How Does This System Protect the Consumer?
The Information Card Foundation has devised a unique system that protects the consumer by eliminating the need for a logon and password, thereby removing personal information from a web site. It achieves its goal by mimicking the electronic code that is used with debit cards, credit cards, and driver's licenses, replacing the code with a digital information card. This digital "card" contains the individual's personal information and each individual will be required to carry several different cards: one for each secured web site that the individual uses.
At present, most all web sites require the establishment of an account by setting up a user name and password. This method is simple, but it isn't very secure, as any identity thief will point out. All that is necessary to get this personal information is for the identity thief to hack the web sites system and tap into the database containing usernames and passwords. With digital cards, the identity thief is stopped quickly in his/her tracks because these cards are not linked to a web site. Since they are not linked, they are not part of the web site's database so if a thief successfully hacks a web site, the person who uses these digital cards will not exist in the records.
How Does This Work?
Digital cards are a unique service and they are the key behind the success of this system. Each individual who uses this system must setup a separate digital card for each web site commonly used. These digital cards are then stored on an individual's personal computer, either in its browser, on the desktop, or on a mobile device. When an individual decides to make an online purchase or enter into a secured site for some other reason, all he/she has to do is click the I- card link within the web site. The individual can then logon without the need for a logon id or password.
What are the Pros and Cons?
The system offered by the Information Card Foundation offers plenty of reasons to consider using it and chief among these is the direct protection against identity theft and phishing. There are many who would like to use the internet for online purchasing, conducting banking transactions, etc., but they avoid using this modern technology because they fear having their identities stolen. With this system, the need for inputting personal information into a web site is eliminated, greatly reducing the chances for the occurrence of identity theft. As a side benefit, this system also eliminates the need to memorize logon ids and passwords.
Even though this system offers great protection against identity theft and phishing, it still has a few issues that prevent it from achieving the level of greatness of which it is capable. The greatest problem with this system is that it only works if the web used by the consumer is participating in the digital card system and accepts I- Cards. If this affiliation is not present, then the digital card is useless. As more and more web sites accept I- Cards, this system will become more and more useful, but until that time, digital cards have limited use.
How Can I Obtain and Install This Service?
The Information Card Foundation offers easy installation of its system. To initiate the setup, a person must establish an Identity Selector on his/her pc. This is usually already available because it often exists on some pc browsers. If it isn't in the browser, it should be searched for on the computer desktop. Once the identity selector is located, the next step is to setup your own digital cards for use at specific internet web sites. After completing this step, the Information Card Foundation's system will be installed and ready for use. When a web site is accessed, it will no longer ask for a logon id and password.
Identity theft continues to cause problems for millions of consumers each year but, fortunately, there are many effective software products designed to help stop identity theft before it begins. The Information Card Foundation has devised a very effective means to eliminate or greatly reduce the incidence of identity theft and phishing with its system of digital cards. These cards help protect consumers by eliminating the need for logon ids and passwords, keeping personal information private and well out of reach of cyber- thieves everywhere. It's a very good product for consumers who worry about shopping or conducting other transactions online.
Shop Shield, one of the newer services available for on-line shopping protection, offers a new and comprehensive product that allows you to shop on-line without ever sharing real financial or personal data on-line. Would be hackers or insiders up to no good, can't steal your information because it's not there to steal. How does this work?
The good news for consumers that want the convenience of shopping on-line without the risks of identity theft is that there are several services and products available to protect on-line transactions.
Shop Shield offers a new and comprehensive product that allows you to shop on-line without ever sharing real financial or personal data on-line. Would be hackers or insiders up to no good, can't steal your information because it's not there to steal.
Shop Shield can protect:
* your credit card numbers
* your bank account information
* your billing address
* your e-mail address
* your log-in information
How does Shop Shield work?
Shop Shield protects you by replacing real, personal information with anonymous, temporary information every time you shop at on on-line retailer or fill out a web-site registration.
Shop Shield operates without a vulnerable centralized database. Your information is safe stored in undecipherable fragments that are encrypted, divided into multiple locations with varying sequences. Wow! This technology exceeds even federal banking standards.
With Shop Shield, billing information is "substituted" so that the information is useless to potential identity thieves. Another plus is that if the on-line retailer practices in selling customer information, they won't be selling any information that is traceable to you. This protects you in the future as well from unwanted marketing and phishing.
Who's behind Shop Shield?
Shop Shield is the brand of Kemesa, a privately held company operating in Salt Lake City, Utah with offices, included customer service in southern Florida. "Kemesa" is an acronym for the company's mission, "Keeps Me Safe." Shop Shield has already passed in-depth security evaluations including the PCI standard, for the Payment Card Industry.
Do I need Shop Shield if I am already using other secure measures?
Many financial transaction service providers like Master Card Secure Code, Bank of America Shop Safe, Discover Desk Top, Google Check Out and PayPal never transmit real card information. However, Shop Shield also protects your billing and e-mail information. That's a big plus.
Shop Shield is available to the public in beta verstion with a free trial. Shop Shield is so confident that they've added a guarantee that if your personal information is compromised, they'll reimburse you up to $10,000 above and beyond any coverage offered by your bank or credit card company.
Identity theft thieves are always looking for cracks in protection armor. Shop Shield offers a new, comprehensive technology that shields and protects you from identity theft.
Since great strides were made during 2000-2006 on protecting, preventing and penalizing identity theft, but since then very little has been done on the federal level,. So what steps can be taken to keep up with this growing crime and ever changing technology that makes it easier to occur?
Facts about Identity Theft 2000-present
In 2001 identity theft was involved in more than 40 percent of the consumer complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission, twice as many as were received the year before.
Also reported 2001, identity theft involving social security numbers had rocketed 500 percent in four just years.
In 2002, banks were losing over $1 billion annually and individual identity theft victims lost an average of $18,000.
Despite these growing numbers, only a third of convicted identity thieves ever went to prison.
Just what laws has President Bush signed to thwart the threat and devastating consequences of identity theft?
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, December 2003
• required merchants to delete credit card numbers prior to the last five on all receipts
• created a National System of Fraud Detection made it possible for consumers to report identity theft and issue a nationwide alert with one phone call
• entitled consumers to one free credit report annually from each of the 3 agencies for credit reporting
The Identity Theft Penalty Act, July 15, 2004
• identified a new crime of "aggravated identity theft"
• added two years to all prison sentences for those convicted of identity theft using stolen credit cards or personal information in commission of identity theft crimes
Why are penalties for the crime of Identity Theft so important?
According to Betsy Broder, assistant director for the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Planning and Information, "The law will make it more likely that thieves are prosecuted. A prosecutor is less likely to bring a case if they're not going to get any serious jail time when they get a conviction."
In May, 2006, an Executive Order for the Nation's First Identity Theft Task Force was initiated and chaired by the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission Chair was designed to: assist law enforcement in investigation and prosecution of identity theft crimes as well as called for education on avoiding identity theft crimes for the public as well as businesses.
In a speech announcing the signing of The Identity Theft Penalty Act, President Bush stated: "The crime of identity theft undermines the basic trust on which our economy depends. When a person takes out an insurance policy, or makes an online purchase, or opens a savings account, he or she must have confidence that personal financial information will be protected and treated with care. Identity theft harms not only its direct victims, but also many businesses and customers whose confidence is shaken. Like other forms of stealing, identity theft leaves the victim poor and feeling terribly violated.
But the losses are not measured only in dollars. An identity theft thief can steal the victim's financial reputation. Running up bills on credit card accounts that the victim never knew existed, the criminal can quickly damage a person's lifelong efforts to build and maintain a good credit rating. Repairing the damage can take a great deal of time, effort and money to correct.
Government has a responsibility to protect citizens from these crimes and the grief and hassle they cause. It's a solemn responsibility of our government. I want to thank the members of Congress for recognizing that responsibility."
Of course there have been many players at work on Capitol Hill pushing for the laws and enforcements that President Bush has signed. Senator Dianne Feinstein has been championing for reforms and tougher laws for identity theft. She's seen firsthand how easy it is to have your identity stolen. According to Feinstein, "At a hearing, a police officer from Washington D.C. came forward and gave me a phony credit card that he'd gotten in my name." He showed how is easy it was. He'd gotten it that morning. I still have it in my desk."
Maybe if more politicians had a reminder on their desk, in the form of a credit card obtained in their name, more steps would be taken to protect a consumer's information and identity when making purchases, paying bills or simply reading email or regular mail. One such step could be the elimination of the use of Social Security Numbers as an everyday identifier for everything from your Driver's License number, insurance policies or even medical records. The lack of a SSN number is one of the primary reasons that identity theft is so prevalent in the United States, and while a problem in other countries does not occur to the extent it does in the US. While consumers are encouraged to do all that they can in order to protect themselves from identity theft, it is important that laws are made with the appropriate penalties for this crime as well as actions taken to protect consumers and businesses.
What do you think would be an effective legal measure to protect against or penality against the crime of identity theft?
