The FTC has busted a huge online payment scam where more than $10 Million in bogus charges were made to more than 1 million customers credit and debit cards. The Federal Trade Commission has halted the scam pending a trial.

More than a million customers here hit with charges of $10 or less, which where then routed through several fake businesses and dummy corporations in the US. The money was then transferred to bank accounts in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The defendants started companies with names similar to real businesses using information stolen from identity theft victims. There were more than 100 business accounts opened using the stolen information used to process the online transactions. It is believed the the identity theft victims where chosen by the thieves after a credit checked to ensure they were creditworthy of starting the bogus businesses.

The thieves then gave each of the fake merchants an address similar to a real companies location. They also added phone numbers and website address that pretended to sell products. According to the FTC the thieves then recruited at least 14 people in the US to open 16 dummy corporations, who then opened associated bank accounts to receive the credit card payments. The payments were than transferred over seas to bank accounts in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Kyrgyzstan.

It is still unclear how the defendants got their hands on the stolen identities or consumer credit cards and debit card numbers. None of the identity theft victims would have had direct contact with any of the defendants. Victims mostly likely didn’t notice the charges to their accounts because of the small amounts that were charged. All of the charges were between $10 and .20 cents, but if a consumer was to call about the charge they would simple be hung up on or left with a recording.

This is a pretty good scam in my opinion. I have to say I haven’t heard of anything white like it before, and it seemed to work pretty well. Making large charges would have brought a lot of attention, but small charges which were routed through dummy businesses who then got routed through other fake businesses, who were started by identity theft victims, was very smart indeed. The FTC caught the scam but they still don’t know who the people are behind it. I guess that was the point of the scam to prevent a paper trail from leading to the real master minds of it. The sad thing is if they don’t find the people responsible they could just start all over again with new companies.

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.



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.

A former California insurance agent James Alfred Morris, 66, has been arrested and charged with eight felony counts of identity theft and six felony counts of grand theft. These charges come after he allegedly stole a man’s identity to sell insurance policies and collect the commissions.

Morris had lost his license to sell insurance in 2003 for similar fraud violations. Morris used a former employee’s identity to submit 15 applications for life insurance so he could collect the commissions. The $8,457 in commissions where paid directly to a bank account that Morris controlled. The California Department of Insurance was unaware of this until the insurance company discovered Morris’s insurance applications were fraudulent and filed a complaint against Morris, claiming he owned them the commission money back.

According to the police it’s only a matter of time before people like Morris get caught. Accordingly to Commissioner Poizner of California “Stealing another’s identity and then stealing money from an insurance company will never succeed. We will hunt you down, make sure you are prosecuted and then sent to jail.”

Perhaps the insurance industry is not the best place to commit identity theft and fraud. Perhaps there are already too many companies and government operations out there to expose and prosecute people trying to commit insurance fraud. Perhaps what the say about life insurance salesmen are true.

I am sure you have called a contact or support center by phone and heard a recording telling you that your call may be recorded for quality assurance. What exactly does that mean and how does it keep you safe. You trust a lot of sensitive information to complete strangers all the time. Strangers that work for a company in a call center that, let’s face it, can’t be fun to work in. So the turn over rate is pretty high for most companies. So what keeps employees from working for a couple of months and then  walking away with enough information to steal the identities of hundreds of people? That’s where the quality assurance comes in, but is it good enough to prevent identity theft?

These call recordings don’t just record the phone calls but they also record what the employee is typing into the computer, their page navigation and data retrieval. The system will also sync up the phone conversation to the input on the screen so that delays and errors in data entry may be recorded. So many times the whole conversation from phone to desktop is recorded.

Supervisors can review the recording to evaluate the employee. The recordings are also there to catch and prevent employees from accessing files that they didn’t need. Sometimes supervisors can catch employees who write down a customers card number by the simple fact that there was a delay in the customer giving the number and the employee punching it into the computer.

Even though a call center wouldn’t be the easiest place to steal peoples identities there have been people who have done it. The companies are responsible for the security of their customers information  but security measures are not always enough. There are people who slip through the system and steal peoples identities. So be careful who you do business with and what information you give them, and as always keep an eye on your accounts for signs 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.

