LifeLock Blog

People all over the world are grieving the losses in Haiti. A country that didn’t have that much to begin with was hit with a devastating 7.1 Magnitude earthquake with 52 aftershocks that followed. Haiti is the poorest countries in the West Hemisphere and an earthquake of this magnitude has perhaps sealed their fate as the poorest country for many years to come.

The Haitians have enough to worry about, their homes have been destroyed and thousands of people are dead. Some Haitians have began to worry about identity theft as well. With people beginning to get back on their feet again the concern is that people who have lost their papers will have no claim to their  property. If someone were to find their papers before the rightful owner they could steal their identity and make claim to property and money that isn’t theirs.

When natural disasters like these strike it is amazing how it brings out the best and worst in people. Some people it brings out the best in them, helping others and doing everything in their power to show compassion for others. Other people however it seems to brings out the worst in them, people who resort to looting and stealing from others who are also in need.

I lived in South Florida for a long time and is in no way comparable to the disaster in Haiti, but hurricane’s would come in and destroy houses and knock out the power for a while. Some people would see this as an opportunity to loot and steal from retail stores and people’s homes for no other reason than there was no one to stop them.

Let’s just hope that people in Haiti don’t start stealing others identification documents and claiming the rightful owners property and possessions. It will take years to get Haiti back on it’s feet again and I hope that Haiti will be in all of our prayers.

A waiter, formerly from Kansas City, Mo., has plead guilty to identity theft and credit card fraud. He has admitted to stealing 20 customer credit cards from the Brio Tuscan Grille in July and August 2008. John David Woody used a card skimmer to record card information from his customer’s cards. John used the card information to make online purchases including thousands of dollars worth of DVDs.

John faces up to 35 years in prison without parole and a fine up to $750,000. Makes you wonder what those waiter and waitresses are doing with your card when they are gone so long with it. If you think about it when you go to a restaurant you never see them swipe your card, because the machine is usually out of sight. They could be doing anything with your card and you wouldn’t be any the wiser. They wouldn’t even need a card skimmer to steal your information they have a notepad and a pen and no one looking over their shoulder wondering what they are writing down.

I tend to worry about the security of my card in situations where I give my card number over the phone or when I give someone my card to someone who is going to walk away with it to compete a transaction. I think I am going to start keeping cash on me so I don’t have to use my check card as much. I feel it’s less likely that someone would rob me than it is for someone to steal my card information and steal from me that way. The more you use cash the fewer card transactions there will be and fewer eyes to see your information.

A six-count indictment has been filed with the U.S. District Court accusing a Seattle Municipal Court employee of selling credit card information to an identity theft ring. The four members of the identity theft ring have already been charged, who’s court case exposed the court workers involvement.

According to the prosecutors Diamond Wendell Alexander Jr. and Crystal Loren Lee would recruit people to steal credit card numbers for customers at their place of business. They would pay the accomplices for each number stolen. The card information was used to create fake credit cards.

The Seattle Municipal Court employee was one of those recruited people that passed the information on to the id theft ring. The employee would record card information from people paying tickets or other court transactions. Police discovered the relationship when they searched Lee’s car and found profiles of people that appeared had been printed at the the Court.

The woman has been fired from her position at the court house and is being brought up on charges. The court house employee wasn’t the only person recruited by the id theft ring. A Jack in the box employee has also admitted to using a skimmer, provided to him by the id theft ring, to steal information from customers paying with a credit card.

How do you like that, you go to the court house to pay your ticket and the court employee steals your card number. You then stop at Jack in the Box to grab something to eat and it gets stolen again. It goes to show that you can’t really trust anyone with your information. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use credit cards just that you need to be careful and have a system for detecting and preventing it from happening to you.

David Fairchild, 35, faces a 35 year sentence for identity theft. Fairchild was arrested in October 2008.  He had attempted to use a stolen credit card at a Kohl’s Department Store. The card was rejected and Fairchild was confronted by the store manager and two police officers in the parking lot. Fairchild threw down two wallets and ran after being confronted by the three. The wallets contained Social Security Cards, credit cards, checkbooks, and a driver’s license. One of the documents even belong to a child.

This is the first case in Wichita County, Texas that has been taken to court that falls under the new law that creates a greater punishment range for people with other peoples identification documents. Before the law the maximum sentence would be capped at two years no matter how many pieces of information they had. Under the new law if someone possesses 10 to 49 pieces of information they are charged with a second degree felony, and in this case with the prier convictions moves Fairchild up to first degree felony, which is 5 years to life.

It’s refreshing to see states and local government taking identity theft and the punishment for identity theft more seriously. I know Texas could use the extra leverage to keep people from committing the crime. Perhaps a longer sentence will keep these criminals off the street for a couple extra years and perhaps persuade them the crime is not worth the punishment.

At the end of the Fall semester a malware virus made it’s way onto Eastern’s computer system. The virus has put about 9,000 students applications as risk. Somewhere between the dates of Nov. 11 and Nov. 16 the application information of applying students to Eastern may have been comprised and open to access from an outside source. The information included Social Security numbers Mailing addresses , and other contact information.

