Having to move to a nursing home, or having to place a loved one in a nursing home, is surely one of the hardest things anyone can go through. No matter how well we research, how clean the place seems, or how nice the staff seems to be, it’s the horror stories we’ve all heard that keep us awake at night.

I hate to do it, but here’s another of those horror stories. Tamara Smith, a certified nursing assistant who worked in several Savannah, GA area nursing homes, has been charged with stealing the identities of more than 40 of the nursing home residents that she was supposed to be caring for.

She used that information to open credit card accounts, and to buy computers and cell phones.

Smith’s victims were as young as 60 and as old as 100. Along with the 43 identity theft charges against her, Smith will also receive an elder abuse charge for each victim over 65. More than half of her victims are, or were, residents at Tara Nursing Home in Thunderbolt, GA.

Irene Pennington, Thunderbolt police chief said they’re still investigating the identity thefts, and expect to discover more victims. She also said they expect to arrest others suspected of being involved in the crimes.

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As you begin preparations for tax season you might not be feeling a lot of government love. In fact, with the economy the way it is right now, you might be feeling downright hostile. And as you review your household budget yet again for one more way to cut back on expenses, you might be dripping tears onto your keyboard.

Here’s some (sort of) good news from the Identity Theft Resource Center that might help you lighten up a little: Government agencies were responsible for only 16.7% of all data breaches in 2008.

And now the bad news (because when the subject is data breaches, there’s always going to be some bad news): There were 656 data breaches last year, representing a 47% increase in the number of data breaches that occurred in 2007.

Local, state and federal governments were to blame for a total of 110 information leaks last year. The causes for those data losses break down as follows:

• 28 resulted from the improper protection of information while traveling over the government network.
• 22 were attributed to insider theft.
• 20 occurred when employees accidentally exposed citizens’ information.
• 15 have been chalked up to subcontractors with sloppy systems security.
• 5 were the product of hackers.

Which federal agency wins the prize for the biggest bungling of data protection? The U.S. Army wins this dubious distinction for their inadvertent Internet posting of promotion selection lists that contained the names and Social Security numbers of more than 50,000 officers.

So, what does all this tell us? While you’re trimming your budget leave an extra $9 a month for Life Lock protection services. Enroll using the LifeLock discount code Defense for the lowest available price.

Because I write so much about identity theft I read a lot about it, too. And what I’m seeing lately is a lot of medical identity theft.

The story I saw today came from the Baltimore Sun: Christel Ebony Norwood stole the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of at least 49 people from two medical facilities where she worked. She use it to get a fraudulent driver’s license and change the mailing address of her victims so she got their mail and they didn’t see the bills she was running up in their names. Among her purchases was a 2002 Mercedes-Benz she financed for $35,560.

Last week the big medical identity theft news from the LA Times was about a Cedars-Sinai Medical Center former employee who stole the personal information of at least 1,000 patients and parlayed it into fraudulent insurance claims worth at least $69,000. That’s a nice chunk of change, but he might have made additional money by selling that information to others.

One of the biggest identity theft stories of 2008 had to be the one about an extortion attempt involving Express Scripts and a few million of their customers. The extortionist added credibility to their ransom request by adding the details of 75 of the company’s members, including their names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and even some prescription info. The message was “Pay up, or we publish similar information on millions of your customers on the Internet.”

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“I am a victim. The credit card companies and banks are victims, yet they are looking to me for repayment of the money that Linda David stole…

“I have been forced to relocate my family to live at my offices because I can no longer afford to pay rent. We have an infant son and we are being forced to live in an attic without heat. We are selling off our jewelry, liquidating investments and diluting our savings. This is not a situation of my making. I need help. I need it now.” (From Oreste Speciale’s victim-impact statement.)

Linda Lee David, a former employee, used Speciale’s identity to run up more than $209,000 in credit card debt over a two-year period.

David was sentenced this week to four years in federal prison for aggravated identity theft and violating supervised release terms. She spent three months in prison for stealing the identity of a coworker and running up $11,669 on fraudulent credit cards. She’d been out of prison for less than a year when she began ripping off Speciale.

She took out credit cards from Wells Fargo, WaMu, American Express, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Exxon Mobil, First Equity and Bill Me Later and used them for everyday expenses like gas, groceries and clothing. Occasionally, she made larger purchases like a 42-inch flat screen television and a mini camcorder. She also treated her family to fun-filled Niagara Falls vacation.

Unfortunately for David, that vacation was recorded on the cool little camcorder and shown in court as evidence against her.