]]>In 2008, the NIH has 2500 patients information compromised with the loss of stolen laptops, as well as some 337,000 Nashville residents when county official realized that thieves had broken into the building and stolen laptops, the cost to the county will include over 1 million dollars as they provide identity theft protection to those affected by the theft. According to Paul Stevens, Director of Policy and Advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (a private advocacy group) there have been approximately 217 million records stolen in the past three years, 2005-2008.
These thefts are not limited to the United States, but occur across the world. In January of 2008, The UK's Ministry of Defense began a review of information security policies after a stolen laptop resulted in a major security breach. The laptop, stolen from a vehicle used by a military recruitment officer, had information on approximately 600,000 people. Much of the information was basic contact information but for 153,000 individuals more sensitive information was exposed including passport information, National Health Services numbers, driver's license numbers and medical information. For an additional 3, 700 people, financial and banking information had been stored on the laptop. What's worse, the database stored on the laptop was not encrypted.
Unfortunately, the data contained on laptops is not limited to corporate or business data, or personal data obtained and stored for marketing purposes, but individuals store many personal details on our computer such as banking, credit card, personal and investment information, not to mention pictures and information on friends, family and children. Whether stolen from corporate or business users or contracts or from the individual, when this data falls into the wrong hands it can be used to apply for any number of financial opportunities under false names by identity thieves.
Access to the information on our computer is not limited to a simple theft, even if your laptop were not permanently stolen, how long would it take for a thief to "borrow" it, copy all of your information and return it? Not long at all. Is there anything you can do to protect your own laptop, your personal information and your identity? Yes! IronKey offers a hardware-encrypted USB flash drive to protect your secure your most important portable data. No one can access the data on your IronKey if it is ever stolen, lost or "borrowed."
Features of IronKey:
* Drive contents encrypted using AES CBC-mode encryption.
* A True Random Number Generator for the maximum protection generates encryption keys in hardware.
* Securely stores passwords.
* Fast (30MBPS) Read
* Fast (20MBPS) Write
* Encased in a potted metal case- not plastic which makes it one of the strongest USB keys around
* Exceeds military waterproofing standards.
* Has the ability to safely tunnel through insecure wireless networks.
* IronKey does not require software, drivers, or administrator privileges. When the US Military needed portable storage secured, IronKey did the job. Other passwords can be hacked but not IronKey passwords. After 10 incorrect password attempts, the encryption chip self-destructs, making the contents of the flash drive totally unreadable. Understand that the flash drive itself does not self-destruct but the encryption chop does so the contents are completely unreadable.
How your IronKey is made:
IronKey utilizes a precise die-casting metal process to construct the Iron Key's metal casing to exact specifications for thickness, strength and durability. Iron and other metals are used to make the strong metal shell. IronKey is waterproof and tamperproof. No one can tamper with an IronKey without destroying or causing irreparable and noticeable damage.
What do reviewers have to say about IronKey?
"The security on this drive is clearly second to none. Anyone business owner that deals with sensitive information really should consider these drives. If there is even a slim chance that the data could be stolen or lost this is the drive for you," says Matt DiCecca, legitreviews.com. He adds, "While the IronKey distinguishes itself from the competition in its features like encryption, secure browser, and overall security features, it seems a no-brainer for any security conscience company to opt for a drive in this genre. In the larger scheme of things $80 is a small price to pay for peace of mind and security."
IronKey has products for personal or business use, from 1 GB up to 8 GB, starting at $79.99. IronKey is like a personal "Fort Knox" for college students, businesses or anyone who wants to protect their personal information and their identity.
Click here to go to Intelius and try it out on yourself for free. |
Intelius is a company providing more than people search and people finder services. However, that is what people most know Intelius for.
In this review and interview with Ed Petersen, Executive Vice President for Intelius, we spoke about Intelius collecting cellphone numbers, their people search and enterprise-level services, and challenges people have had with Intelius accounts.
Intelius Review: Download the MP3
Intelius: No problem, it's a pleasure to be here, Jonathan.
Identity Theft Secrets: Well, let's just get started. What, what does Intelius do? I think a lot people maybe don't know what Intelius does exactly.
Intelius: Intelius was developed to provide protection and safety services to both consumers and businesses and so the goal of the company has been to provide consumers and businesses with intelligent information so they can make better decisions about people, businesses and assets that affect their daily lives. And, so, whether someone is making a decision to hire a contractor, or hire a nanny, or to go out on a date with someone they've met online, or dropping their kids off at a soccer practice, or for protecting their identity by monitoring public record data or credit report data, those are the types of services and the types of solutions that Intelius brings to the market.
Identity Theft Secrets: Awesome. And how long has the company been in business?
Intelius: So we founded the company in January of 2003, so right around five and a half years.
Identity Theft Secrets: And basically people search then, is at the core of what you do, right?
Intelius: I wouldn't necessarily say it's the core, but it is certainly one of the entry points, I think, for our customers and our consumers. We're by far the largest online public records company and certainly a material component of that is people search. We run the people search components for many sites including Yahoo, including AOL, Yellow Book, a lot of the large directory-type sites and so Intelius is very, very advanced in that type of technology. I think that what ends up happening with people search from our standpoint is that people search is an enormous space online. In fact, you'll see stats out there; I think that there was a Business Week article a few months back that said that 30% of all internet searches are people search-related. Now, about half of those 30% are actually celebrity searches. But still, even 15% of all internet searches are regular, "hey, I'm looking for Ed Petersen, how do I find him?" And so, the space itself is enormous, but what we've ended up seeing is that once people connect, they want to take that next step and they want to get a little bit deeper information about the person they are trying to connect with. So, "I've found Ed Petersen, I've used Intelius to find Ed Petersen. The next step is, I'd love to get a little more background information on that specific person before I may reach out to them."
Identity Theft Secrets: So, "I knew Ed Petersen in high school, and so, now I've found where he is; but hey, I'd like to find out what he's been up to for the last ten years."
Intelus: You got it. Before you show up on his doorstep or pick up the phone, you may want to make sure that there isn't anything in there that would give you pause.
Identity Theft Secrets: Sure! How does Intelius collect all of this information on people? If you're providing the backend for some of the larger people searches online how do you go about collecting all this information?
Intelius: Intelius literally has about 19 billion records at Intelius so, in-house, and so one of the things Intelius has always done is try to provide the deepest information and the most reliable information out there; which is a very difficult problem to solve. And, so, we have, as I said, at Intelius, about 19 billion records in-house. We also have real time data feeds from numerous sources. So right now, I think we have about, north of a hundred different data suppliers that give us information, and that some of that is on a very daily updated basis, some of that is on a more sporadic updated basis. But what we try to do is to use a ton of heuristic processes and the Intelius technology that allows us to match information together, stitch information together to present a very accurate report for our customers.
Identity Theft Secrets: So that kind of sounds a little scary, if there is over a hundred data sources feeding the information into Intelius. What information, for example, could someone buy about me through Intelius?
Intelius: Sure, and I think that really the important thing to know here is that everything that Intelius has is public record information or publicly available information. There certainly is information that Intelius does not have. We do not have health records, and we don't just, you can't call up someone and they call up Intelius and say, "hey, I'd love to check out Jonathan's credit report, can you give that to me." We can't do that. So, it is all public information that we have. What a user can check out is they can call up, or they can go online to the Intelius website, and they can get information, for example, on your address history. They can get your current contact information; they can see if you have a criminal record. They can see if you are on the sex offender registry. They can see if you've had any civil litigation; for instance, a bankruptcy or a tax lien. They can see what type of professional licenses you may have. They can run a report on your property to see, hey, what is the value of a piece of property that you may own. So, there are numerous things like that that are all really geared towards giving someone a better picture of who they interact with.
And, so, I think from Intelius' standpoint, one of the things that is important is if you look at the trends that we've seen in the U.S. over the last decade or so, and even a little longer back than that, is that Intelius has really seen this trend of over 200,000 people moving every day in the U.S. And so, what's happened is the days of "hey, I'd like to add a deck onto the back of my house," where you say "great, my next door neighbor is a guy I went to high school with, his brother-in-law is a contractor." "I'll just write him a check, leave a key under the mat, and head off to work." And, either leave him alone in the house or leave him alone with my family in the house. Those days are really gone because there is such a transient-type society that we live in, that network of self-check really is no longer there. And I think that's the role that Intelius has fulfilled for many consumers, where they don't really think that the world is an evil place. But what they do want to do is before they make major decisions about either letting someone into their home or around their family, or making a financial decision, or protecting their identity, they want to make sure they are making the right decision and have all the most important information at their fingertips.
Identity Theft Secrets: So someone, I think that is really a good example of it because we, I mean, just as a society we are moving a lot more than we ever did for sure. Could someone go though and buy on the personal security site, could someone buy my, for example, social security number through Intelius?
Intelius: No, not at all. We would never sell a social security number to somebody. There is no chance.
Identity Theft Secrets: Do you have that information though?
