Protect Your Identity Before
Someone Steals It
Real-Life ‘Catch Me If
You Can’ Subject Offers Advice to Avoid Identity Theft
The Wall Street Journal Online,
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1043880249879753504,00.html
(subscription required)
Frank Abagnale knows a thing
or two about assuming another person's identity.
Mr. Abagnale, the subject of
this winter's movie “Catch
Me If You Can,” is a former con man who passed off $2.5 million in bad
checks as a teenager by impersonating a pilot and a doctor, among other guises.
But since his release from prison, he has become one of the world's leading
authorities on check fraud, embezzlement and secure documents, and advises
corporations about how to protect themselves against fraudsters.
But average consumers -- not
huge companies-- are increasingly at great risk of becoming fraud victims. The Federal Trade Commission reports that
identity-theft complaints doubled in 2002, reaching 162,000 from 86,000 in
2001. The FBI says identity theft is now a
top priority and Sens. Dianne Feinstein
(D, Calif.), Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) and Judd Gregg (R, N.H.), recently introduced
legislation that would restrict access to Social Security numbers, a key piece
of information for identity thieves.
More regulation would only go
so far, Mr. Abagnale says, and consumers need to take greater responsibility
for their own personal information.
Here's a look at some of Mr.
Abagnale's advice about how consumers can safeguard their personal information.
WSJ.com: The FTC
said last week that identity theft is the No. 1 consumer complaint in
Mr.
Abagnale: This would be the third year in a row it's the No. 1 consumer crime
in
Q: What puts
people at risk?
A:
It's the everyday things we do. You go to the grocery store and you write a
check for $52 of groceries. On that check is your name and address, the name of
your bank, your bank's address, your account number, your routing number, your
transit number and your signature. If nothing else, that's more than what I
would need to access your bank account and draft on it. That in itself is
enough. Then in many cases, they'll say I need to write down your driver's
license. In 12 states, your driver's license is your Social Security number, as
it is in my state (
Personnel
records are also a prime source for identity thieves. A janitorial service
might bid low so it can get a three-month probation contract. Once they are in
the office, they do a great cleaning job, but part of the cleaning team has
access to personnel records, files, employees' desks, to obtain all kinds of
information. For example, a janitorial service working at a doctor's office may
have access to patients' records, which contain their names, addresses, Social
Security numbers, date of birth, sometimes a copy of a driver's license with
driver's license number, phone numbers and credit-card records. While they're
there, they might also look through employees' desks for pay stubs or
credit-card receipts.
Q: What are some
of the latest scams?
A:
What's happening is that three years ago, the identity theft started as, “Let
me get a credit card in your name.” Then it moved into getting a cellphone in
your name, buying a car in your name, getting a mortgage in your name.
For
one thing, some identity thieves have been driving around neighborhoods where
the houses are $375,000 or $400,000 and they look for elderly people and
they'll jot down the address. They go down to the public-records bureau to see
who lives there, and then go into a bank and say, I want to apply for a loan
and use my house as collateral. If a loan is for less than 1% of the mortgage,
the bank doesn't need an appraisal, so all of a sudden that elderly person is
being asked to repay the loan.
Q: This all sounds
so scary, but how often is it happening?
A:
Every day. There are so many other ways. When my three sons turned 18, they
each had to fill out the selective-service card, which is just a postcard with
all the information on the back. They ask for their full name, address, Social
Security number, date of birth and signature, on the post card.
Once
again, anyone can see and sell that information. All you need is to find one
person at the post office who you can talk into taking that postcard, paying 25
cents to run it through the copy machine and then put it back into the mail.
I
always tell companies that only amateurs hack computers -- professionals hack
people.
Q: What are the
three biggest mistakes you see consumers make?
A:
For one thing, everyone should have a shredder. They don't cost very much. I'm
always amazed that when the gas bill comes, or the Merrill Lynch statement,
that people just throw them away. In there is your Social Security number, or
your account numbers and your address.
People
are careless with their deposit slips. You write your grocery list on the back
of one of them, or you finish the checks in a pack but throw away the few
deposit slips left.
People
think, it's a deposit slip, what is someone going to do, put cash in my
account? But if someone offered me the choice of a wallet with $250 cash,
credit cards and a pack of 25 checks, or one deposit slip, I'll take the
deposit slip. That tells me where you bank, and it gives me your account
number. For example, I could go to your bank -- the address is on the deposit
slip -- and deposit a phony check for $600, make the deposit slip “less cash”
of $300 and drive away $300 richer.
Also
many people don't reconcile their bank statements each month. You have 30 days
to reconcile transactions in your account, but many people don't look at their
statements each month. They are totally unaware that someone has done a
fraudulent transaction until it's too late to do anything about it.
My
entire career has been to make people aware of the risk. One thing I've found
is that if you educate and show people the risk, they will do something about
it. You have to be a little bit wiser and a little bit smarter. We give away
way too much information about ourselves, so we need to be a bit smarter.
People are not looking at things from the same angle I am. They don't suspect
because they don't have deceptive minds. You need to stop and ask, is this
legitimate?
The
consumer goes along with it because there seems to be no harm in it. So your
health insurance provider puts your Social Security number on your card, or a
professor posts it up on a board with your grades. Everything is tied to it and
neither banks nor companies are doing anything to educate consumers about the
risk.
Q: There are many
places where a person's Social Security number is their identification number,
such as in the military or students at universities. Are they at greater risk?
A:
At the schools for all three of my sons, their student ID is their Social
Security number. And a person who is 18 years old is a prime target for
identity theft. This is someone who has no credit and probably won't need it
for four years. By the time they finish school, get a job and need it, their
credit is ruined.
Q: Identity theft
is now on the radar screen of the Bush administration and the FTC, which are
both calling for action. Would more regulation of information help, or giving
consumers more tools to fight it?
A:
They need stiffer penalties and they need to go after the perpetrators. It
takes average consumers about $1,174 and about 175 hours to correct their
credit. It's really frustrating when you're an identity-theft victim and you go
to the police and you say, “This guy in Florida, he stole my name and got a
credit card -- this is his address,” and they say, “We don't have jurisdiction
in Florida, you need to go to the FBI.” So I go there and they say the FBI
doesn't investigate crimes under $100,000. Then, you call the police in
We
really need to get control over Social Security numbers. My children's
generation, they're past it. But their children should be able to have a number
that is secure.
If
we're going to use a number to identify people, it should be a number with
limited access to it. It's going to take a couple of generations to fix, but
the government should be doing this and starting it now.
We
should be very concerned if identity theft is so simple to do, what's to stop
me from entering this country and assuming the identity of someone else for the
sole purpose of living here illegally for terrorist reasons? That alone would
be a concern.
But
the government can't protect consumers. The police can't protect consumers.
People need to be more aware and educated about identity theft. You need to be a
little bit wiser, a little bit smarter and there's nothing wrong with being
skeptical. We live in a time when if you make it easy for someone to steal from
you, someone will.
Copyright 2003 Dow Jones
& Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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