LifeLock Blog

Scammers will try all kinds of things to rip you off and take your money. One of the recent scams, and not the only one, is on Craigslist and more specificity rental properties. A person claims they own a  house they are offering for rent and will demand a deposit before they will send the keys in the mail. This is of course a scam and you should know what to look for.

The rental scam looks like this, someone is offering a house for rent typically cheaper than it should go for. They want you to make a deposit on the house before they send you the keys in the mail. Why in the mail? Because often times, in this scam, they claim they own the house, but live outside of the country, so they will have to send you the keys in the mail. How convenient for them, they can’t meet you and you can’t see the house because they have the keys and don’t live in the country.

People don’t do business this way! If they do they are dumb because how would you manage a property without a third party. If there were a third party you would be able to verify the house is in fact for rent and they were the owners.

A couple of things to remember when looking for houses for rent on Craigslist. Only deal with local people who can meet with you. Only deal with people who will allow you to pay a visit to the home, which is a good idea anyway. Why would you rent something you have never seen?  These things should prevent you from being scammed on Craigslist.

Governor Christine O. Gregoire has announced a proclamation that April 26 – 30, 2010 will be Identity Theft Awareness Week. The proclamation comes at a time when Washington is ranked 15th in identity theft nationwide. There were over 30,000 identity theft and fraud complains in Washington State in 2009.

During Washington’s Identity Theft Awareness Week and to increase identity theft awareness, the FBI-LEEDA, Law Enforcement Executive Development Association, and LifeLock are teaming up and holding the LifeLock and FBI-LEEDA Identity Theft Summit. These summits are an ongoing effort of the FBI-LEEDA and Lifelock to not only educate law enforcement agencies, but consumers as well about the newest identity theft trends, new scams, and investigative methods. Since the 2008 conception the summits have been held in 19 different cities and have educated more than 2,170 law enforcement officials from over 700 different agencies from all over the country.

The summits are going to be held in two different cities giving you two chances to participate in the summit, which are going to be help in Spokane and Olympia. The Spokane summit will be held at 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 28 at the Luxury Box Event Center, 10514 East Sprague Avenue, Spokane Valley, WA 99206. The Olympia summit will be held at 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 29 at the Lacey Community Center, 6729 Pacific Avenue SE, Olympia, WA 98503.

I think these summits held by LifeLock and FBI-LEEDA are a great idea. The more people who know and understand how identity theft happens the more they can do to prevent it. Law enforcement agencies are being over-run by identity theft cases and the information and techniques learned at the summit could help them track down and catch identity thieves fast and more effectively. It’s great to see  police agencies taking the time to learn and stay up-to-date on the growing identity theft industry.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical, Christian housing ministry where people volunteer to help build houses. The houses are not given away to families in need, but are sold at no profit with affordable loans given to them. They have built over 350,000 homes and have provided shelter for 1.75 million people, in 3,000 different communities. They provide safe, decent, affordable housing for people who are in need of it.

The thought that someone would steal money from one of the local organization’s bank account is shocking. Bryan-College Station Habitat for Humanity was a victim of identity theft and has had money stolen out of their bank account. Someone had the bank account information from the Wells Fargo bank account and was using it to pay personal bills.

The bank has re-reimbursed the organization, but the culprit still has not been arrested. In early march authorities found fraudulent checks and forged signatures related to the account. They discovered that the checks had been cashed by a former financial consultant, who worked with the organization for about 18 months. The theft from the Habitat for Humanity account is thought to be less than $20,000.

According to Bryan-College Station Habitat for Humanity the theft has not stopped or prevented them from building any houses. They will carry on building houses and helping their community. I still can’t believe that someone would steal money from a non-profit like Habitat for Humanity. What they are doing is really helping people, and someone had to come along put that in jeopardy.

The Federal Trade Commission has rejected the request to exempt physicians and other health care professionals from the FTC Red Flag, identity theft prevention, laws. It seems the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the FTC exceeded its authority in enforcing it’s Red Flag laws against attorneys and layers. So I guess the AMA, American Medical Association, thought they would take a stab at trying to get themselves exempt as well. Their first attempt has been rejected.