The Better Business Bureau is warning job seekers once again to be careful when applying for jobs. With 13 states showing an unemployment rate of 10% or higher it’s clear that unemployment is a problem. Scam artists are taking advantage of the situations and the public needs to be aware.

There are several ways that scammers take advantage of job seekers. Most of the scams involve background checks, upfront fees, and phishing scams.

1. Upfront Fees – There has been an increase of ads for jobs claiming several position openings and all that is required is money for a background check. The money of course does not go toward a background check and they keep your money and use your personal information to steal your identity. Don’t fall for this simple scam. Know a company is legitimate before giving out any information and insist you give it to them in person and never over the phone.

2. Job Placement Companies – Even though most job placement companies are legitimate businesses some of them are not. One needs to be cautious when a company makes promises that they can’t keep. Most firms are free to people looking for jobs they collect a fee from the companies who need people to fill positions. Be careful when companies want to you pay a fee for a guarantee you get a job. A promise they can’t keep and often times will pocket your money and never call you.

3. Phishing attacks – Phishing attacks are common on the Internet. It’s easier to know if a site is fake when you know what the real website and company looks like . This is why websites for fake business are harder to detect. Phishing websites of fake businesses who hire you and want you to send them personal information they use to steal your identity.

Always be suspicious of companies asking for private information before meeting them in person. Even then make sure you do your homework on the business to make sure they are a legitimate company. Be suspicious when companies ask for money upfront for any reason. Don’t give out information for a background check before you are sure the business is legitimate. If you are aware of these things you stand a better chance of preventing a job search related identity theft.

About a month ago Rod White was indicted on charges of fraud, forgery and identity theft. White was caught trying to use fake checks using the state Taxation and Revenue Department’s account numbers. Little did the police know that White was connected to an ID theft organization in Albuquerque.

The organization was stealing peoples personal information in order to steal their identities. The organization was involved in many purse snatchings and break-ins. The Organization also had a postmaster key and used it to steal mail from hundreds of victims. A search of only two of the accused homes exposed more than 400 victims.

The organization also broke into the car of a Motor Vehicle Division employee and stole documents containing the Names, Social Security Numbers, and Addresses of customers. They used these documents to to create fake ID’s and checks.

Police are still uncovering more evidence in this case and more arrests are coming soon. The scary thing about this case is the fact that they had a postmaster key to get into mailboxes. I guess I never thought about the possibility someone could have a master key to mailboxes. I always thought that my mail was safe since it was locked up in it’s little box. It’s unsettling to know that people can steal key and get into anyone’s mailbox.

Social networking site have been a topic of discussion in security circles for some time now. Everyone has heard or read a story about how you should be careful about what you put on a social networking profile because that information could be used to steal your identity.

Well what about the information that is being leaked out of Social networking site in order to send advertisements out targeted for you. According to a study done at AT&T Labs and the Worchester Polytechnic Institute several social networking sites are leaking out personal information about you. They take information about you from your profile and your viewing habits, which are then stored in a cookie and used by data aggregators.

What does that mean? Well that means the social networking sites store who you are, what you like, and what you look at so that advertisers can target people that would most likely be interested in a product or service. That’s not all though, once they have this information they can track where you go and what you see when you’re not on the social networking site.  If they have a tracker on another site you visit they will see you visited that site and can match your IP address to your social media profile. Which makes browsing the Internet less anonymous.

This is truly scary and bothersome. I know it’s a good way to make ads smarter and better targeted to a specific audience, but I don’t like my information being released like that. I am not worried about what the aggregators and advertisers are doing with the information I’m worried about how secure the information is.

This could be a security threat and could lead to people stealing this information and using it to steal identities. Many data breaches are a result of a company or organization giving information to a third party who ends up loosing it. I am sure that this type of information would he helpful in the pursuit of identity theft.

So once again be careful what information you put on your social networking site. The less a stranger can find out about you the better. Try not to use your full legal name and leave out your birthday or use a fake one when possible. Never allow yourself to give out information that could be a part of a security question, like the name of your pet or your mother’s maiden name. If your mom is on Facebook and has her maiden name as her middle name make sure she leaves it out, so people can’t just look for family and find it. Things like these can make your social networking experience a lot more secure.