FTC Recruiting Identity Theft Victims

coondoggie writes "In an effort to buttress its enforcement and better understand the scourge that is identity theft, the Federal Trade Commission said today its plans to conduct a wide-ranging study of victims of the crime. The FTC is looking for people harmed by the crime and said the survey will examine the remedies available to victims under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act). Among other things, the FACT Act gave consumers the right to place fraud alerts on their credit files if they are, or suspect they may become, victims of identity theft; block information on their credit reports that resulted from identity theft; and obtain copies of their credit reports free of charge."

Just got a phone call from the FTC

They asked me for my social security number and date of birth to verify I was the person they meant to call and told me they'd be getting back to me real soon.

Shred

Shred and don't be stupid. Blockbuster does not need your SSN.

Blockbuster does not need your SSN

I once went to Blockbuster to see what I needed to do to rent a movie and was handed this form that looked like a loan application. I handed it back saying they didn't need all that information. All they need is to know if I can pay.

Falcon

Re:

I once went to Blockbuster to see what I needed to do to rent a movie and was handed this form that looked like a loan application.
Hollywood Video is even worse. I went to Hollywood video when Blockbuster didn't have the movie I wanted, and they wanted an automobile registration!
Thankfully now we have Redbox [slashdot.org]. Just don't pick up movies at McDonalds.

Re:

Falcon

And then you punched them, right?

Re:

Funny, mininova never asked for any of that. No late fees either :)

*phone rings*

Recruiting, eh? I can imagine the phone calls going something like this:

"Hi, Mr. Phillips, I'm from the FTC, and we've heard that you've recently been the victim of identity theft."
"Yes, yes that's true!"
"To verify that the study is accurate, could I have your date of birth please?"
"Sure, it's September 17th, 1964."
"I have the first digit of your SSN as '6', is that correct?"
"Yes."
"Could you read off the rest of it for me?"

This is unprecedented!

A government agency applying some scientific method the the efficacy of law?

Just the concept blows me away.

Lumping too much stuff together

As long as the FBI is mandating that credit card fraud is "identity theft" there will never be any sort of accurate numbers as to real, honest-to-goodness identity theft. Today, every time someone uses your credit card number on an online site and the charge is really submitted, this is considered "identity theft".

The truth is that use of SSNs and fraudulently applying for loans and such is incredibly rare. It is so rare as to almost not be a problem - except the folks at Life Lock and others do not want you to find this out. They want to get their money from you for protecting you from something that almost never happens.

Almost everyone I know has been a "victim" of credit card fraud. Only problem was, they weren't really the victim. The merchant was. I've never heard of anyone actually losing anything because of credit card fraud. Now, if you use a debit card instead of a credit card you are asking for trouble because you will lose with those. No, I don't know anyone that has lost money - probably because they had more sense than to use a debit card for purchases.

Re:Lumping too much stuff together

That's not entirely accurate, I had my information stolen from those incompetent jackasses at TD Ameritrade. And as far as I know none of my actual SSN, credit car or bank info was stolen, but I do get pre-filled out spam for prescriptions. And as a result it opens me up to other problems as well.

It's incredibly unsettling and IMHO I ought to be given the option to put a free freeze on my account whether it's overkill or not.

I don't apply for many credit cards and rarely is there a valid reason why anybody should be checking my credit at all. As far as I'm concerned they shouldn't ever be allowed to check it without notifying me and getting an OK.

Really the biggest thing would be forcing the banks and institutions that don't follow appropriate procedures to pay whether or not it's really their fault in the matter. Places like Starbucks that don't consistently require signing for charges are pretty mortifying places to use a card.

Re:

What is it you think a signature adds to the transaction?

Re:

Not [zug.com] Much [zug.com].

Re:

I've never heard of anyone actually losing anything because of credit card fraud

Well, try to remember my name then. Happened while on long vacation. Noticed the charge 45 days later when looking at empty bank account. CC company pointed at policy: "you must notify us within 30 days". Raised a stink with police report and all. CC company eventually paid back 2% of total because the thieves had managed to withdraw even more than credit limit allowed. Sat down and cried.

and obtain copies of their credit reports free

Ha what a joke! Ever since doing the "free credit report" I've been getting spammed by trans union offering their pay for service. Frankly it's MY life, MY history and MY credit data why the #&$%@#%& should I have to pay them at ALL to correct their constant screw ups? They are making money selling it they should be forced to pay ME to use it.