This does not come as a surprise, the FTC is still trying to appeal the decision brought by the American bar Assn, so it doesn’t makes sense that they would just let the medical professionals off the hook. I understand that these businesses don’t want to implement identity theft programs, like the rules regulate, but it would be for the benefit of their customers.

The Red Flags laws have been delayed several times and it seems that they could be delayed much longer if the lawsuits don’t clear up. It seems the AMA is trying to prevent the FTC from enforcing the regulations until the ABA litigation is resolved. Who knows how long that could take?

I think the Red Flag laws are a good thing and bring some responsibility to creditors. If they are going to lend people money be it a banks, medical, or lawyers they should take the time to unsure they are charging the right person. I think the the Red Flag laws will be most helpful in the medical field due to the large number of medical identity thefts that happen.



A woman in Rockville, Maryland is wanted for multiple counts of  auto theft and various fraud charges, which include identity theft and eight counts of possession of false government documents. Somsook Jasmin McCollum is wanted because she stole an Oklahoma woman’s identity and used it to buy not one , not two, but three luxury cars. McCollum purchased an Audi, Mercedes and a fully loaded Range Rover all with one woman’s identity.

McCollum used the victims social security number to obtain a credit report and obtained a Washington D.C. Drivers license as well. This is all she needed to setup her scheme. She went to three separate dealerships and purchased the three luxury cars. McCollum also obtained credit cards in the Oklahoma woman’s name as well.

McCollum also stole a wallet from a woman from a local Pizza place, from which she used the credit cards and since bank account information was in the wallet McCollum was able to withdraw $11,000 from the victims back account.

Her crimes cost her victims close to $500,000 in damages, which makes this identity theft no small crime. Luckily all three cars have been recovered, but McCollum is still on the loose. McCollum has long black hair,5’3” tall, and about 150 pounds. She also has a scar on her leg near her knee. If anyone in the Rockville, Maryland area has seen her they are to contact the police.

A Trenton, New Jersey man and his girfriend have been indicted for their roles in an identity theft scheme designed to steal credit card information and use it to commit credit card fraud. Frank Perec, 29, of Elizabeth, is being brought up on charges of second-degree trafficking in personal identifying information of another, second-degree identity theft, second-degree conspiracy, and second-degree tampering with witnesses and informants. His girlfriends, Correa,  is being charged with third-degree attempted theft by deception, third-degree credit card fraud, and five counts of third-degree theft by deception.

The scheme started with a Delta gas station attendant that was given a credit card skimmer. The skimmer device was used to record credit card information from unsuspecting customers. Correa allegedly payed the attendant for each card that was recorded with the device.

They would them allegedly take the card information and re-encode the credit cards. The process changes the information on the card so that the information on the magnetic strip did not match the name on the front of the card. This allowed them to put their own names on the card and use it without the cashier being any the wiser. The charges would still be charged to the original owner of the card.
They used the credit cards to defraud several businesses including Home Depot, Toys R’ Us and Linden Liquors of more than $15,000.

Stories like these make me want to just use cash all the time and never even have credit cards, or at least never take them out of the house. Of course someone could just steal the information from an internet transaction. You can never be 100% protected from an identity theft but you can be proactive about monitoring your credit and bank accounts. I would suggest you have a plan and way of keeping track what your financial history.  

H&R Block is being sued in a class action lawsuit that has been files against them for failure to take action to protect their customers. The lawsuit came after a Bronx branch of H&R Block’s employees or former employees stole 20 customers identities to steal their refund checks. One customer lost $8,499 refund and yet another lost a $6,145 return. H&R Block is working with the IRS to clean up the mess and according to a statement made by H&R Block they are standing by their customers and doing everything they can to assist them.

Whether that is true or not, its a pretty serious situation. H&R Block’s job evolves dealing with peoples personal information and the thought that it’s not safe with them is not going to be good for their business. I am sure however that they are planning on taking steps to prevent this from happening again. However this is not the first time this has happened either. Similar situations have occurred in other states as well.

It seems as if H&R Block needs to take a step back and take a good hard look at the way they do things. A good strong policy on handling customers personal information is a much needed change the they will have to implement or go bankrupt in court.

It’s always disheartening to hear about situations like these. I can’t think of many business that haven’t had their share of identity theft problems. It’s not something that is going to go away anytime soon so the best we can hope for is a better way of detecting it.