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HSFPP Weekly Update # 169—Identity Theft: It Can Happen to You

Message from Bob: When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released their list of the top 10 consumer complaints of 2005 back in January, identity theft topped the list, accounting for about 255,000 of the 686,000 complaints filed over 2005. As you can guess, based on these statistics, criminals realize how much easier it is to steal from consumers and businesses via identity theft; and how much less likely they are to get caught, since they are not robbing anyone with a gun. We all need to safeguard our personal information in order to reduce the likelihood that we will be victimized by identity thieves. Next week we will build on this theme with information on how you can protect your privacy rights.

 

Update on In-Service Training:

Our “Financial Savvy Consumer” workshops will meet the following two days:

J081 - Thursday, September 21: Fayette County Extension Office, Room C, Lexington.
Registration deadline: September 14 (Date that payment should arrive in our office)

J083 - Wednesday, September 27: Hardin County Extension Office, Project Room, Elizabethtown. Registration deadline: September 20 (Date that payment should arrive in our office)

We have cancelled the September 26 training session that was to take place in Princeton. If you were planning to attend that session, please consider attending the session in Elizabethtown.

Please note that the deadlines for both of these sessions are almost upon us. We need to get registrations by these deadlines in order to have enough materials for all who attend. If it looks like you will be late, please fax (859) 257-3212  the registration form to us before sending it in with your check., or call Alex at (859) 257-7753

Also:

Please also note that we made the following mistake on the registration form for these in-services: Checks should be made payable to Friends of Kentucky 4-H. If you have already sent your check in, we will return it and ask for another check made out to Friends of Kentucky 4-H. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience.

 

Web Site Picks of the Week:

http://ag.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/03BEBF96-F293-4ED6-97D6-698216AA1CFD/0/idtheft_kit.pdf
The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office: “Identity Theft: Kentucky Victim Kit”

http://www.idtheftcenter.org/index.shtml
The Identity Theft Resource Center

These Web sites provide great resources about identity theft for consumers and victims, including current laws, a reference library, news, and scam alerts.

 

Notes to Educators:

History / Social Studies class: Research the history of identity fraud in the U.S. and write a short essay on the subject. Areas to be considered include the various laws on identity fraud. Compare federal law with Kentucky law just passed in the last session of the legislature.

English class: Write a letter to your congressperson to help people who have had their identity stolen. Detail the various positions involved with this issue and weigh the evidence. Identify a solution that you think your congressperson should pursue. The letter should be three pages, with notes and bibliography included separately. Use at least three sources: Magazine and newspaper articles only; no encyclopedias may be used. At least two of your sources must be current (no more than one year old).

 

In the New$... As Identity Theft Increases, We All Need to Protect Our Personal Information

By Robert H. Flashman, Ph.D., and Alex Lesueur, Jr., M.S.L.S., University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension

You don’t need to do anything wrong for it to happen. You can do everything experts suggest you do to protect yourself, but still have your identity stolen. Just ask the nearly 19,000 online shoppers whose personal information was hacked from AT&T’s computer system last month. Their online transactions should have been secure, but it didn’t turn out that way. Although Social Security numbers were not revealed, this security breach does pose a danger to customers’ identities and finances.

A similar incident occurred here at the University of Kentucky in May 2006. Approximately 1,300 current and former employees’ personal and work information became accessible online for about two weeks, long enough for it to be indexed by search engines. I was one of those employees, and I placed a security alert on my credit report the day I learned of the incident. In the future, I will have to keep a close watch on my credit records and periodically renew the security alert in order to avoid having my identity stolen. It’s hard to say now how much time and energy I will have to put into protecting my identity, and it looks like I will need to keep up the effort for the foreseeable future.

Many people are in similar situations, so we all must be cautious in protecting our personal information. Learn to avoid activities that can place you at greater risk. Even the most cautious of us can have our identities stolen, as our personal records are out of our hands. They are handled every day and are placed in many databases without our knowledge or consent.

