Albert Jose Gonzalez, 39, of Lancaster, Josue Gustavo Albizuras, 42, of Los Angeles, and Cesar Vasquez Echeverria, 28, of Santa Clarita were all arrested after a three year investigation by the L.A. County Sheriff’s and the FBI. They all face several counts of conspiracy, identity theft, grand theft and computer access fraud. If they are convicted on all counts they could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison each.

The three were caught in a very sophisticated scheme that involved placing card skimmers on gas station pumps. The card skimming device is usually place over the existing card reader built into the pump and will record your cards information into its internal memory. The criminals would them show back up to download the information from the skimmers. The people using the pumps would be none the wiser and the criminals would be free to place charges on their credit and debit cards.

At the time of the arrest the police recovered 10,000 credit and debit card numbers from the accused. They also confiscated computers, cellphones, digital storage devices, and equipment they used to make fake credit and debit cards. $40,000 in cash and high end vehicles including a new Porsche and a Ferrari were also recovered. The criminals stole an estimated $2 million from their victims.

This is just another example on how careful you need to be when using your credit and debit cards. You should always inspect the card reader to make sure nothing is placed over it. Also make sure the card reader doesn’t wobble or move when you push on it. If it does you should just go to a different gas station just to be sure. Scams like this are happening all over the country and you don’t want to be a victim so be smart and know what to look for.

Every time there is some kind of major news or event happening in the US identity thieves and other criminals use it to their advantage to scam people, like the Obama video scam that had a virus in it. With the 2010 census just around the corner I thought it would be a good thing to discuss what to expect from the census and how not to get scammed.

The 2010 census in the US is going out in about two weeks and is set to be mailed on March 16th. They are due to be mailed back by April 15th. If you fill out the census and mail it by the due date there will be no reason for you to be visited by a census worker. If you are visited by a census worker after having filled out the form you should be suspicious.

Things to lookout for!

When the census takes place residences will receive a letter telling them they will receive a form in the mail, a phone call, or a visit from a Census Bureau representative. Most importantly the Census Bureau will not never ask for your social security number or any other sensitive financial information like bank account numbers. So if you are asked to provide such information don’t and contact the authorities.

You will not be able to complete the form online so don’t fall for a fake census website that are trying to steal your information. Census employees will carry a official badge that has on it an expiration date and the Department of Commerce watermark. The census workers also will conduct their business right at the door and will never ask to come inside. You should be suspicious if the census taker insists on coming inside.

So know what to look for and don’t give away any sensitive information like your Social Security Number or bank account information. If you filled out a form and mail it by the due date be cautious if visited by a census taker, or called on the phone. All and all the census is a good thing for your city and state, but don’t let it be a means of identity theft for you.

Florida is no stranger to identity theft. Florida is currently ranked number 6 in identity theft on a per-capita basis ranking up 16,062 victims of identity theft. So it’s no surprise that a lot of identity theft stories come out of Florida these days. Florida is close to my heart because I lived there for several years so these stories always grab my attention.

Erika Morales, 35, has been charged with 25 counts of identity theft and is currently being held at the Palm Beach County Jail.

According to the sheriff’s press release, detectives became aware of the identity theft when Florida Power and Light Co. managers figured out that she was using compromised or stolen identities to open accounts. She is being charged with intellectual properties, organized scheme to defraud, criminal use of personnel identification information and grand and petit theft. She is currently being held without bail.

I enjoy stories like these because it proves that some identity thieves aren’t that smart. If you are going to steal someone’s identity don’t allow the discovery of the theft to lead back to you. I mean come on, if someone discovered that you were not the person you said you were they know where you live because they are supplying your home with power, cable, or what have you.

I am not sure if utility or cable companies in Florida have a identity theft programs or not but if they don’t they should. I hear a lot stories about identity thieves defrauding the cable and utility companies and if they had a robust system for detecting this kind of fraud it could catch a lot of identity thieves in my opinion. They are taking big steps to prevent identity theft at the DMV so why not utilities and cable.

Phishing websites are big problem on the internet. Deviant individuals make a website that looks just like the login to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, banking websites, and others. The victim thinks they are logging into their account on the given site but really they are sending their username and password to   the criminals.