Intelius: We have on certain spots on credit headers and so forth, we certainly do have social security data. It is actually very, very secure. What we do is we break it, if you will, and then encrypt it in two different databases. One of the interesting things about Intelius is all the different, because of the level of data we have, all the different security levels that we have to go through; we get audited, not only by our partners, but we also have the highest level of security authentication from VeriSign that you can receive to make sure that all of that information is safe. Now, calling in and saying what we do use, is we also do a large amount of employment screening. So if you look at, for example, FedEx Ground, we do the majority of their employment screening. So if a guy comes to your door and delivers a FedEx package to you, most likely Intelius has given FedEx the green light that that person is OK to hire. The level of data that we have to go through a screen of that nature is pretty substantial and, so, we really do hold ourselves to a higher standard of trying to be good stewards of that information.
Identity Theft Secrets: So a business like FedEx, for example, could come to you and say, "hey, we've got social security numbers for these twelve applicants. We want to run them through your system and see what they come up with."
Intelius: Yeah, "we want to verify that this person is who they claim to be." Absolutely.
Identity Theft Secrets: Ok.
Intelius: Absolutely. Now, if you come to Intelius and you have a name and an SSN; you can run a background report on that. You cannot come to Intelius and say "hey, I'd like to get Ed Petersen's social security number. We do not do that. So, you cannot go buy social security numbers. If you have, and you just can't go to the site and punch in a social security number and get the name or the information associated with it either. You have to have a match.
Identity Theft Secrets: So, could you explain more about that?
Intelius: So, if you go in and you want to run a background check off of a social security number and you had, well I could use myself as an example. If I went to Intelius and I had my social security number, I can punch that in, but then I also would have to have, I have to know the name that is associated with the social security number to be able to actually run the report. And so, I'd have to go in and type Ed Petersen, SSN is, you know, so forth, is this, hit submit, and if the SSN matches the name, then we'll run the report. It's just another way to narrow down the information for people, but we certainly by no stretch of the imagination allow people to just punch in a name and get an SSN.
Identity Theft Secrets: Sure, OK. Well, from an identity theft perspective if an identity thief already had let's say, my name and social security number, and they brought it to your system, they could potentially get a lot more information about me. I mean, if they already have my name and social security number, I'm in trouble anyway, but...
Intelius: Yeah, I would say that actually it goes the other way, generally, you know. It would be if someone's already got your name and social security number, they've already got the information anyway.
Identity Theft Secrets: Right.
Intelius: It would be unlikely (laughs) because the information they would be getting would be, are you a criminal, do you have any civil judgments or liens against you. Or what is your address history; those types of things, and those things are more readily available in public records than getting an SSN. And, if someone has gone to the trouble of getting a SSN, and, illegally getting an SSN if you will, chances are that the problem of them having other information is not real high.
Identity Theft Secrets: We...
Intelius: Our identity theft product, I mean, it's always interesting. We have some of these discussions of how do you know your identity theft protection product works? One of the examples I always say, is "well, geez how do you know your car alarm works? You know, I went into the grocery store and the light was flashing red and when I came back out my car was still in the parking lot. I assume that no one tried to steal it but I don't know if someone walked by and had the thought of stealing it, saw the car alarm and didn't." Our identity theft protection product I think is a great service to prevent identity theft; it monitors more than just public, excuse me, more than just credit reports. It also monitors public record information. I think that if people have a concern about identity theft or are concerned about their information being compromised, the best thing to do is to buy an identity theft solution such as the one from Intelius.
Identity Theft Secrets: Well, we always tell everyone that there is no way to prevent identity theft. It's impossible. You cannot prevent your information from being stolen. Because Intelius also has competition that also has, I mean, if you look at in the past, for example, and you had ChoicePoint that got hacked. And I think that was a great example of information being available. I think they basically sold the information. It wasn't even a hacking, it was just...
Intelius: They were selling it. I don't know all the details of the ChoicePoint case, but I think you are, you are right on. I don't think they were necessarily hacked, I think they had a fundamental flaw in their approval process to grant access to credit data. And now, I generally don't comment about things that I don't know all the details, but I think you're right. I think it was more, it wasn't that they were hacked; it was more that they had a policy issue with how they were, who they were issuing information to. And that actually isn't as bad as, it isn't as careless as it might seem, because I think that what happened there is that they were selling credit reports to who they thought were single landlords. I'm speculating a little bit here because I really don't know all the points of the case. But, my point is, someone has a rental house and they want to call in and get a credit report. Well, in that scenario, they really are a landlord. And so, how do you actually confirm that, and I think there was some breakdown in there. We've spent a lot of time on our Security portion of our business to make sure that we have really dotted all of our i's and crossed all our t's too, and turned down business that we're not really, really sure is legitimate people calling in to use the products for legitimate purposes.
Identity Theft Secrets: Which I think is awesome on your end, but there could be competition of yours, or other businesses that start up that aren't as secure or aren't as protected or as safe about the information as Intelius is. So, I mean, what we always tell people is that there just no 100% effective way to prevent identity theft; so you might as well have some plan in place to actually protect yourself.
Intelius: Yeah, I think you're spot on. You know, nothing is sure, right? I think that it's one of those things that we all in the industry chuckle a little bit about, the LifeLock guys, is that, you're right, there's just nothing that is at 100%. It just is not possible. They obviously have got a good business and they've got a couple of issues out there; it's being able to say to your point that we're 100%, we'll stop identity theft, I just don't think it's possible. I think that what you want to do is, you want to make sure you're taking the appropriate steps to cover yourself, and because, in general, identity thieves are like any thieves. They are sort of lazy, right? (laughs) So, if your information is monitored, and you're flagging it and you're watching it and you're being a good steward of your own data, because the data is not going away, the data runs the economy. It is not going to go away. If you are being a good steward of that data, your chances of something happening is greatly reduced.
Identity Theft Secrets: Well, and I think, just looking at some of the background about what Intelius does as far as protecting the information, I think you are probably, you know, if not the top, one of the top companies as far as protecting the information that you have.
Let's kind of talk about the information that you have, because I think recently and I think it was this year actually, Intelius built a cell phone directory, been building a cell phone directory, and there was a cell phone directory of over 90 million cell phone numbers that went online for about three days. As far as I can gather and then it was removed (Ed laughs). Can you talk how the directory was created, why it was posted online, and then why it was removed?
Intelius: Yeah, absolutely and I think that ... I will tell you this. We certainly underestimated the reaction to a cell phone directory. And, if I look back at that space, there have been, the cell phone companies tried to come out with a directory a few years ago, and I think it was four years ago if my memory serves correctly. And, they received some backlash. And so, it's not an idea that is, we just came up with and were cavalier with. It was, it certainly is something that has been tried on a handful of occasions by some people. We still have the most comprehensive collection of cell phone data that is out there. How the majority of people really use that service, though, is really for caller ID reversal lookup, what we call a reverse lookup. And I think why people use it, so even when we launched the product with, you could go in and type in Ed Petersen, let me see if I can get his cell phone. Over 90% of the use for that product was still, "hey, I have this cell phone number, I don't know whose name is associated with it; let me get the information associated with it." So, it's very similar to the product that we have in that space, it's very similar to almost like a caller ID at home; where someone dials you, you don't know who the phone number is, and you want to get information about it. And I think why that product is actually been very successful is that if you look at the trends that are happening again in the U.S., people under 30, I think it's like 30% and that number and that percent is actually growing, only have a cell phone. And so, the days of having a landline are really coming to an end. And so, the White Pages as you know it is, in principle, a dying product. Because, the White Pages as you know it, is all landline-based. It will evolve into a cell phone directory. And so, right now what we have is a cell phone reverse lookup, and it is very, very popular and I think been very, very well-received. I think that one of the reasons I said why people use it to is that if you look at, geez, the age group again, not only are the people under 30; the percent who own it, the age of which people get cell phones now is also continuing to get lower and lower and lower. And so, instead of just saying alright now you're 17 and maybe you're 16, here's the keys to the car, and, by the way, here's a cell phone. I think you're starting to see parents who are saying "geez, you're eight years old and you're in Little League, and I'm going to give my eight-year-old son a cell phone too." You know, and so that age group is going lower and lower and lower, but what happens is that the parent picks up the cell phone and says "geez, I recognize these three phone numbers on here, but what's this phone number? And who is this person that's calling my 14- or 15-year-old daughter? And what is this phone number that's on here?" And, so they take that phone number and they'll go to a service, like Intelius, they'll enter the phone number in there, and they'll get information that is associated with that cell phone number which they would not be able to find on a regular White Pages site.
Identity Theft Secrets: So, I think a lot of the concern then that people have this perception that "well, it's my cell phone number, it's safe, and, you know, I don't give it out to anybody, how do you have my cell phone number?" And, I don't know that people are all that surprised necessarily that their cell phone numbers are available. But, I think, you know, people are a little concerned that there could be a public directory that could be hacked or sold to marketers and they could start getting calls on their cell phones.
