Inside Bearleft.net
Best Of BearLeft.net
A Cry Heard Round The World: Kim Sun-Il died desperate and alone, but he did not die unheard.
Looking At And Longing For Mars: Reflections on a childhood dream.
A Robot May Not Harm a Human Being. Is The Opposite True?: Thoughts on the future rights of artificial intelligence.
Long After The Boys Of Summer Have Gone: What makes a relationship work?
Winter Of Our Feline Discontent: What the cat wants, the cat gets. But what DOES it want?
To Tell The Truth: There may be no honor among thieves, but can't we find it even in a few good men and women?
Should The Human Brain Retire?: We know that we cannot win forever. We know that machines will continue to improve. So why don't we let the human brain retire gracefully now, with honors?
Translate This Page
Read Bear Left in:
Chinese
German
Japanese
Korean
French
Italian
Portuguese
Spanish
Translations powered by Alta Vista Babelfish
Privacy Policy
To learn how services incorporated into this blog may use personal information, click here.
Total entries in this blog:
Published: Sep 16, 2005 01:40 PM
Thu - April 24, 2003
Part I: It Happened To Me; It Can Happen To You
My life was pretty ordinary
until I received a collections notice for a bank loan I never took out as an
advance on a tax return I never filed.
This article is informational in
nature and is not legal advice. If you need legal counsel, consult a licensed
attorney in your
jurisdiction.
I expected to find piles of junk mail when we returned from our honeymoon so in my haste to make headway on these stacks, I almost assumed that the envelope from a bank I had never heard of contained a useless offer for a new credit card.
It didn't.
"Your account is an arrears," the letter began, "and will soon be sent to collections. Please contact us at once."
At first I thought the bank had misaddressed its warning and that the letter was intended for the former occupant of the apartment we had leased a month earlier. But then I realized that my full name was in the header, along with my address, my phone number, and my social security number. How had they gotten that information? And from whom?
The bank employee I spoke to the next day seemed as puzzled as me. "But sir," she protested. "You took out a loan here. We have your name and address on file. Are you telling me that you won't pay us back?"
"I've never heard of your bank," I said. "And I'm telling you that I owe you nothing."
"Well," she said, without conviction, "I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this."
Since then I've pieced together what must have happened from conversations with the bank and with others involved: A man walked into an H&R Block last February in a state thousands of miles from my home. He said that he wanted to file his taxes early because the government owed him a generous refund. He furnished my name, my address, my phone number, my occupation, and my social security number. He also provided a fraudulent W-2 form from an alleged employer in a state in which I have never lived.
He filed a tax return in my name.
Leaving H&R block, he visited a nearby bank, where he again used my credentials to apply for a loan as an advance on the refund that he had just claimed. The bank checked my credit and found it excellent. They granted the loan, and he departed with a generous check. The IRS never issued a refund so the bank never received a payment. When the loan became due, they sought reimbursement from the named account holder—me—which is how this sad story began.
Although I still don't know how the thief got my personal information many weeks later, I've learned a great deal about identity theft. I've learned, for example, that the FBI deems identity theft one of the fastest growing crimes in America. With some 700,000 new cases reported in the past year alone, it's likely that you already know someone whose identity has been stolen. Someday soon the victim could be you.
Forget everything you think you know about privacy. Your social security number is everywhere. You provide it on your tax forms. You provide it to your bank. You provide it whenever you open a mutual fund account or enroll in a healthcare plan at work. Your employer has access to it and so does your landlord (remember that credit check she required before you moved in?). It may even appear on the insurance benefit cards that you carry in your wallet. And your other personal information, such as credit card numbers and bank accounts, is just as vulnerable.
Consider all the people have access to this data: The teenager who rang up your groceries, the pharmacist who filled your prescription, the housekeeper who cleans your house, and the teller who opened your account. Now picture the chain of custody extending to people who could access the desks and computers and carbons and casual print outs of those individuals—not to mention the unscrupulous characters who rifled through your trash for personal information to steal.
