LifeLock Blog

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.

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.

Phishing scams are one of the easiest ways to get personal information from people. If you can’t steal information from the public trick them into give it to you. Phishing scams are website that request personal information from you who pose as a legitimate company or organization. They typically prey on people’s fear of hackers and password security to motivate their victims to visit the fraudulent website and enter their information.

H1N1 and the CDC is no exception. A phishing email and website has gone viral and has reached a lot of people telling them they need to fill out a Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile. The website asks for personal information as well as health information. The site also has links on it that install viruses on your computer, which also might be something spreading the emails around.

The best way to prevent phishing attacks is to be skeptical of links in emails and be aware of the URL you visit when going to a website. You can do a simple search for the company like the CDC to find the real URL of the company. This is a good way of checking whether or not a website is real or not. Having said that never give out personal information on a website unless you know for certain it’s a legitimate business or organization that is going to protect it.

A bank teller along with 5 other people have been arrested this week for identity theft. The arrests come as part of a crackdown on identity theft rings in South Florida. Florida is 3rd in the nation in identity theft, so it’s no surprise Florida is trying to crack down on it’s identity theft problem.

Curisha Bryant, 21, of West Park worked at a BankAtlantic branch and was allegedly stealing information from customers and giving it her accomplices. The defendants are accused of stealing identities, cashing forged checks, and using stolen credit cards. They were also accused of trying to recruit more people to do the same. There are three other people who are yet to be arrested who share the 21-count federal indictment.

It still scares me when I read about bank tellers, employees of the bank, giving out personal information so they can steal from their customers. Makes you wonder how well bank employees are watched to prevent identity theft. I assume they have security in place to make sure they don’t stealing money from their drawers. Why wouldn’t they put security in place to prevent employees from stealing information about their customers as well. Is it just me or does that make a whole lot of sense?

I hope they find the other three people who are yet to be arrested. I also look forward to reading more stories of further crackdowns on identity theft in South Florida. It’s about time they get serious about trying to catch and take down the identity theft rings that reside in Florida.

Tomorrow November 17, 2009 the AAA Auto Club South will be hosting an identity theft workshop with the help of the leader in identity theft protection LifeLock. The identity theft workshop is aimed at educating the Florida AAA customers about the threat that identity theft presents. The workshop will also educate the people on the services that LifeLock offers and how they protect Millions of people from identity theft everyday.

It is so nice to see companies like AAA and LifeLock going out of their way to educate the public on identity theft. Identity theft is something that no one wants to happen to them and not many people want to talk about. So it’s good to see companies trying to take the message to the public and at least get people thinking about it.

I was talking to one of my friends just the other day that lives in Orlando. He was telling me that someone broke into his car and didn’t steal anything. Most people don’t think about identity theft when it comes to car break-ins. I was telling him that the person might have been looking for a purse, wallet, or anything to steal his identity with. Orlando is ranked as the number 53 metropolitan area for identity theft complaints. Florida is also ranked 3rd in the nation for identity theft complaints. AAA  Auto Club South is doing a good thing getting their Florida customers educated in the ways of identity theft.

SmartMetric has developed a SmartCard that has a built in finger print scanner. Without the the proper fingerprint the SmartCard can not be unlocked or used rendering it useless to anyone but the owner. The company believes that their SmartCard is poised to take over the SmartCard Market. They claim it  could eliminate Identity theft, which I doubt.

This device will no doubt be a good security measure if it is accepted by the financial and banking community. But to say that it can prevent or eliminate identity theft is ridiculous. I guess it depends on your definition of identity theft. I view it as a crime of stealing someone’s personal, identifying information for the purpose of using that information fraudulently. Sure so the SmartCard might prevent someone from stealing your existing credit cards, but will not prevent someone from applying for new ones?

The main feature that make this card more secure is the built in finger print scanner that unlocks the card for use. Well as the Mythbusters’ show on the Discovery channel demonstrated you can lift and reproduce a fingerprint to fool a fingerprint scanner. They successfully accomplished this with several different fingerprint scanners and were even successful with scanners that could sense moisture and warmth. If you don’t think criminals would go through the trouble to replicate your fingerprint you’re wrong. If this form of payment got popular enough people would find ways to hack their way into the device quickly and effectively.

So keep your eyes out for the SmartMetric SmartCard, but don’t think for a second that the battle with identity theft is over. It is a long and never ending battle and we must all be cautious and prepared.

Jason Richard Yuschak was sentenced in federal court this week after pleading guilty to ID theft and mail fraud. While in court for that sentencing, federal officials announced a new mail fraud indictment for an eBay scam.

Yuschak, 28, was convicted of stealing the identities of at least 78 people who bought or shopped for cars at the Columbus Ohio dealerships where he worked between September 2005 and September 2007. During that time he worked for Dennis Autopoint, Germain Toyota, Bob Caldwell Jeep and Dodge, and Crown Kia-Jeep.