Intelius: Now there's a couple of points there. One, it is illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones. Just right off the bat, it's illegal. It's a Federal law. Telemarketers cannot, and really what the federal law says is that a telemarketer cannot use an automated process to call cell phones. And in principle, what that means is that they can't do it; there is no large telemarketing firm that doesn't use an automated process to dial. I mean, it just doesn't work; the business model breaks. You just can't have people picking up the phone and dialing phone numbers and then waiting for it to ring. So, it's really not a concern. It shouldn't be a concern because it is illegal. If you ever get called by a telemarketer on your cell phone and if you say to them, "do you realize that you called my cell phone?" they will hang up so fast because they know it's illegal. And they should never do that. They should not be able to do that. The hard part for a telemarketer, of course, is that they can't, it's pretty difficult to tell what a cell phone number is and what it is not because of number portability now. Meaning you can go from a landline to a cell phone line back to a landline you know, very easily, with the same phone number. Secondly, if you look at this cell phone, and I agree with you, there is certainly a group, and I use, for example, my mom. My mom is a great example on this with her cell phone. She will call me and she will say, when she's on her cell phone, "hey, how are ya, will you call me back?" And then she'll immediately turn the phone off, right? And you're right, her generation is wired -- similar to what you said, which is "this is my cell phone number and I want to hold it so dear and close to me. And, I'll call someone if I need to call someone, aside from that I don't ever want anyone calling me on it."
And, but, if you look at the numbers from people 30 and under, 40 and under, that perception is completely different. Completely different. We have a sales group on our enterprise site, our inbound sales team is actually a relatively young group of people and they are, a lot of them are in their mid- to late-twenties. And, if you ask them, "do you mind having a cell phone directory?" or "would you care?" Their answer would be unequivocally "absolutely not, it doesn't bother me at all! If someone calls me on my cell phone, and I don't recognize the number, I just don't answer it." And that's just a major shift. And I think it's very similar, you know, you see when the first White Pages went on to the internet; the very first White Pages went online, there was a backlash on that as well. You had that backlash of "geez, you're putting the White Pages online and now you're even linking to maps and directions." Now of course, over the years, over the last decade, that reaction to that has become nullified. It's just commonplace. So, I think that what you are going to see is an evolution of this where as cell phones become the only line that people have, you'll see that that really will replace the White Pages and a cell phone directory eventually will come back, it will come back. I think that Intelius was early to market on it, but cell phone companies when they tried it, you know, four or five years ago, were early to market on it. I don't think that you have seen the end of it though -- would be my guess.
Identity Theft Secrets: Well, I think Arthur Shopenhauer has sort of said that ideas come around and they go through three stages. They're ridiculed, and then they're violently opposed, and then they serve as self-evident. And you know, it's very interesting, I think, what you are talking about there. I remember using Mapquest, the first time I used Mapquest and I got directions from my high school, and this dates me; but from my high school to my parent's house and I used those to get people to a party at my parent's house. And, it blew me away, like this is scary, like this technology can do. So, I guess kind of switching away from that point about the cell phones, some of the biggest critics of Intelius say that the information that you sell isn't really worth anything. Even Techdirt, there was this Techdirt article that went to say "it's not hard to find many, many, many people who claim that the information is next to useless." What do you say to those critics about the value of the services that you provide?
Intelius: I think that if you look at Intelius in general, there's a couple of things that I would point out. One, we're a top 100 website. So, the volume of people that come into Intelius is enormous. The customer, we're also the only player in the space who has live customer support; U.S.-based customer support -- you can call into a 1-800 number, and they are going to talk with a live body that's here in our building. So, we take our interaction with our customers extremely seriously. I think that if you look at any product, I mean I can go out and get the resources to build a car if I wanted to, right? I could go out and build a boat on my own if I wanted to. You could do anything you want, right? And you could put that information together. You certainly yes, without a doubt, if you wanted to look up an old friend or get information on an old friend, let's say I'm trying to track down a buddy who I went to college with and he's living in Chicago now. I could hop on the plane and go back to Chicago, go down to the Cook County Courthouse, go into the courthouse, flip through all the records, find the information, pull it out, hop back on the plane, fly back to Seattle, dial up the phone number, and talk to the person and track him down that way and then make the decision whether I wanted to see him or not. I mean, my point is that, you know, that is sort of a reach of an example, but my point is, anything is possible. One of the things that Intelius does is that we try to pull together the most accurate representation of what is in public record, and pull it together in a way that is very compelling for customers and consumers so that they don't have to do that work themselves. The one thing I will point to is, we have an enormously high return customer rate. And so, if we were just trying to sort of, if customers did not see the value in our products, if they did not see the true value in our subscription services or our product offerings, they wouldn't come back time and time and time again. I also would have to hire, for the amount of traffic that comes into the Intelius store, if you will, I would have to hire an army of customer service agents if we had that many unhappy customers. Now, when you get to the volume of transactions that we have, you certainly, unfortunately, you are going to have a couple of customers that do not agree with the product offerings and that happens. In a digital good space, it's always, I think, even more difficult. You know one of the things, if you look at Amazon, right, it's a little different, right? They can ship you a book and if you don't like the book, you can send it back to them and they can resell it. With a digital good, once I display the product, I've had to pay for everything. I've had to pay for the product and so forth. I can't resell it. It's out the door. I've just accepted all the cogs, all the cost of the goods, and the product is, it's a perishable inventory. And so there's certainly, it's a little bit interesting model from that standpoint and interacting with the customers because of some of those unique things. But, I think overall we've done a very good job there and I think our return customer base and the fact that we're the only one that really have onsite, true 1-800 customer service, customer support where we can interact with our customers has helped us out a great deal.
Identity Theft Secrets: Awesome. Well in talking about the growth of the business, your CEO filed for an IPO to make the company a public company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, um, not that long ago. Can you talk about that? I don't know if you can or not, but fortunately, for the IPO ... (laughs).
Intelius: Yeah, actually, we are in a quiet period, but I can tell you that yes, we did, you know, I'm certainly one of the founders of the company and so we're walking through that process. We filed for it; we'll see how it goes and the S-1 has been filed. In fact, I think we just updated that a little while ago so that there's a more recent S-1A that's been out there that you can look up. But talking about it specifically, I think our General Counsel would be kicking me under the table.
Identity Theft Secrets: Displeased -- alright (laughs). Well, in listening to this interview, I'm sure there's going to be somebody who listens to this interview and goes, "wow, so they have all of that information about me compiled in one place; I don't want all that information out there about me." So is it possible for someone to get their information removed? Or let's say you have inaccuracies about them on their report, if they order their own, is it possible to get the information removed or corrected?
Intelius: Yes to both of those. And so, without a doubt, we have an opt-out policy. I think one of the interesting things about our opt-out policy is that we've got, we just like to make sure that the person who calls in to change, edit, delete information out of the system is, in fact, who they claim to be. So we just have, on our site, there is a spot where it is outlined what you need to do just to make sure that you are who you claim to be, and then we have a very straightforward opt-out policy. In fact, once you contact us, I think it is, I think it states that you'll be opted out within 24 hours. It's either 24 or 48 hours.
Identity Theft Secrets: Ok. And then if there is inaccurate information, somebody could get that corrected as well.
Intelius: Yeah, we can just certainly update it and again what you want to do and it depends on what type of information you're trying to change, if you will. If you are changing your address and you are calling in and saying "hey, my address and my phone number is, I moved and you guys don't have it there yet;" which would be unusual, because usually we have it the next day. But that's one level of authentication, if you will, that you would go through for that. If you're calling in and saying, "hey, I have a criminal record and this has been expunged and I need, and you're listing it on the site, and I need to get that off of there." There is just another set of rules that you need to go through, rules of engagement if you will, that you will need to go through with Intelius.
Identity Theft Secrets: So, you just said something really interesting, that it would be odd if I moved and you didn't have the information the next day.
Intelius: Yes.
Identity Theft Secrets: That's going to freak some people out.
Intelius: (laughs)
Identity Theft Secrets: Knowing some of the, you know, I mean, I'm very familiar with how quickly data moves around the world, but ...
Intelius: Right.
Identity Theft Secrets: I think a lot of people really aren't. And so, how do you, again you said that you grabbed the information from a hundred different sources, but, could you walk me through just a little more in-depth how that process works?
Intelius: Yeah, I think, you know, there is, we get daily feeds that come in from a variety of spots and, what we do, is a daily update on much of our data sets. And so, particularly in the address, the residential data suite, we update that information on a very regular basis and so, we have daily feeds that come in where, if someone has moved, so if there has been a connect or a disconnect from a phone company or something along those lines, we generally know about it the next day.
Identity Theft Secrets: And you know about that through just some simple public record searches?
Intelius: Yeah again, Intelius does not have any super secret, you know, back channel, you know, I know the secret handshake and I'm slipping the guy five bucks to get some data off his back door at some weird spot. It's all public available information and that's really it. I think the big thing that Intelius has done well is we've put together a data infrastructure that allows us to handle and deal with the data, deal with the information, and dealing with updating that information on such a regular basis. That's where we have excelled. It's nothing that is not in public record or publicly available data.
Identity Theft Secrets: Well, who are some of the biggest competitors for what you do, as far as your service is concerned and what's the best thing about you versus those other companies?