THEY SHOULD ALSO BE 100% LIABLE WHEN IT IS ABUSED!!!!! Credit reporting agencies are the source of the problem and the enablers of credit fraud.

Re:and obtain copies of their credit reports free

That is why you should actually use Annual credit report [annualcreditreport.com] - it's non-profit and put up by the credit companies themselves - they just don't advertise it. Although, when you visit the companies to get your credit reports, they still try to get you to buy credit protection... but in the end it's still free and you don't have to sign up for anything.

Re:

this was were Trans Union got my info for the spam.

Re:

I can attest to this. I did my free annual credit report a few months ago. I've been getting spammed like hell hell from transunion. Granted I might have missed a checkbox or something, I don't really remember, but I get at least 2 emails a week from them. My wife did the same, and got the same.

So really just to access information that severely affects my life, I get spammed to high heaven.

My identity was stolen.

Now I don't know who I am, or why I have several fake ID's in my posession. I don't know why I am efficient in killing heavily trained soldiers with my bare hands. I only know one thing: My name is Jason Bourne.

Re:My identity was stolen.

Most don't know who I am, or why I have so many "aliases". I don't know why I am efficient at killing heavily embedded bugs in thousands of lines of code. I only know one thing: My name is Stephen Bourne.

~X~

Re:

My name is Jason Bourne.

I've always thought that there should be a book in that series called Bourne Again, so that the protagonist would have the excuse to bash anybody he wanted.

WTF?

I tried volunteering for this
But they said I had already signed up yesterday.

Dear Honorable Sir/Madam

Let me introduce myself. I am Professor Mugabawabe from the Country of Nigeria.

I have been contracted to the American Federal Trade Comission for the express purpose of researching identity theft victims and possibly to assist them in recovering potentially MILLIONS in punitive damages.

In order to perform my research I ask that you send me the following information:

* Full Name
* Address of domicile
* Social Security Number (completely secure - will be compared against our records)
* Date of Birth

For statistica

My identity theft story from this week

These people have some balls, it's actually kind of funny.

They sent me a letter in the mail pretending to be my bank, saying there are suspicious charges and to call this fraud number. Had the right mailing address and all of the logo's..etc

Of course the number was a phishing scam! They were asking me security questions to verify I was the cardholder, and little did I know my card was already maxed out 4 days ago. I'm guessing they wanted to reuse my information to call my bank and request the credit limit to be increased so they could keep on spending.

Fortunately my bullshit detector went off and I hung up, cross referenced the number..etc which confirmed my suspicions. I called the actual fraud line about 30 seconds later to take care of my slip up, and that's when I found out about all of the other charges. The BS part about it all is that none of the charges ever showed up on my online transaction history, so even if I were checking that by the hour I never would have been tipped off.

Anyway these guys can be pretty sneaky, but I was really disappointed in Chase for not having the transactions posted. At least I'm told that I won't have to pay any of the fees.

Good idea

In fact, why not extend this idea. Why not have mandatory oversight of all new laws and amendments for the first 2 years of enactment to see if they actually help or hinder their original intent?

I can attest to one major flaw in our system.

In the past, I have conducted background investigations for the DoD as a contractor. I came across some very interesting credit histories on a guy and had to ask him some questions. I cannot go into details but, simply put:

When he was too young to work, someone began working under his name and SSN. He did not discover this until he was in his late teens. When he contacted the IRS, the IRS was concerned, but they MADE TWO SEPARATE ACCOUNTS UNDER THE SAME SSN TO DISTINGUISH THE TWO.

This was quite alarming to me, though it satisfied my goals in the investigation. I could not understand how the IRS would take such a haphazard approach to dealing with identity theft. How can they continue to allow a person to work, obviously illegally, under a stolen identity? Yes, I know the IRS merely collects taxes, but they were collecting from a stolen identity long after they were made aware.
--------------------
From this, the flaw is lack of governmental intercooperation regarding identity theft. I cannot attest to present time, but in 2005, the IRS was still allowing the thief to work and pay taxes.

The employer (pretty big company) and location were well known, yet the 'thief' was not stopped over several years. ........ I can only hope our various branches are now working together to protect our citizens first.