He received a three-year prison sentence for opening credit card accounts using information from Ohio driver’s licenses, credit applications, purchase proposals, test drive agreements, purchase contracts and business records.

The grand jury indictment was issued in response to a criminal complaint filed September 8, 2009. According to the mail fraud indictment, Yuschak collected $3,000 from an Oklahoma woman in exchange for a Gibson Les Paul guitar he offered on eBay. The woman sent the payment thru PayPal with two e-checks issued on May 21, 2009.

The woman never received the guitar and finally asked that Yuschak return her money. Yuschak allegedly agreed to cancel the deal but sent her an empty envelope instead.

The victim filed dispute with PayPal and filed a report with her local police department.

If convicted on the mail fraud charges, Yuschak could be sentenced to the maximum prison sentence of 20 years. Any mail fraud sentence would have to be served subsequent to his other three-year imprisonment.

Larry Alan Hayes, 41, was convicted of identity theft and sentenced to 15 years for his crimes. Hayes asked the judge for a second chance to turn his life around but the judge wasn’t going to have it. According to the judge society needs to be protected from people like him.  Hayes was convicted of six counts of identity theft and six counts of possession of stolen property and two counts of possessing a stolen vehicle.

It seems that Hayes was a fan of Luxury vehicles since he had in his possession a 2007 Hummer 3 and a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe. They also found high-end motorcycles and parts to stolen Harley Davidson’s.  His id theft ring used 800 old credit card receipts stolen from a storage unit used by a hair salon chain to create fake credit cards. The fake credit cards were then used to buy or rent merchandise in Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Apparently it was more that just the money for Hayes. He was apparently addicted to drugs and many of his identity exploits were driven by the need for drugs. People testified on the behalf of Hayes saying he is a decent man when sober and with some help could turn his life around.

It is sad to see someone who can’t stop what they are doing because of a drug addiction. So many times you see identity theft cases tied to addictions. There seems to be a connection between them and it is heart breaking every time you see it.

I hope that Hayes does turn his life around and what he said wasn’t just a show for the courts to try and get his sentence reduced.

Identity theft is a crime that typically stays anonymous. There isn’t that many people out there that actually get to see the face of their identity thief. Identity theft is a crime that is hard to track. Thieves can change names and identities quickly and it’s not a question of what they are doing but who is doing it. What they are doing is easy to track it’s who is doing it that makes it difficult.

One Seattle woman actually got the chance to meet her identity thief when she walked into the JC Penny she worked at and tried to obtain a credit card.

Michelle McCambridge, back in January, discovered that her identity had been stolen when she began to receive credit statements from several department stores that she didn’t ask for. After filing a report and some official investigations federal agents recovered security photos of the thief applying for the credit cards in her name. Michelle didn’t recognize the identity thief because they had never met, that is until about a week later.

A week after seeing the identity thief’s face in photos Michelle got the chance to see it up close and personal. Michelle’s identity thief was attempting to apply for a credit card at the JC Penny where Michelle worked. Not only did the identity thief apply for the card at the same department store Michelle worked at, but the same counter Michelle worked from.

When Michelle saw the woman standing in font of her counter asking about a credit card account she recognized her from the security photos. Her heart skipped a beat and she calmly excused herself from the counter and notified the security staff to focus on her. The security staff was able to get a pretty good look at the identity thief.

Unfortunately they police were not able to catch her right then and there. After the credit card was denied the thief left without a scene. Michelle’s efforts weren’t in vain however they did help connect the crimes when investigators finally caught the perpetrators. One of the identity thieves was arrested a couple weeks later trying to take out a credit card at a Kohl’s department store.

In this case it wasn’t just one person the identity thefts were all connected to an identity theft ring consisting of at least 5 people. The identity theft ring was responsible for the theft of 39 different identities.

Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke, the man that is in charge of the nation’s money supply, has found even he is not impervious to an identity theft. A thief stole his wife’s handbag right off the back of her chair while she sat in the lobby of a Starbucks. The thief made out with the family checkbook, credit cards, some cash, and her identification.

The Federal Reserve Board chairman, Ben Bernanke, and his wife did take steps to prevent their identity theft after their theft in August of 2008. During the investigation of the matter police discovered that they were dealing with a much bigger operation than expected.

Mr. Bernanke and his wife were one of 500 separate instances of fraud that have been traced back to one crime ring. The longer investigators looked into the case the wider the case got. 22 people are apart of the indictment all of which are suspected to be apart of the Bernanke identity theft.

The thieves are being charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud among other things. This just proves that even if you are good with money and think you know how to manage it you can still become a victim of identity theft. Mr. Bernanke most likely did everything in his power to protect himself and his wife.

There are just to many ways an identity thief can take advantage of the system to get what they want. Apparently these 22 people have done it hundreds of times and to many people. It will feel good to see them get what they disserve.