The Federal Trade Commission lists identity theft as the top consumer complaint for 2005. 37 percent of all consumer fraud complaints filed last year were for identity theft. This type of fraud is both serious and common.

Nor is it only a few thousand people here and there who are placed at risk. As many as 26.5 million U.S. veterans were placed at greater risk when a government laptop computer was stolen in May. It had sensitive personal data on file, data that can be used to steal victims’ identities if the burglars realize the value of the information. This theft is the biggest of its kind so far.

Last month, America Online (AOL) placed search queries by 650,000 of their customers on their Web site. They have since removed this data and apologized, but the data has spread to other sites. Any searches that expose personal financial information could be used against these consumers. Medical history and other personal information also could be revealed.

Identity theft has become such a big problem that President Bush has created a task force to deal with it.

Victims can spend years recovering. They may be turned down for credit, for housing, and for employment. Criminal identity theft is a special problem. Because the criminal commits crimes by pretending to be the victim, the victim may be arrested for crimes he or she did not commit. This is something we all want to avoid.

What You Can Do

If your personal information gets where the wrong people can see it or someone steals your identity, you can do some things to protect yourself. First contact one of the three biggest credit reporting bureaus—Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion—to place a fraud alert on your credit record. You may instead do this by telling a consolidated credit report provider such as AnnualCreditReport.com. Contact them online at http://www.annualcreditreport.com, or call (877) 322-8228. When you tell one of the three big credit bureaus, they will tell the other two.

You might find it hard to get through and tell them, however. The big credit bureaus take your requests over the phone, but their phone systems can be hard for you to use. You might find it easier to place your request on the Web site of one of these companies or on AnnualCreditReport.com. But you might still need to mail them some information so they can access your file. Do this, even if it is difficult; if you do nothing, you will be far worse off.

If your personal information gets where the wrong people can see it, but you find no fraud on your credit report, you may place an alert on your record for 90 days. You can renew this alert every 90 days. You get a free credit report when you place this alert. If someone does steal your identity, file a police report with your local police or with the police where the fraud took place. Close all accounts that might have been seen by the wrong person or that were opened against your wishes.

If you have a police report of actual fraud, you may place an alert for seven years. A new Kentucky law that took effect July 12 allows you to place a security freeze on your record. This will keep people from getting your credit report without your approval. It costs $10, but is free if you give them a copy of your police report. Don’t place such a freeze on your record unless you need to do it, however; it will make it hard for you if you apply for credit yourself. But, if you need to buy something big like a car or home, you can lift the freeze temporarily for $10.

Dispute any bills that result from identity theft. Tell the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office about any companies that try to get you to pay those bills even after you write to them about what happened.
Sources: Sun-Sentinel, “Hacker Steals Information on 19,000 online Shoppers from ATT. August 31,2006 . Electronic Frontier Foundation AOL’s Massive Data Leak
http:// www.eff.org/privacy/aol/
Discussion Questions:

1.) What do you currently do to protect yourself from identity theft? Discuss ways that you protect yourself when on the Internet and at other times.

 

2.) In what ways do you think teenagers are most vulnerable to identity theft and what can teens do to correct this?

 

3.) Should penalties for identity thieves be more severe?

 

Follow-up Activity:

Quiz: Consumers can test their knowledge about identity theft at www.onguardonline.gov/quiz. Choose the appropriate ones for your audience’s age and knowledge level.

 

Kentucky High School Financial Planning Program

http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp

The purpose of the HSFPP weekly financial updates and Web site is to assist county Extension agents, credit union educators, high school teachers, and parents who home school their teenagers so that they may improve the economic well-being of our teenagers; and also to show educators how the HSFPP and the weekly updates meet Kentucky core concepts. The Web site and weekly updates are provided by the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, and are free to all educators. The list of core concepts and order form for free program materials including the student guide and instructors manual can be found on the Kentucky HSFPP home page.