Lucky for you there is a easy way to spot a phishing website, and that lies in the URL of the website. Whenever you are asked to login to a website, especially if you clicked a link and was asked to login, take a look at the URL of the website. Whatever comes before the .com, .net, .org or whatever is the actual site you are visiting. If you go to a site like the one in the image above the website you are visiting is secure-login01.com and the subdomains, which can be anything, is videos and twitter. They try to make you think you’re logging into twitter by making a subdomain called twitter on their website  secure-login01.com. Don’t fall for it! There can be only one twitter.com so unless the url was twitter.com at the end it’s not the real site.

Criminals use these sites that look just like the real login to steal your username and passwords that could be used to get into other accounts including your bank account. Many people who are ill-informed will use the same password for several or all websites they login to. This is a bad idea because now they have your password to all your accounts and only need to discover your username which also might be the same as your already stolen username.

So remember to look at the URL of a website that you are about to login to. It takes just a few seconds to confirm the URL is correct and could save you a lot of heartache in the long run. If you have a doubt  that the Url is correct leave the site and type it in manually or follow your bookmark that you know points to the real site.

Several social networks now-a-days seem to be adding a geolocation features to their social networks. Social networks like Twitter, Loopt, Foursquare, and Google’s new Buzz, just to name a few, seem to be racing to see who can make the best Geolocation social network or check-in system. The question is, is that really a good idea? Is broadcasting when and where you are at a given time a wise thing to do?

There has been many privacy concerns about geolocation service that they could allow people to know when you’re out of town or when you’re simply out of the house. Giving them the opportunity to break in and steal your stuff while they know your out. People often will check-in or tweet from their home giving away at the least the city, state, and road they live on.

A lot of the networks don’t give the exact address but the location on the road and the title of the location, which might be enough if someone lives in a house with a little bit of land. People don’t think twice about tweeting that they are going out of town or on holiday perhaps and with the help of a geolocation stamp a thief could have a list of people to rob over the holiday weekend.

I see the appeal of the service being a big social networking fan. If everyone used geolocation you could have a map full of restaurant reviews from friends or a notifications that your friends just arrived at the coffee shop down the street. I can see it could be useful but at the same time people don’t really need to know all that do they? If I want you to come to the coffee shop I would have called and invited you. I don’t need people social network stalking me and I don’t need to let everyone know where I am at all times.

I think the right attitude is to not get paranoid and shutdown all your social networking profiles but know what security features the service offers and use them. Only let people who are your friends view your updates to prevent people from stalking you or casually finding out what you’re up to. Be mindful of what you post online and don’t post anything that could be used to steal your identity or find where you live. Above all just use your common sense and know that there are people out there that will use your profiles against you.

It’s that time of the year again to prepare your taxes in hopes of getting some money back in the form of a tax refund. When you pay someone else to prepare your taxes you are taking the risk that the person won’t steal your SSN and file a tax return without you knowing about it. They then steal your refund and when you go to file your taxes the IRS rejects your return because they have already filed and taken your money.

There are 30 people in Chicago that know what I am talking about because they have all been victims of identity theft and have had their tax returns taken from them. All thirty of the alleged identity theft victims had an H&R Block at 3932 Main St. in Chicago prepare their tax returns. All of the thirty victims we informed by the IRS that they had already filed their return.

The H&R Block as well as the police are investigating the matter. It seems to me that someone at the tax return office is stealing the Social Security numbers of it’s customers. I suppose all thirty customers could have had their identity stolen by someone else and they filed the fraudulent tax returns but that seems unlikely.

It’s a shame that an office like that of H&R Block can’t prevent it’s employees from stealing Social Security numbers and filing fraudulent tax returns. It makes sense to me that a problem like that would be high on H&R Block’s list of things to prevent. I have heard many stores about little independent tax offices stealing identities but never a large company like H&R Block. Maybe another reason to file your own taxes.

A formal employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and his brother were sentences to prison after being convicted to an identity theft scheme. The scheme used the Federal Reserve employee’s position as a information and technical analyst to steal information from the bank. He and his brother would then use the information to steal identities to apply for student loans which they used to buy boats and other recreation vehicles.

Curtis Wiltshire and Kenneth Wiltshire, where both convicted of identity theft after stealing more than 450,000 in student loans and 525,000 in loans for boats. Kenneth Wiltshire, 41, was also convicted of mail fraud and was sentenced to 57 months in prison and is to forfeit $525,160 in cash and pay $1.02 million in restitution. Curtis Wiltshire, 35, was also convicted of bank fraud and was sentenced to 40 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $200,000 in cash.

The scheme was found out after a investigator found data on a drive that was attached to Curtis Wiltshire’s computer. The drive had on it two fake student loans which featured a Fed worker’s photo which did not match the name on the application.