Intelius: Yeah, I think that there's a couple, because there are a couple good players in the space. If you look that, on the consumer side, US Search is certainly a good company. They certainly do some things, nice things there. We're a bit larger than they are, quite a bit larger than they are, but we certainly consider them a competitor. On the employment screening space, First Advantage, we certainly compete with; ChoicePoint we compete with; Hire Rate we compete with. So there a number of companies in that space as well. Those are the types of companies on the transaction side that we work with. On the identity theft protection side of the business, you know, LifeLock is certainly someone that we keep an eye on. There are a handful of companies across multiple different levels of our business that we watch, on a regular basis. I think that the big thing with Intelius, if you look at, I think, some of the things that we think we understand very, very well, one is data. I think we understand very, very well how to pull data together, how to use heuristic-type processes to be able to create better reports on Intelius than anywhere else, which means they are more accurate, they are deeper, they are presented in a better fashion than anywhere else. I think we understand consumer marketing pretty well. We certainly have done some things where we have got some room for improvement, just like any company. We were talking about, for instance, the cell phone directory, but I think that Intelius has done that pretty well and I think we understand how to get users into a site and how to navigate them through a site so they can answer the questions that they've got as fast and as efficiently as possible.
Identity Theft Secrets: Awesome. Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time today. I know you are probably running to a bunch of different things all the time, but is there anything else that people should know about your company or about Intelius or the people search services that you offer; really anything else about what it is that Intelius does?
Intelius: I think the biggest thing that I would remind people is the goal of Intelius is protection and safety services. And so, every product that you look at at Intelius has been built off of some personal experience with either an executive of the company or someone that we have known that has run into an issue where if they had a solution like one of the ones on Intelius, their life would be better today than it was. And so, whether that has to do as I said, with hiring a contractor, someone who wrote a check to a contractor and the guy never came back; to whether it had to do with someone driving their kids to school and that person was not a person you'd ever want around your kids, let alone driving them to school. Whether it has to do with identity theft, we've had someone around here who had their identity stolen. All of the solutions that Intelius has and provides are geared toward protection and safety so consumers can make better decisions about people, businesses and assets. Those are the things that Intelius strives to accomplish.
Identity Theft Secrets: Well, I want to thank you for taking a few minutes with us today and talking about some of the people search space and how Intelius is operating inside of that. And, we'd love to have you back obviously if things change in the future and definitely would love to have you back to ask more questions if people have them as well as we go forward.
Intelius: Absolutely, let me know, we'd love to join you.
Identity Theft Secrets: Thank you very much!
Intelius: Bye, Jonathan.
Identity Theft Secrets: This has been an interview with Identity Theft Secrets. We can be found online at www.IdentityTheftSecrets.com.
Click here to go to Intelius and try it out on yourself for free. |
The state of Texas has recently passed new legislation to help victims of identity theft overcome at least one of the hurdles that were previously blocking them from making it to the finish line of healing from this horrific ordeal.
Previously, identity theft victims would close the compromised accounts at a bank and believe that this action was enough to stop unauthorized use of their identity through the use of a bank account. However, the banks had no way of sharing the information about closed accounts with check verification companies that merchants use to determine if checks are legitimate. Identity thieves could use victim's checks on an account for weeks, even though the owner had closed the account and merchants believed they had a reliable system for verifying accounts.
On March 1, 2008 the Closed Account Notification System, or CANS, was adopted by the Texas Department of Banking. This system is believed to be the first of its kind in any state. It is the fruit of the labors of Representative Helen Giddings (Dallas) who authored Texas House Bill 2002.
What is Texas House Bill 2002?
House Bill 2002 requires banks and credit unions in Texas to submit information concerning suspected compromised bank accounts to a secure electronic notification system at a customer's request. This notification then alerts companies who offer check verification to the potential identity theft and fraudulent use of checks from a specific account.
The use of House Bill 2002 establishes a secure electronic notification system for consumers, banks, and check verification systems. According to Representative Giddings, "Notification happens by the second business day so that thieves are stopped in their tracks. No longer will identity thieves be able to profit from their crimes by passing bad checks for weeks. Millions of dollars will be saved, but most importantly, stopping identity theft early will help victims restore their credit and good name."
The new law gives financial institutions additional options to help customers when identity theft or fraud has compromised their accounts. In addition to closing any compromised deposit accounts, the customer may ask the financial institution to send a notice to all major check verification companies.
It is important to note that this action does not happen automatically. The customer must request the action and provide their financial institutions with:
1. A copy of the incident report or police report case number.
2. A sworn, signed statement that the customer has been a victim of identity theft.
3. A written, signed authorization allowing the financial institution to submit the account information to CANS.
This service is provided to financial institutions at no cost. Banks can register and begin using the service to help protect customers through a secure web page provided by the Texas Department of Banking. So it is not only important for consumers to request these services, but it is important that your banking institution is participating in this service.
When an identity theft occurs, every transaction adds to the burden of the victim. Each fraudulent check passed is another nightmare for the victim to catch and clear up. This new law will help consumers to stop identity thieves sooner. This will not only relieve headaches of identity theft victims but will also stop the cycle of future crimes.
What should you do if you believe you're the victim of identity theft?
1. File a police report. It is a crime!
2. Contact your bank and immediately close all deposit accounts.
3. If you're in Texas, request a CANS notification.
Remember, this law provides a service but, the consumer has to ask for this service, it does not happen automatically.
It will be interesting to see if other states follow suit and provide protections from identity theft for their constituents, as Texas has with House Bill 2002.
]]>The woman who was falsely imprisoned and went through some real challenges because of someone stealing her Identity.
Christie's friend found our post on IdentityTheftSecrets.com, and forwarded it to her, which eventually led to this interview with Christie Scalzo about her experience.
]]> The interview and transcript are both below.(Christie's attorney, Craig Perry, also joined us for the interview.)
Click play to listen (or download the MP3).
It's pretty crazy what she went through, when you think that this could really happen to anyone.
Download this interview as an MP3
IdentityTheftSecrets: Sometimes when I interview people for IdentityTheftSecrets.com, I get reactions and I get stories from people that just absolutely blow my mind about what people are going through and what's going on in the world of Identity Theft. This interview was one of those. Listen to this excerpt:
IdentityTheftSecrets: So Christie, you went to file an impersonation report and what happened?
Christie: They refused to take the report. The metro refused to take the report due to the fact that I hadn't gone to trial yet and I couldn't prove that it was me. I couldn't; they refused.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So you have to prove that you're you before you can prove that you've been impersonated?
Christie: (Laughs) Yeah! I just kind of looked at her and I was just like, ok.....you know?
IdentityTheftSecrets: The interview you're about to hear is a production of IdentityTheftSecrets.com.
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IdentityTheftSecrets: And I'm here today with Christie Scalzo and Craig Perry. Craig is actually Christie's attorney and I'm having them on today to do an interview with them. Just a little bit about Christie's experience that she went through; if you remember just a few days ago, we actually wrote about her experience on Identity Theft Secrets and some of the challenges that she's been through because of the woman who stole her identity.
So Christie and Craig, thank you very much for joining us today.
Christie: Oh you're welcome.
Craig: Thanks again for having us on.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Absolutely! So Christie, if we can just start, would you talk about the day that you found out you were a victim of identity theft? I mean what happened and what did you experience?
Christie: Well I was driving down the street with my two kids and I got pulled over. The officer came up to the car telling me that he pulled me over because he ran my license plate and according to his computer, there was a warrant for my arrest out of Henderson, Nevada and he asked me, "are you Christie Scalzo?" And I said yes and he said that this warrant stands in Henderson. He asked me if I ever lived in Henderson or if I hung out in Henderson and I said no. And he said he was going to go double-check it and came back to the car and said "yeah, this is legit and we're going to go ahead and have to take you in. I'll let you call your husband so he can come and pick up your kids. My husband came and he asked me to get out of the car and he arrested me in front of my kids. He had to take me to a casino to transfer me because it was a Metro police officer that pulled me over. So he took me to a casino to transfer me to the Henderson officer and he took me to jail. And basically, well, both officers, I told them both that this is a case of mistaken or stolen identity. Told them that my car had been broken into in 2002 and that all my identification was stolen and he said, "well you can straighten it out whenever you get to the jail; they'll compare your fingerprints and you know, it should be cleared up."
So I'm thinking, ok. So I get to jail and I'm waiting for them to come to me and say, "ok, let's do this," you know? And they never did. And they asked me if I was going to be bailed out and I said, "I believe so." I said but before I go I do need to be fingerprinted and mug shot right? And they were like, yeah. And they did all that and then whenever I was released of course then I just had to work on proving that it wasn't me. But essentially the whole time I was going through everything I'm telling everybody, "look, this is a case of stolen identity" but there was no response to that.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So how long were you actually in jail?
Christie: I was in jail for about 8 hours; I spent the whole day in jail.
IdentityTheftSecrets: And obviously a relatively stressful experience to have gone through.
Christie: Absolutely! Yes and I told the first arresting officer that I was pregnant and whenever I got to the jail, I told them I was pregnant and I had gestational diabetes. The nurse told me, I told her that I was supposed to check my sugars every two hours. She told me, "well whatever you did before you walked through those doors, ceases to exist now." And that was the case. And then whenever I got out of jail, I of course I went to the doctor for my pregnancy to make sure that everything was ok and I found out that the baby had died. Just a rough experience.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Gosh, yeah. I imagine the emotions that go along with that; it's got to be just a lot of frustration and anger.
