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IJ: How bad is ID theft in the United States right now?
Robert
Douglas: Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America
today. Currently, there are anywhere from a half million to
750,000 cases each year, with an average financial loss of
$17,000 per case. So the numbers are staggering. We know that the
FTC's 800 hotline for identity theft, which has only been up for
less than a year, is receiving 2,000 calls a week currently of
people reporting identity theft.
IJ: Is it
one of those things, I hate to use the analogy of high blood pressure,
but they have it and they just don't know it yet?
Douglas:
Absolutely, it is a hard crime to combat because it is very easy
to perpetrate and the basis of it is information that is readily
available from college yearbooks, Who's Who in America. There
have been cases of identity theft, stealing personal information
from Who's Who in America, certainly to the Internet, you can
find personal information about everyone with just a click of the
mouse.
IJ: Is the
growth in broadband just a ticking timebomb for us?
Douglas:
Well, Certainly the growth of broadband brings more and more
access to more and more people with higher speeds. And right now,
there are no controls on the type of information that are
available, again, to anyone with the click of a mouse. So, I can
quickly know your name, your legal name, your address, social
security number, your date of birth, and information I need to
assume your identity and commit financial crimes with that
identity.
IJ: It's
better to prevent it than to try and get it back?
Douglas:
Absolutely, what you normally find with victims of identity
theft, and I've spoken with hundreds of them over the years, is
that its not so much the loss of money, because in most instances
they are credited by the credit cards or by the banks they have
lost money from, but what they find, and what they'll tell you,
is that it's a loss of self. I believe "violated" is
the term you will hear. It takes years to clear up their credit
report and to fix their credit and clear their good name and the
frustration for them is the biggest problem.
IJ: You're
presumed guilty, aren't you?
Douglas:
Absolutely, and I testified last fall on a hearing on identity
theft in Congress. There was a young man on the same panel as me,
20 years old, had been the victim of identity theft, he had
nothad an established credit report yet, and over a dozen people
had stolen his credit card number, and bought it as almost a
commodity, and he said the most frustrating thing about it is
that when he would keep calling up these credit agencies, that
they wouldn't believe that he was the true owner of the social
security number. And he would say to them, "you seem to be
allowing everyone else to use my credit and social security
number, but yet, I'm the one you don't believe."
IJ: How
about all these companies that are popping up. I don't know if
people are familiar with Promisemark or not, they'll get your
credit back, protect you from viruses, that kind of thing. Is
that going to be a growing business?
Douglas: It
clearly is a growing business. We are seeing more companies
popping up that are trying to assist the victims of identity
theft. They recognize that this is a large problem across the
country, as far as the growth market in that area. Uhh, we're
also seeing front-line insurance companies, like Chubb announced
yesterday that they will now insure you against identity theft.
IJ: So this
is going to be big, isn't it?
Douglas: It
clearly is. OK, look, when the secret service testified at the
same hearing I was at in the fall, that organized crime in
Chicago was growing, and that they are switching from drug
distribution to identity theft, and fraud, we know we have a
problem in the United States. Why are they doing that? Because
they know they don't have much of a chance of ever being caught,
of ever being prosecuted, and, if prosecuted, relatively little
chance of ever doing a day in jail. So they're going from the
drug business to the identity theft business. It's a growing
trend for organized crime. Now, several countries in South
America, oh, excuse me, I mean Africa, are getting into identity
theft in the US.
IJ: So whey
aren't there more penalties? Are we really behind in this, in
terms of our legislation? And who's going to enforce it?
Douglas:
We're very far behind the eight ball in terms of combatting
identity theft in the United States. The first serious bill out
of the United States Congress has only been in place for less
than two years. There are still several states around the country
where identity theft is not a crime. Alabama is just starting to
deal with that issue. The other thing is that there has been a
lack of political backbone and a lack of enforcement backbone at
both the state and federal levels in this country. It has not
traditionally been seen as a serious crime becasue law
enforcement believes it's just money and that banks and creditors
will just reimburse the money. The probmen is that the biillions
of dollars in losses each year are still passed back to the
consumer in terms of higher interset on their credit cards and
higher costs for products as a result of identity theft and
financial fraud.
IJ: What
are the necessities? Tell me 5 things as a consumer I have to do
to keep this from happening to me.
Douglas:
You have to treat your information just like a child. You need to
know where it is at all times, you need to know who has access to
it at all times and you need to know what's being done with that
access. You should never give out identity informaiton to someone
who calls you. If you have not initiaated the call, and if you
are not 100% certain of who you are talking to, then do not give
out that information. We have recently seen in the Washington, DC
area, a ring of theieves, who have yet to be caught, who are
smashing in windows of cars that belong to women while the women
are in health club areas or other areas where the women leave
their purses in their car for safety. They are stealing their
wallets and then they are calling the women and saying they are
the banks based on information they received from the wallet and
asking for their pin numbers so that they can help them protect
their cash accounts and then are going out to the ATM machines
and stealing that money. So, you need to always know where your
wallet is, if you're a man. Where your purse is, if you're a
woman. Don't leave it at your desk in the workplace. There are
rings that operate in the downtown area, that come into both
public and private office buildings and immediately go behind the
reception area and steal purses.
IJ: And
this is going on right now?
Douglas: As
we sit here, someone in the DC area is having their identity
stolen. Whether it's someone going through your trash. When you
put out your trash, every piece of important information needs to
be shredded or torn into very small pieces before you throw it
out. There are people who will get your trash on trash day, go
through it, find your bank account statements, find your old ATM
receipts, and get the information on it.
IJ: How
long would it take us right now to go out and steal someone's ID?
Douglas:
Oh, I'd say, if we left the parking lot here right now, within 15
minutes I could either find trash with informaiton in it,
someone's wallet that was unprotected, and go over to your
internet access here and pull up information on anyone sitting in
this room right now.
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