Identity thieves prey upon unsuspecting

You may be signing up for a credit card right now.
Actually, a crook who got your personal data is doing it for you.
And guess who’s going to be stuck with the bill?
Identity theft is America’s fastest-growing crime, and it’s happening more and more in the Hannibal region.
Just ask Jean Smith and Tonya Jones, two very different ladies who share the misfortune of getting taken.
Smith and Jones are pseudonyms the Courier-Post agreed to give the women after they asked for anonymity, but their stories are very real.
“I was shocked,” said Smith, an older widow. “I never thought anything like this would happen to me.”
“You can say I threw my money away,” added Jones, who has a young family. “It’s gone and I can’t get it back.”
Authorities are using National Protect Your Identity Week Oct. 19-25 as another way to sound the alarm about deceptions.

How it happened
Smith’s case started a few months ago.
A collection agency sent her a notice that she still owed money on a telephone bill from Texas. Smith had never lived there.
Suspicious, Smith consulted a lawyer and wrote an inquiry to the company. A couple of weeks later, she got what appeared to be a notice saying she owed state income tax.
Smith took it to her preparer, Trish Runyon of Donovan’s Tax Service, who ran a credit check. It found Smith owed money on three credit cards for which she had never applied.
Guess which state the letter came from?
“Somehow, they had my Social Security number and my birth date, but it was a year off” from her legitimate year of her birth.
Texas authorities have verified that the address exists, but the investigation continues and Smith hasn’t heard anything for a month. In the meantime, she’s taken steps to protect herself.
Jones’ case is similar.
In April, she got a letter from what she thought was a collection agency demanding payment on more than $300 from an old bank debt.
The bank no longer owned the account, so Jones couldn’t pay the debt directly.
So, she made arrangements with the collection agency to have money withdrawn from her new bank account each month.
She became suspicious in August, when a different collection agency sent her a similar letter.
“I was very irate,” Smith said. “I thought I’d been paying on it.”
Smith found that the first collection agency would not answer her telephone calls and that it was not licensed or bonded. It also was making withdrawals from her bank account at different times each month.
As it turns out, the second collection agency also was bogus. Smith is out almost $500 and still owes a little on the original debt, and she’s not sure how to go about paying it.
“It was a debt and I owed it, but it wasn’t a big one,” she said. “I came to find out they were pocketing my money.”

A growing problem
The Information Age has made such crimes hard to stop.
The Identity Theft Resource Center estimates there’s a new victim about every two seconds, and that almost half of American households were unnecessarily exposed last year.
The three most common types are credit card deceit, unauthorized utility services and bank fraud.
Financial institutions and creditors are required by law to have identity theft prevention programs, but many other businesses are not.
Countries in Western Europe report fewer identity crimes because they have regulations preventing firms from sharing or selling private information.
In America, theft can be remarkably simple because data about an estimated 90 percent of us is sold everyday. The trend has forced legitimate companies to spend millions on identity protection.
Arizona is the identify theft capital of the nation, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Illinois ranked 10th and Missouri 19th. Iowa came in at 47th.
Swindlers can go high-tech by breaking into computer databases that have information about you or take the low-tech route of searching your garbage for important data.
The really troubling aspect, authorities say, is that thieves in many cases know their victims or have had contact with them.
Hannibal Police Capt. James Hark said that locally, scams still top identity theft, but the department does get reports of it. He credits greater awareness for keeping down the number of cases.
“We live in a society now where you have to be cautious.” Hark said. “The key has been the education that has went forth and in our area has kept it down.”

What you can do
Nothing can eliminate the risk, but you can do a lot to cut it.
Destroy private records, make sure mail delivery comes to a secured location and protect your financial data.   
You can also be pro-active, like Smith and Jones. Bad experiences have taught them to be more careful, and both are thankful to Runyon.
“When we got on it right away, it really helped,” Smith said. “No telling what kind of bills I would have” otherwise.
“I watch what I do with my old papers,” Jones said. “If I don’t burn them, I shred them. I don’t want to be taken again.”
Runyon recommends regular credit checks and advises clients to get a validation letter from callers who seek payments on bills.
People also can buy credit protection services, and the law allows people to get a free credit report once a year. You can find out more at www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228.
For information on the national Do-Not-Call Registry, go to www.donotcall.gov or call 1-888-382-1222.
If you suspect fraud, report it immediately to police, credit card companies, banks, utilities, the Social Security Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, other agencies, and the big three credit-reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
“You really have got to remain vigilant about it,” Runyon said. “The key is to remain on the defense.”