Christie: Oh yes and I was terrified too! You know, the first thing I did whenever got out of jail was to come home to find anything that could prove, that I could use to prove that it was me. You know, that was my first initial reaction. The very next day I went of course and obtained the police report that I had filed that my things were stolen. I went to the jail to try to get the mug shot and the fingerprints. They told me I had to have an attorney subpoena the records; that I couldn't get them myself. So it was just one thing after another. I called the Attorney General's office about the ID passport. They said that I would have to prove in a court of law that it wasn't me - that I was...well, that I was innocent of the crime and that it wasn't me who committed the crime, before they could help me. So, it was really a catch-22, it really was.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So then, what was your process of going through fixing it? You mentioned going to the jail to get the mug shot, you went trying to do the fingerprinting and all of that and they told you that you had to have an attorney. I mean did you have some sort of logical process that you were following or were you just doing everything that you could think to do?
Christie: Actually I was doing everything that I could think to do. Once I found out that I had to have an attorney, the first thing I did was get on the computer and try to, you know, ok let me see which attorneys I should go to. If there's anybody out here who specializes in this, which is how I found Craig. He popped up as an ID specialist. So that was my first step, I did have to go to like a hearing where they were going to be charging me and I went to that and they told me that I could have a Public Defender. Because of the circumstances of everything, I decided it would be best for me to have an attorney who knew what he was doing and was familiar with this type of thing.
And from there, basically I just contacted Craig and we took it from there.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So you would say it was crucial to have your attorney going through this process?
Christie: Absolutely! Well yes, definitely! Because even when he contacted the District Attorney's office, he had problems getting the information. He had problems getting my mug shot, he had problems getting my fingerprints. Then we did get the fingerprints and the District Attorney still wanted to pursue the case! Yeah, it is absolutely crucial I think to have an attorney.
Craig: I think that it's unfortunate that she had to hire an attorney for this. I don't think that a person should have to go through the things that she went through to clear their name and I was frankly surprised that she had to even hire someone to get this cleared up. It's ridiculous.
Christie: Yeah, because I remember when I first contacted Craig he said that "you probably shouldn't even need an attorney. I'm sure you can just go to court and be able to get this information yourself" and it turned out that I did need an attorney.
IdentityTheftSecrets: That's amazing. Well, since I have both of you on the phone and Craig, I'd definitely like to ask you some questions too, just about your experience in dealing with this kind of situation. But how much did you spend in attorney's fees and then time in getting this situation fixed? I mean if you don't mind sharing that.
Christie: No I don't. The attorney's fees alone were $1500. There was the bail of another $1540. Plus I had to spend my money on getting the police report. My husband had to take two days off of work. I mean total; in costs out of my pocket? I'd say roughly about $4,000 was my total price that I had to put out.
IdentityTheftSecrets: And what about the woman, or man potentially, who stole your information? I mean what's the status there now out of this? Because when we read the article, I mean the article said basically that you were in court for like 5 minutes and they said, yep, it's dismissed! But what's the status on that going forward; I mean did something happen with this person who stole your information or do they have any leads on that?
Christie: That's the part that I'm really bothered with; I'm not sure. As far as I know, there's no investigation into trying to find this woman or trying to find out who she was or anything like that. I think that's something I want to find out if I could pursue? Because I think definitely she needs to be brought to justice.
Craig: I think that Christie expected an apology after this had occurred, correct?
Christie: Yeah, it would have been nice.
Craig: And maybe someone would call and say, "we're sorry this happened; we're going to get the bad guy." You know, we're going to make this right. Did you get anything like that Christie?
Christie: Absolutely not. Nope.
IdentityTheftSecrets: This is amazing. So the risk, I mean we hear about this all the time and the risk that this could happen to you again is still out there, right? I mean this woman is still .... By the way, what was the criminal charge you were supposedly, that you were arrested for?
Christie: The charges were burglary, was the first charge. The second charge was possession of a controlled substance.
Craig: Which was methamphetamine.
Christie: Yes it was methamphetamine. And it's not on the complaint, but apparently she was charged with having an unregistered firearm on her kid.
IdentityTheftSecrets: And that carries a sentence of how long?
Christie: I was facing 20 years.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So if you hadn't actively gone out and found someone to actually represent you in this situation who knew what they were doing, the potential for you, I mean you could have spent 20 years in jail over a false identity.
Christie: Yes.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Unbelievable. I mean we hear these stories all the time but it still just blows me away when we're talking first person.
So Craig if I could talk with you for a minute, I mean obviously, I'm guessing from what she said that there's about $3,000 in expenses that she had with you and as far as she's concerned, that's probably money well-spent; unnecessary money, but money well-spent to clear her name or at least stay out of jail.
How did you get started working with identity theft victims and what kind of cases have you seen?
Craig: Well, I've done a lot of work with injury cases; personal injury is what we call them; a lot of that is auto accidents and things of that nature. But I saw this growing trend with people who were having their identity stolen and I thought, you know what, that's an injury too. That kind of broadened my definition of an "injury."
I had started doing credit resolution for people. It began in my practice where people would have a problem with a bill for treatment; for let's say a victim of an accident. The person was not insured so they had no way to pay the bills and we had to call and try and get reductions from doctors and things to try to get people off the financial hook for things that were not their fault. They were victims there. And so that kind of evolved into helping people with getting their bills negotiated from time to time and we started doing this credit resolution to help people improve their credit scores by ... that's a whole other story - information on people's reports that is incorrect, should have dropped off but there's no obligation on anybody's part to actively do that unless you get involved yourself. And that led to a lot of identity theft cases coming in the door. We had people who said, "that debt isn't mine," and so there's a whole procedure as you know that you have to go through to clear credit problems that were caused by stolen identity.
So that's what I was advertising - that's probably what she found me for on the internet was that I do identity theft and that's primarily what it arises out of is these credit reports where a credit card has been stolen.
But what's alarming and what's frightening; and I could give you other examples, but Christie is clearly the most poignant example of people who have been victimized twice. Once by the criminal and once by the system. And Christie is probably the most egregious example that I've seen to date where identity theft lands an innocent person behind bars and there's no effort made on the part of the system to protect the innocent or to quickly resolve the matter. It should not take me, and it wasn't $3,000, it was $1,500 that I charged her. I charged her less, normally through a prelim I charge a little more than the $1,500, but this was a case begging for help and it took two or three court appearances and it took a lot of prodding. I could give you some details that would probably shock you. It should shock you; it should shock anybody hearing it about what we had to go through to clear her name; it was ridiculous!
IdentityTheftSecrets: What were some of those things that she had to do?
Craig: Well first of all, I had to call the District Attorney and said, "we've got a case of identity theft here." Christie filed a report with the authorities before this even occurred; this is kind of outrageous, right? You report it and then there's no linkup in the system to compare your prior report with an arrest? I mean there should have been some check that way. But when I called the DA, first of all she's a very nice woman. But first I called after the initial appearance and said we need to get this resolved this is a case and we have two forms of identification that can clear this up very quickly. The first one is to get the photos and the second one is to get the fingerprints. Either/or, or both and we'll clear this up. Because the original booking would have the photos and the fingerprints and we'll know right away if Christie's telling me the truth that she isn't this person or not. Of course Christie was very confident that it wasn't her - I wasn't really worried about that. But we had to continue this because they had not obtained this information.
So finally I said, alright well, I'll go get the photo and I'll get it. I mean I'm not in the system, but if I have to subpoena the information and I did; actually I didn't have to even subpoena the information by the way Christie. They told you that you had to subpoena it? I just had to call booking and booking sent me the information. So I got the photo, it took me a half a second to see that it wasn't Christie (laughs), just comparing her face and her driver's license with the photo it was immediately clear this was a completely different person. And so I forwarded that photo that I had obtained from booking to the DA's office. They had still not obtained a photo - they have my photo. So I said, well, does that do it? "Well we want to check the fingerprints as well." And that's reasonable. People can change hairstyles and look different. I said great, let me know. I'll check back in a few days because we have another date coming for court for status check to try to avoid a preliminary hearing. So let's do a status check again; let's check before that date so we can clear this up before that date.
Well, I waited and no replies; so I started to call to find out well, did you get them? And when I didn't get an answer, I finally said, fine, I do it myself. Soon again, I contacted, I think it was booking again we contacted and they forwarded us immediately sets of prints from both the original booking and the second booking; so I had both sets.
I pulled those out -- it took about 5 seconds to compare the fingerprints. I just picked one finger; one was an oval print, one had a round print. Five seconds later it was obvious to me that this wasn't the same person, again.
I called down to the DA's office to find out if they had been able to get these and what I was told, and I'm giving you almost an exact quote, she said "I'm having trouble getting them from ..." I don't know if it was booking or from the investigators I guess. I think she's probably going to go to the investigators to pull the info. But she's like "I'm having trouble getting the information from my investigators. Can you please send them to me?"