Adam Dodge, Eastern’s information technology security officer, has said that not everyone who applied between those dates have been effected but the school is issuing free identity theft protection and credit monitoring for current students as well as the applicants.

College students are an easy target for identity theft. They start getting credit card offers and loan offers which are easy pickings for identity thieves. They also are less likely to check their credit report, balance their checkbook and keep their recipes. All these factors make them prime targets for identity thieves because detection will be slower and they will most likely be able to get more money from the theft.

College students should be encouraged to check their credit reports from the 3 major bureaus Experian, Equifax and TransUnion at least once a year, which they are required by law to provide for you for free. If you check each one every 4 months in a rotation can can see one credit report every 4 months, which might help in detecting an identity theft faster.

Identity Theft is becoming more and more of a problem as time rolls on. It seemed for the longest time no one was taking it seriously. In the last couple of years we have seen several states and the US government put into place laws that will help prevent identity theft. One example is the Red Flag Rules, designed to make creditors make a system for identify and correcting identity theft, which the government is still trying to get business to comply to but at least they are trying.

Some state have started to get in on the action like New York, which has passes new laws that will prevent the government, businesses and other employers from using someone’s Social Security number as a form of identification. The law will also allow consumers to place a credit freeze on their credit reports within 24hrs to prevent an identity thief from doing any more damage.

The new law not only helps keep people from having their identity stolen but also helps fix their credit after an identity theft has already taken place. As some people know the process of repairing your credit and recored after an identity theft is a long and hard one. These new laws have set out to make the process shorter and prevent the long-term consequences of identity theft.

A applaud the efforts of the State of New York and can only hope that more states make laws that are similar. More states need to take action and setup rules and regulation on how businesses handle consumers sensitive information. I would love to see businesses stop using someones SSN for identification purposes. When I was at FSU they stopped using SSN numbers for identifying students, which I thought was a smart move, and gave them student ID numbers instead. I mean really why does the cable company need my Social Security number anyway?

Several TSA, Transportation Security Administration, employees had their identities stolen. This shouldn’t be that big of a deal even though they work for a U.S department who’s job it is to protect the nations transportation and commerce. The reason it is disconcerting is the fact the information was sold to the identity thieves from the inside.

Two Lynn, Mass., residence have been charged with identity theft for stealing the identities of Transportation Security Administration employees who work at Boston’s Logan International Airport. The two accused plead not guilty to the charges. As I mentioned earlier that had a third accomplice who worked in the TSA human resources department.

The identities were stolen using the names, social security numbers, and date of births of the employees. They were sold to the accused for $40 each. The identities were used to purchase utility, telephone, and television services.

There was no mention of how many identities were stolen but seeing how they were only being sold for $40 each I imagine there were several employees had their information sold. There is no sense in going to jail for a couple hundred bucks, but that’s just me. Stories like this confirm in my mind that no matter what company or organization has your personal information it is never truly safe. There is always someone who will come along willing to sell your information for $40 bucks a pop.

LifeLock is the leader in identity theft protection and has just gotten even better with the addition of their LifeLock Command Center services. There is more to identity theft than just stealing someones information and running up credit card bills. There’s other reasons someone would want to steal your identity other than to steal your money. What LifeLock Command Centers sets out to do is give you the best tools to discover if someone is using your information to do anything from applying for a payday loan to using your information as an alias to commit crimes. This information is crucial to stopping someone from ruining your credit and your reputation in the fastest way possible.

LifeLock Command Center Services

LifeLock Command Center has all the same awesome services that LifeLock offers in their basic service package that includes LifeLock Identity Alert™ System, $1 Million Total Service Guarantee, eRecon™, TrueAddress™, WalletLock™, Reduce Pre-approved Credit Offers, Request Free Annual Credit Reports, 24-Hour Member Service. With LifeLock Command Center you also get the following services.

LifeLock Personal Breach Detection™ Service: Searches and monitors global unregulated networks for your information. Will alert you of any disclosed information that may have been taken from your computer or any other computer on a peer-to-peer network.

LifeLock Identity SDS™ (Search, Detect, Secure) Service: a service that monitors your information as changes are made in public records and other non-credit related sources. This service then reports back it’s findings and can alert you if something isn’t right.

Payday Loan Reports and Alerts: Alerts you of any application for a payday loan which don’t go through the major credit bureaus. These are hard to detect because of the small amount of the loan and the fact that payday loan companies don’t often use credit checks.

Sex Offender Registry Reports and Alerts: Alerts you if a register sex offender is using your address as their home address.

Public Records Reports and Alerts: Will show you a list of addresses that are associated with your ID which are found in the public record.

Alias Records Reports and Alerts: lists alternative names associated different pieces of your identity found in public records.

Court Records Reports and Alerts: Alerts you of court records matching your name and date of birth from county court. This helps prevent people from using your identity to commit crimes, which could be harmful to you if the police think you are them at some point.

LifeLock Command Center is truly the most comprehensible identity theft protection service out there. It comes as just $5 more a month than the Basic services and is well worth the money. If you use the promotion code “DEFENSE” you can get 10% off your membership of LifeLock.