A common security tip is that you have someone stay at your home while attending a funeral or wake when a family member dies. The suggestion is intended to thwart robbers who follow obituaries and funeral schedules and break into family members’ homes.

Lorraine Getchius followed that advice when her husband died and had Donna Lee Heddy, her friend of 25 years, stay at her house during the wake.

Heddy admitted this week she was a fox guarding Getchius’ henhouse—an impostor who committed identity theft against a grieving widow.

Heddy confessed that she stole her friend’s credit cards and used her name and Social Security number to open new credit card accounts, according to Lehigh Valley (PA) prosecutor Lara Mammana.

She used those accounts and Getchius’ name to buy $3,000 worth of goods and services from Verizon Wireless, Dish Network, Shop NBC, Chadwicks and five other businesses, but had the goods delivered to her own address.

Though most identity theft victims never know who attacked them, 43% of respondents to an Identity Theft Resource Center survey said they knew the person who stole their identities.

• In 19% of the cases, the perpetrator was a relative of the ID theft victim.
• In 14% of the cases, the perpetrator was an employee of a business that held personal information of the ID theft victim.
• In 14% of the cases, the perpetrator was a friend or roommate of the ID theft victim.
• In 4% of the cases, the perpetrator was a coworker of the ID theft victim.
• In 4% of the cases, the perpetrator was an ex-spouse or significant other of the ID theft victim.
• In 1% of the cases, the perpetrator was a neighbor of the ID theft victim.

Tags: ID theft, ID theft prevention, identity theft, identity theft prevention

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 11:02 am and is filed under Identity theft prevention tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.