Social Security Number, but it really is tied to your Social Security number and all of your credit and things of that nature. But there are a number of other institutions, companies and businesses that require your Social Security or ask you for your Social Security number when I don't know that they really need it.
Brown: Can you give us an example?
Green: Just off the top of my head, I remember renting a piece of equipment one time, and it wasn't an expensive piece of equipment, and I was paying for it up front to rent it, but in asking me for information about me, my home address, my phone number, they also wanted to have my Social Security number, and it really made no sense to me why they needed to have that, so I just refused to provide my Social Security number. I think most people don't think about resisting that-you don't need my Social Security number to complete this transaction. I'm giving you everything you need; there is no real reason why you need to maintain that.
Brown: Right, right. Well, Caroline would a good rule of thumb be that you refuse to give your Social Security number, let the business that you're dealing with tell you that we have to have this information instead of you giving it out?
Farmer: I ask the question, why? Why do you need it? So ask the question why. I went to an eye doctor recently and they said they needed it to process my insurance. I called my insurance right there and said, "DO you need my Social Security number to be processing this?" and they said no. so I let the insurance company deal with the eye doctor and work it out, but it would not have happened if I did not ask why.
Brown: So people have to be more willing-
Farmer: Proactive.
Brown: More proactive.
Farmer: Definitely.
Brown: Let's talk about the security freeze, because that seems to be a really important part of the new legislation that has come about.
Farmer: The security freeze is going to be critical, I believe, because really, there are two ways people steal your identity, financially: they steal your current accounts that you know about and you watch every month, you get statements on, and they steal accounts you don't know about, new accounts in your name. The security freeze locks off those new accounts. You're saying, "I already have my credit, I don't want anymore credit," I think that the person, it stops somebody from using your Social Security number to get new credit in your name, and the attorney general really worked hard on this and he believes this is going to be a huge thing for most citizens.
Brown: And just to emphasize, the security freeze is something that people should do proactively, not in response to thinking that perhaps they've been a victim of identity theft.
Farmer: Correct. In North Carolina, it's one of the few states you can do it and not just be a victim. For example, if you are a caretaker for a grandmother or somebody like that, that person is not out there getting new credit cards. They don't need new mortgages, new car loans; freeze their credit. It costs $30 but after it's done it's frozen until you need to lift it, and it takes five business days to lift it, which is not unreasonable. Most people know if they're going to need credit, they'll know five days in advance, so it's a very reasonable option and for people who are vulnerable like that-for myself it'll be perfect. I already have my established credit. My husband, he likes to go to Best Buy on Super Bowl Sunday and get that big screen TV and get the 25% off by getting new credit. It might not work for him-
[LAUGHTER]
-but you have to look at it for yourself.
Brown: Ron, talk a little bit about the part of the legislation that demands that businesses inform consumers when a breach in security has occurred.
Green: I think if you look in a lot of the businesses that are well-established like the bank for instance, when an incident occurs that-there's an expectation that someone could or might use that information, a notification is made. I think where you're really going to see an effect on those smaller business are those businesses that would not have reported it, just making sure that they comply or compel them to make those same admissions that other business make.
Brown: And how do you compel them to do that?
Green: The new law does.
Brown: So it's against the law now if you do not, if you are business whether small or large, and you do not inform your consumers?
Farmer: Yes, if you have a reasonable belief that you have been violated or your customers' information is violated, or even your employees' information is violated, you have a duty to notify them, and it's under the statute.
Brown: So it's absolute protection.
Farmer: Yes, and they can call the attorney general's office for information on that.
Brown: That's awesome. Stone, all this information that we're talking about, have you been able to utilize any of it in your life now to head off future identity theft or potential identity theft? How have you modified your behavior to protect yourself?
Tyler: Well, I went out a bought a shredder, and anything that comes in that mailbox that has my name on it, Jet magazine, anything-
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-before it goes in that trash, I cut the address off. If I take something to work, a magazine to let people see it, I take the Magic Marker and mark out my name and address and everything, even simple flyers that come in with my name on them, they go in the trash, they are shredded before they go in that trash can. If I go somewhere, Blockbuster, and they need my Social Security number to open up an account, okay, let's forget it.
Brown: You won't do it.
Tyler: No, that's okay; I don't need it that bad.
Brown: Wow, this is really, really-but Caroline, it doesn't seem like you can be too careful.
Farmer: Oh, no, no. and there are simple things people can do to protect themselves. Watch what comes in in the mail, try to reduce those pre-approved credit cards. You can do that-
Brown: How do you do that?
Farmer: You can go to any of the three credit bureaus and opt out, that's the phrase they use, and that means you will not receive pre-approved credit card applications. And then we also have the information on our website, which is NCDOJ.com, so you also-take your driver's license off your checks, something so simple as that, because it forces the people to-they ask for ID, no matter, we've all been to the grocery store and they say, "Is everything on here current?" and you say yes. Well, they just circle that pre-printed driver's license number on that check and stick it in the cash register and never ask for your ID, so by not putting it on there, you're forcing them to ask for ID. Other things you can do like shredding, you mentioned that. Check your credit, right now, check your credit, it's free under federal law, they'll check your credit, annualcreditreport.com is a wonderful place, and that's the only place you get your free credit report.
Brown: Annualcreditreport.com. And Ron, I want to give you the last word. Any other pieces of advice you would offer our viewers and consumers to protect themselves?
Green: I can only just reiterate what Caroline said: a shredder, having one available to destroy those documents; I mentioned before, if you didn't catch everything that I said about protecting your own personal computer, the Department of Homeland Security, under their Cert US, they have some guidelines for you to look at on how to better protect your system. Pay attention to your credit reports. You shouldn't have to wait for a company to notice you to say, "Hey, something might have happened with your privacy information," you should be doing that anyway.
Brown: Thank you very much. Our thanks to Ron Green, Caroline Farmer, and Stone Tyler for sharing their knowledge with us today. For more information about identity theft, or a transcript of today's show, please visit us online at unctv.org/bif, or call us at (919) 549-7167. Be sure to meet us back here each Sunday afternoon at 4:30. For Black Issues Forum I'm Natalie Bullock Brown reminding you to be encouraged no matter what. Have a good one.
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Voiceover: Funding for this program is made possible in part by UNC TV members.
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