Every one of us leaves a comet-like trail of personal information behind us and around us. In the next five installments of this series, I'll highlight ways to protect yourself against identity theft more effectively, suggest means to respond to theft of your identity, highlight valuable internet resources about identity theft, and explain how to opt-out of future use of your personal information by database companies, financial institutions, and direct marketers.
Still not sure you're a potential victim? Read the latest headlines about identity theft from Yahoo! News and Google.
This is part one of a series. To continue reading the rest of the articles in this series, select:
Part II: How Identity Theft Occurs
Part III: How to Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft
Part IV: What To Do When Your Identity Is Stolen
Part V: Online Resources for Identity Theft Victims
Part VI: Opting Out--How To Protect Your Privacy
I expected to find piles of junk mail when we returned from our honeymoon so in my haste to make headway on these stacks, I almost assumed that the envelope from a bank I had never heard of contained a useless offer for a new credit card.
It didn't.
"Your account is an arrears," the letter began, "and will soon be sent to collections. Please contact us at once."
At first I thought the bank had misaddressed its warning and that the letter was intended for the former occupant of the apartment we had leased a month earlier. But then I realized that my full name was in the header, along with my address, my phone number, and my social security number. How had they gotten that information? And from whom?
The bank employee I spoke to the next day seemed as puzzled as me. "But sir," she protested. "You took out a loan here. We have your name and address on file. Are you telling me that you won't pay us back?"
"I've never heard of your bank," I said. "And I'm telling you that I owe you nothing."
"Well," she said, without conviction, "I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this."
Since then I've pieced together what must have happened from conversations with the bank and with others involved: A man walked into an H&R Block last February in a state thousands of miles from my home. He said that he wanted to file his taxes early because the government owed him a generous refund. He furnished my name, my address, my phone number, my occupation, and my social security number. He also provided a fraudulent W-2 form from an alleged employer in a state in which I have never lived.
He filed a tax return in my name.
Leaving H&R block, he visited a nearby bank, where he again used my credentials to apply for a loan as an advance on the refund that he had just claimed. The bank checked my credit and found it excellent. They granted the loan, and he departed with a generous check. The IRS never issued a refund so the bank never received a payment. When the loan became due, they sought reimbursement from the named account holder—me—which is how this sad story began.
Although I still don't know how the thief got my personal information many weeks later, I've learned a great deal about identity theft. I've learned, for example, that the FBI deems identity theft one of the fastest growing crimes in America. With some 700,000 new cases reported in the past year alone, it's likely that you already know someone whose identity has been stolen. Someday soon the victim could be you.
Forget everything you think you know about privacy. Your social security number is everywhere. You provide it on your tax forms. You provide it to your bank. You provide it whenever you open a mutual fund account or enroll in a healthcare plan at work. Your employer has access to it and so does your landlord (remember that credit check she required before you moved in?). It may even appear on the insurance benefit cards that you carry in your wallet. And your other personal information, such as credit card numbers and bank accounts, is just as vulnerable.
Consider all the people have access to this data: The teenager who rang up your groceries, the pharmacist who filled your prescription, the housekeeper who cleans your house, and the teller who opened your account. Now picture the chain of custody extending to people who could access the desks and computers and carbons and casual print outs of those individuals—not to mention the unscrupulous characters who rifled through your trash for personal information to steal.
Every one of us leaves a comet-like trail of personal information behind us and around us. In the next five installments of this series, I'll highlight ways to protect yourself against identity theft more effectively, suggest means to respond to theft of your identity, highlight valuable internet resources about identity theft, and explain how to opt-out of future use of your personal information by database companies, financial institutions, and direct marketers.
Still not sure you're a potential victim? Read the latest headlines about identity theft from Yahoo! News and Google.
This is part one of a series. To continue reading the rest of the articles in this series, select:
Part II: How Identity Theft Occurs
Part III: How to Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft
Part IV: What To Do When Your Identity Is Stolen
Part V: Online Resources for Identity Theft Victims
Part VI: Opting Out--How To Protect Your Privacy