I recently realized that one of the VERY best things I did in 2006 was set up Roboform on my computer.
When I bought the program, I didn’t get a discount, so I spent $30 on this nifty little piece of computer code.
It’s a great program, and would have been worth whatever I paid for it (I’m exaggerating a bit, but I think having Roboform has been worth thousands of dollars to me). Roboform not only works, and does exactly what it says it will do, but it’s also saved me time (by saving my time typing), helped my memory (by managing my passwords), and has made my life more organized, not to discount the piece of mind the program provides from a security standpoint.
We usually don’t delve into too much of the bizarre on Identity Theft Secrets, but I read about this in the Washington Post and really found it curious.
Tiffany Gwen Weaver, of Reisterstown, Maryland, will possibly spend up to 10 years in prison, after she was charged with 7 different counts when she supposedly used Amanda Sprehn’s Identity.
Did she steal the identity of a Sprehn, a Maryland attorney:
- for financial gain?
- to have a cancer test?
- maybe just to run up a few phone bills?
No. Tiffany Weaver used the identity of Amanda Sprehn (of the Annapolis law firm Hyatt, Peters & Weber), so that she could get into a prison and enjoy her time with one of the inmates there.
Weaver had a Maryland State Bar Association Security Identification Pass with photo, identifying her as Amanda Sprehn, but she got caught when the prison contacted Sprehn’s (the real one) employer to say that she was no longer allowed in the jail.
Here’s a question that Identity Theft Secrets received recently.
“I’m looking for a general template letter to send to different people and agencies to report being a victim of identity theft. Someone stole my Social Security # and name from a lost wallet and has been working in various areas/states using my information, reporting that I’m there. The Social Security Administration does nothing and the IRS is keeping refunds due saying that the income (I never received) was not reported to the IRS. Need help to get a generic letter to send to credit reporting agencies, IRS, police dept, etc. This was reported in the past but NO ONE even acknowledged receipt. Maybe a handwritten note was not taken seriously. This is for my son who does not have a computer and I offered to try to help, but I am not that knowledgeable with computers so said I would look for assistance. Thank You.”
I will be talking more about this later, but companies, and business owners, need to be aware that they can held liable for compliance with laws that they may not even know exist.
This is something most business owners know (and some fear), but what you, as a business owner, may not know, is that you are required to be compliant with laws regarding your use, handling, and disposal of customer and employee information.
As this article snippet from Hometown News (kbtv4.tv) shows, an attorney general, or even individuals, can come after you for a variety of things if you don’t handle customer and employee information properly.
In this video, MSNBC does a great job detaining some of the problems with Smart Cards.
(VIDEO COMING SOON)
It’s likely that you have seen a smart card, either using a smart card yourself or via watching someone else use one.
To catch an identity thief is a dateline NBC special that ran about a week ago. Dateline went out using Dan Clements’ (from Card Cops) help, the help of a few credit card companies, and the use of their programmers, to create an entire world in order to ensnare an identity thief.
What they show in these videos is a lot of what we show you here on IdentityTheftSecrets.com, so it’s good that they’re contributing to educating people. We’ve taked a lot on IdentityTheftSecrets about phishing and we’ve even shown you Cardersmarket.com, where people’s information is actually being bought and sold, still to this day.
What’s so amazing and scary about this series of videos (that Dateline did such an excellent job with) is that these people are being duped into thinking that what they’re doing is actually a good thing. They believe that they actually have some sort of business, and that the person they’re working with is actually a real legitimate person.
In fact, what’s actually happening is that they’re committing a crime. They don’t even know that they’re committing a crime, but when it comes down to it they could be charged for being an accessory. Ignorance of laws is never a defense.
The other thing that could happen to these people who have been duped. Is that they can actually be sued by the people whose credit card numbers were used to purchase this merchandise. The credit card companies could also sue these people. Even though they aren’t the ones using the credit card. They are the ones accepting the merchandise.
One of the things that is really sad about an identity thief preying on this sort of a person. Is it that what they’re preying on is these people’s insecurities about themselves.
You’ll see here in these videos that these are people who are looking for a husband or a wife, or that they are lacking something in their current relationships. And what this identity thief (or identity Theft Ring) is providing, in addition to a source of income, is a boost to these people’s egos. The thief is also providing for these people a sense of companionship that these individuals have likely not had in their lives, (at least from the looks of things not recently in their lives).