Once again this just proves that your private and sensitive information is never really safe in the hands of the people who are supposed to protect it. One can never prevent all kinds of identity theft, but one can be ready to nip it in the bud if it were to ever happen. There are many good identity theft services out there my favorite being LifeLock. If you are in need of identity theft services I would try them out first.

An Irving, Texas woman has been sentenced to serve 34 years in prison for identity theft. Sharon Denise Seeley was found guilty on two counts of credit card abuse and possession of identifying information.

Seeley happened to find an old benefits report in the garbage of a school dumpster. Something the school should have disposed of properly considering it contained names, addresses, and social security numbers of 3,400 teachers and other employees of the school. She then used the information to make thousands of dollars in purchases stealing the identities of the individuals.

One victim, Cynthia Will, a former teacher at the Union Bower Center had more than $25,000 charged to her credit including a $4,000 dollar ring from Zales. Seeley made the $25,000 in charges in one week of spending. Cynthia had to change her drivers license number and has to carry an affidavit stating that she is an identity theft victim and any warrants for her old drivers license number is not for her.

I think this lady got what she deserved. Teachers are special people who give up a lot to teach others.  They are not paid enough to do what they do and they make impact the lives of their student’s lives daily.  She claimed she was addicted to methamphetamine and did what she did so she could fuel her addiction and take care of her daughter. I regret that the daughter will have to grow up without her real mother but perhaps it’s a good thing considering her mother was addicted to methamphetamine.

I think everyone has used those big copy machines you find at businesses and schools, you know the ones that can print copies out at a high speed and staple and sort documents for you. These machines have the capability to scan, fax, and even email document scanned into them. One of the ways they are able to do this is by storing the documents in various sizes to a hard drive in the machine. This makes for a great copier, but when it’s time to get rid of the old machine and get a new one who is in charge of removing these old printing jobs from the machine. Some machines can store up to 25,000 print jobs on their hard drive any of which can be pulled up and printed.

A company that is concerned about document security might remove the hard drive and destroy them for compete security. This of course would render the printer useless and would ruin it’s resale value, so must companies wouldn’t do this. Companies should at least delete the print jobs from the hard drive before selling or throwing away that machine, but you would be surprised how often this does not happen.

An Oakland, California news station investigated a copier warehouse full of copiers up for sale. They found that many copiers still have print jobs stored on them some of which were still filled with personal information including but not limited to people’s medical records, Social Security Numbers, addresses, and phone numbers.

Think about all the places that copy important documents for filing purposes. What happens to the copy machine when it’s time to get rid of it. It will probably go to a copier warehouse where it will be repaired and put up for resale. A warehouse full of copy machine, which are full of documents stored on their hard drives. Sounds like an identity theft heaven to me! It’s like getting complete access to a companies files with a handy printer to print then at high speed.

I don’t know that there is anything someone can do to prevent this kind of data breach other than just watch their credit and bank accounts for anything suspicious. If you work for a company you could bring up that the copier’s hard drives need to be wiped before getting rip of it. One could sign up for an identity theft protection service like LifeLock, which would be the ideal situation, and would provide optimal protection.

Identity theft is often times more than just someone stealing your money, they can also ruin your reputation. As Lynette Geehan found out all someone really needs to commit a crime as you is your name and birthdate. This is perhaps a little different than someone stealing your SSN and getting a drivers license. In a case like that the police would actually be looking for you and would come knocking on your door. In a case like that of Lynette Geehan someone could just claim they were you and the police would have to sort out who is who.

The reason this is cause for concern is because your name and birthdate will match that of someone who might be on a now fly list or have a criminal record. So if you are applying for a job your name might come up as potentially having a criminal record especially if they don’t know that much about the person who stole your identity. If you are planning on flying you might get pulled aside because someone matching your name and birthday is on the no fly list. If you happen to get pulled over you might have to be taken to the police station to give finger pints to prove you are not the criminal.

It’s not as if the police think you are a criminal it’s that fact that you will have to prove to them you are not every time it’s in question. This is something that can be corrected, by having your named removed from these lists but it’s not easy. Some state and local governments are working on making this easier for people to do, but for now it’s still a hassle.

The only way to protect yourself from this kind of Identity theft is to monitor police records for your information. The only service I know of that can give you that protection is through LifeLocks Command Center. LifeLock will monitor police records for your information so that you can know no one is using your name or SSN to commit crimes.