So I had them scanned in; because I received them in a sealed envelope from booking and I sent them to her. And it wasn't until I sent them to her that she was able to agree to a dismissal. So when we walked in that day -- a news reporting agency had wanted to record the story which I thought was a great idea as Christie said, to get the word out about this could happen and how to avoid it. And they couldn't get the camera on the stand fast enough before the case was dismissed! We literally walked in - the only shot they got was of us walking out and the state saying "we're dismissing the case."
I guess I'll break there because there are a lot of things that I could say in addition to that but that was what happened in order to get her through the system.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So it took an attorney actually to subpoena the records because Christie would not have been able to do that herself; I mean she wasn't allowed to more or less by the system to do that herself. And the District Attorney wasn't able to get it when you were able to get it with a simple phone call.
Craig: Two phone calls. Once for the photo and once for the prints. I got something the next day from booking. Booking was very good to give me the information. Which leads to another question; why didn't booking pull it when she was first arrested? This is the part that I don't get. I mean there should be something in the system that says when a person has filed a fraudulent or identity theft victim report; there should be something in the system that when that happens that they go, when the person is arrested and they say it isn't me, you've got the wrong guy which I'm sure they probably do hear fairly often; that there's a procedure in place. Well, has Scalzo ever filed a report? Oh yeah, she filed and look at that, it was before the incident occurred. Therefore, in fact it was the day before wasn't it Christie?
Christie: Yeah. I filed the incident on the 22nd and it happened on the 23rd.
Craig: So there should have been a trigger mechanism that they should have said, ok, we need to pull this file. We may have an innocent person here. But instead, they say, yeah, yeah, we've heard that before. And as far as the subpoena goes IdentityTheftSecrets:, I don't know that she was required to have an attorney. I know she was told that because they don't want to explain to her what you have to - if you're a proper person, you can subpoena records; you don't have to be an attorney. But how to subpoena records, that definitely takes going down to the law library to figure it out. So you can do it in proper person but the time you're going to spend learning it and typing it up and getting it right as to form is going to take you some time. It's pretty much forced upon you if they say "file a subpoena" to go get legal counsel to do that for you.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So how did you Christie, find out that you had become a victim of identity theft prior to this actually happening? I mean you knew that your information had been stolen.
Christie: Yeah, I knew my information had been stolen. Like I said, that happened May 21st in 2002. I knew it had been stolen, I reported it to the police. Whenever I reported it the police I asked them, so if somebody tries to use my info for something, I will be contacted now right? And she said yes! And I left it at that. And for six years everything's been going on fine. I've gotten a new life since I've gotten into a car accident and ran my license. So I did not find out until January 8th of 2008 that I was a victim of identity theft.
IdentityTheftSecrets: And you found that out when they arrested you? Because you would have had to find that out beforehand.
Christie: Right, I found that out when they arrested me.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Ok - Wow! Pretty amazing - it's just amazing that some of these things that happen with people, where you become a victim. And I agree with you Craig, as far as the victimization on both sides of the system because not only had someone stolen your information and now you have to clean up your records, but also now the system is treating you as a criminal when you haven't been a criminal and doing any criminal activity.
So I really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview today.
What's interesting -- I actually posted on a forum about a week ago just about some identity theft issues that people were going through and someone on that forum said, hey, that story on your website and this is the quote exactly word for word: "that story is there only to drive fear into people so they'll buy products from your website. You probably made the whole story up."
What do you Christie say to the person who said that about your experience?
Christie: Well, first of all, I've got a whole bunch of proof. I mean I've got paper after paper proving this. I've got a "record" now to prove that this has happened to me, you know. This is still on my record, they dismissed the charges but it's still listed on my record that I was charged with this. There are so many people out there suffering from this and going through this that I think that is an absolutely ridiculous, naïve statement!
IdentityTheftSecrets: Well I would definitely agree with that.
Craig: We can post the case number - this has a case number that can be looked up online, usually they're online. I don't know if Henderson city has their cases posted online. But this is an actual case and you can call my law office to confirm it. This is not being done, it's not being done to scare people, it's being done to warn people.
I mean first lesson of this case is identity theft is serious. It wreaks havoc in people's life including this extreme example. This is definitely an extreme example and frankly from an attorney's standpoint, the system did work. I mean we got her name cleared - they didn't go forward with these charges. The problem is that Henderson has a reputation for being a little bit arrogant over there and they didn't ... there's a bias about people being ... we always hear "innocent until proven guilty," but the innocent are not treated innocently. They're treated as culprits and I understand why because it's a mindset that develops because of the repeated exposure to people who are truly not innocent. But there needs to be something .... The second lesson is that you need to have something in place especially when someone has made a formal complaint that they expedite that and make it a priority because there's nothing worse, right, than having a person who is innocent locked up. It's maddening to think that it could even happen.
And the next lesson to me that is still unresolved is somebody's out there with her identity. There's probably going to be no effort made to find that person and that is a crime. There should be a moral imperative to find this person and to figure out what steps can be done to find this person. And it will continue to pull up on her record even though they've dismissed it. Does a dismissal look like resolution of the problem when the police pull up on their scanners or on their .. They call it a scope I guess. When they pull up a scope and it says oh, it was dismissed well that doesn't mean she wasn't a meth user, it doesn't mean she didn't commit burglary, it just means that maybe it got off on a technicality. I mean the speculation could run rampart about why she was arrested and why it was dismissed. There's not going to be a note in there saying, "we got the wrong guy." I guarantee you it's not going to show up on a scope.
I'm going to try and take some steps to try to get this completely removed from even getting pulled up as a scope, but I'm not sure what kind of opposition I'm going to run into from doing that.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Right, I mean do you know what the process is for that now that it's ... because what we've heard in the past, is that once it's part of your criminal record, once it's part of your medical record, I mean, obviously medical identity is a big problem too; once it's part of those records it's really hard to get removed from those records. Do you know what the process is for getting it removed?
Craig: It's a great question and I may not know all of the law so I'll just tell you what I know based on my dealings. There's a word used nationally called "expunging" the record. The word we use in Nevada is "healing" the record and there are steps to take to "seal" a record but that's if you have a conviction. You can seal a record for a felony, misdemeanor, some felonies there are exceptions; sex abuse cases cannot be ever sealed. But when you can get a record sealed it means that you never have to admit to it when you're applying for employment if it's been sealed.
So let's say you commit a petty larceny, it's a misdemeanor. Five years from the date of discharge, it might three years, you can file to have the record sealed so now when you apply for a job you don't have to admit that you had ever pled to a petty larceny charge. So that kind of stuff can be done.
As far as how to remove an arrest that led to dismissal, I've got to tell you, I'm not sure how to do that. But I am fearful like you that even if it gets sealed where an employer can't pull it up and see it if they are running a background check, I don't know, I think from what I've heard and I've heard this from more than one person and these are people that I know who are in the law enforcement, that continues to show up if a judge pulls it, if an officer pulls it. It will say on that... it says on the screen "case dismissed" and then in parentheses sealed, but it doesn't get redacted from the system. So this could be for the rest of her life. This is what is driving me crazy right now with this case.
Christie: Me too.
Craig: Completely innocent; wrongful arrest. Possibly, I don't know, we haven't done any discussion about this and I don't even think to tell you the truth, I even knew Christie even miscarried from this. I think I learned it from this news story, Christie if you told me and I think that when we look into this if they deprived her of medication because they treated her like a common criminal and didn't look into her medical needs if that led to a miscarriage you know there are things in the law -- in the civil side that don't allow for that kind of behavior that need to be looked into.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Right and on the law enforcement side, that was actually my first reaction when I saw this, wow, lawsuit city here we come, you know? Because I looked at that and I thought you've got to be kidding me. I mean here's this stressful situation that you put a pregnant woman into and she notifies the official people that she's pregnant and to be denied medical treatment, I didn't know that you were diabetic Christie, but it's crazy when you read that.
But then you look at the law enforcement side of the issue and really they're just, I mean in a lot of cases they're really just doing their job; doing the best they can with the information they have at the time because every criminal says, well I didn't do it, it wasn't me.
Craig: That's my first reaction too that this is just one of those tragedies. But if you look at the minimal effort I had to take to get the information to clear her name and it came from booking, that's where I got the info. No one cared enough to look at the booking information from the first arrest -- it's all in the system? When I got a printout it shows which hard drive it came from -- I mean they can't lift a finger to look? I mean is that the epitome of laziness?
Christie: And may I .... I'm sorry.
Craig: No, you're right this is going to happen but the minimal amount of effort it would have taken for the DA or her investigators, whoever she's relying on, or the people in the booking department to flag this. It rises to the level of unconscionable as far as I'm concerned.
Christie: Uh-huh. And the irony of it is whenever the first arresting officer was taking me, he said if you're telling the truth then as soon as you get to Henderson, booking will pull everything, they'll compare everything and they should get it all straightened out. But that was never done.
Craig: Now why was the comparison not done? And again, she didn't come to me and I don't even think I knew about the miscarriage. I remember being shocked when I heard it on the news program when it aired. I didn't take the case because there was a civil angle to this case. She didn't come in to meet us for the case because it was a money-making issue. But when I heard that, I thought you know you've got a potential false imprisonment case because she was wrongfully detained when they had very good reason to believe that in their own system that they got the wrong person. And if they failed to give her medication, by having it, it would have let that baby live; that's just wrong. That's negligence.
IdentityTheftSecrets: That's pretty amazing. I mean I guess we don't really have any answers either, that's one of the things that we're working with on Identity Theft Secrets is just bringing news to people about what's going on here, to bring people's awareness up about how it happens and every time we hear about it, it's from someone who says, I never thought it could happen to me.
Craig: There's a couple of bright lights to it; one of them is that people should probably carry around their identity theft report. If it gets file-stamped, make sure you get a file-stamped copy to show that you made the report. That might trigger it. But who would have thought to do that you know, how many years later, Christie? Six?
Christie: Yeah.
Craig: Six years later. I mean it's stretching it to even say that they should be considering doing that. I've heard in Nevada that the Attorney General's office is now issuing identity theft cards to people who have made a claim. That would probably expedite people doing an investigation. I know that when Metro heard about this story, because we've been working....one of the things we do as a law firm is that we've taken people down to file identity theft reports because as you might know you can put a block on your credit, you can stop that person from using your credit card. But the reporting agencies require you to have a police report which kind of creates a catch-22. So we've tried to help people get that report. And so Metro, when they heard about this story, that's the larger police department here in the valley of Las Vegas, they're very concerned about this happening and they're trying to take steps to make sure that it never happens in their department. So it might be an anomaly with Henderson, I don't know. I know that the Las Vegas Metro Police Department was very concerned when they saw this story because we told them to watch it because we've been dealing with them and they're very sympathetic to it. So I'm hoping that ... this is Christie's whole point really in coming forward is to try and be a vehicle for change. Try and sensitize people to this so that it won't happen again.
IdentityTheftSecrets: And obviously with the National Task Force on identity theft .. but it's interesting once you appoint a task force to an identity theft as when you're a task force to any real issue sometimes it gets caught up in the bureaucracy of it and in the meantime people are having situations like what Christie's gone through.
Craig: If you have one second Jon, can I take it one step further?
IdentityTheftSecrets: Sure.
Craig: I don't want to take any thunder away from this story, but I'll just let you know that I'm working another story with the news agency and here are the facts of that case. A friend of mine, he's actually running for political office, that's really irrelevant, but his daughter is 19 and she had her identity stolen. Because this individual has experience in law enforcement or bail enforcement, he was able to track down the woman. He has a copy of the bank card that bears the photo of the thief. And he has contacted the authorities in the state in which this woman lives and contacted the bank from whom the card has been issued and neither one of them has taken any action - this has gone on for several months. This woman continues to use his daughter's identity even though we have a copy of ... this girl's got her birth certificate, got all her information to show she is who she is and this woman who bears no resemblance at all to her; one is a white female, one is a Hispanic female. They look very different; blonde hair, blue-eyed; dark brown hair, dark eyes. And they have taken no steps and this guy has spent several thousand to try and clear this up. I mean it's ... can you believe it? You contact the bank and tell them it's happened. You contact the authorities and they're not going to do anything? I mean is this just, isn't this just upside of how it should be?
Christie: Yeah, absolutely.
IdentityTheftSecrets: I mean Christie, as far as going forward, what's your plan for going forward with this? That's a crazy story by the way Craig. But it's not that crazy because we hear it; I mean it's just sad that we hear it so frequently. But Christie, what's your plan going forward?
Christie: Actually right now I'm not sure. Craig and I have not had much chance to talk yet since that story aired and since the case ended. But definitely my goal is to get this out to as many people as possible so that that way there is some change. There is something in place for this happening. When I started going through this and I pulled it up on the internet, I found out Nevada is the second largest state in the United States for ID theft. So I feel like the more people that I can reach, maybe something will be put into place to stop this. To step in and say ok, these are the steps that you need to take, you know? Or this is the steps we need to take to see to that there's something where all the agencies communicate with each other and where as soon as you file a report it goes into the system and it's there. You know there should just be better steps; that's my ultimate goal, to see to it that there are some changes that take place, you know?
Craig: Yes, as it becomes a growing crime, one of the largest crime segments I understand is identity theft. Being able to start adapting to the fact that we're going to have some victims who are innocent. And we need to start creating a protocol to deal with these .. when a person claims it, they need to take some steps, especially if they have all the evidence in their own hands.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Right, that's what's interesting about this case is that they didn't compare the records but that could happen to anyone at any time really if there wasn't a system in place. Sounds like Nevada is doing some things or at least the City of Las Vegas is doing some things to try and work with the issue and create some solutions to the problem there -- which is great. It's definitely going to take some really smart people to fix it on a national basis because it's obviously a very international problem as well.
Christie, do you have any kind of last thoughts? Actually Craig do you have any last thoughts you'd want to share just with people about this problem in general or this particular case?
Craig: Well, there's one other thing we can learn from this and this is the last thing I'll end with is, frankly and we haven't talked about this at all, but Christie was probably keeping too much information about herself, I mean in the car. You've got to take steps to protect your identity - it's so easily taken. People ask you for your social, your date of birth, your name on all kinds of forms and really you're not required to fill those things out. And then carrying information around, you've got to be careful where you leave stuff nowadays. There's just a lot of things that I'm sure Christie, you've been thinking if I only had brought my purse in or whatever you left in the car that day. So those are the kinds of things people can do to be taking affirmative steps of prevention that's really where this whole thing starts. You can put blocks on your credit now. You can create a way for people to not access your credit without you knowing it first. So there are things you can do and this is an example of where, with a few preventative steps, it could have been completely avoided.
Christie: Absolutely.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Agreed. But one of the challenges that we see I guess to get into that point a little bit, you have some suggestions here but one of the challenges there is - I mean if you look at the privacy rights clearinghouse it keeps track of data breaches and there's been 230 million pieces of information stolen in the last three years, three and a half years; since the ChoicePoint deal, since they lost all of that information. So even if you take all the preventive measures, a lot of times there's not much you can do about protecting your information 100%. I know prevention is always better than cure, no question. But it's just interesting that you know all our information is really already irretrievably "out there."
Craig: And once it's out there, it's always out there.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Right and with 220 million pieces of information stolen, chances are good that most of our information, most of us have information that's been stolen at some point.
Craig: Yeah, that's true, that's over 2/3 of the population.
IdentityTheftSecrets: So and I agree, we advise shredding and all the preventative measures for people but sometimes the challenge there is even if you do all those things, they're all good things to do, but ultimately because we're all sort of in these databases; it's really hard to keep your information your information.
Craig: You've probably seen those things online that state after interviewing people, you know how many hours and the dollars they've spent to reclaim their identity. I'm sure that Christie is, she's right on track with most people, they've spent about $3,000 and several months of - hers has gone on now for six years - very extreme case, but people spend years getting this stuff resolved.
Christie: Exactly.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Right and with no guarantee that it doesn't happen again in the future.
Craig: Right.
IdentityTheftSecrets: And on that happy note; Christie, do you have any kind of thoughts that you just want to impart to people about the experience that you went through, the challenges you went through or anything of that nature?
Christie: I think number one is prevention. Don't carry all your information with you and if you do, make sure that you have it on you at all times, that's number one. And number two; if this does happen to you, I think the hardest thing for me when it first happened was just to continue fighting. I did not stop searching for somebody who could help me. I didn't stop calling agencies. I didn't stop whenever I was told, oh you have to do this, you have to go get an attorney. I didn't stop and I think that's the main thing is to just pray and keep going. If you know that you're innocent, then you'll be able to prove it, you know. I think that's the best thing that you can do. And if it does happen to you and you report it, carry that report with you! I had it in my file cabinet at home. If I had had it in the car it might have made a difference. So I think that's a big thing that you can do to help.
IdentityTheftSecrets: Well Christie and Craig, I want to thank you both for taking the time today to spend some time with us from IdentityTheftSecrets.com. I'm sure that this information will be at least enlightening if not very beneficial for the people who are hearing it. So thank you very much for taking the time today.
Craig: You're welcome, thank you.
Christie: Yes, thank you.
This has been an audio interview with IdentityTheftSecrets.com. We can be found online at www.IdentityTheftSecrets.com.
]]>| Save on Trend Micro's Internet Security (opens in new window) | Trend Micro Promo Code: Save 10% on Trend Micro's services, including antispyware (opens in new window) |
Though you may not have heard of them, Trend Micro is one of the world's largest companies in the antispyware and computer protection software space.
In this interview, I spoke with David Perry, director of Global Education for Trend Micro, about solutions for everyone from home and home offices, to small business and enterprise business solutions.
Products we talked about Trend Micro Internet Security (formerly called PC-Cillin, but since phased out for a new name, just Internet Security), as well as their antivirus plus antispyware solutions, and a free scan that they call "Housecall".
This is one of my favorite interviews I've done for IdentityTheftSecrets.com, as David is both a dynamic speaker and a very knowledgeable individual in the security and computer protection industry.
You can listen to the interview here for now, and a transcript of this interview with Trend Micro will be coming soon.
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