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Blog / May 2006
Victims describe the nightmare of identity theft
May 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Dayton Daily News has an article in which several ID theft victims are interviewed. Here’s a summary of one victim’s situation While visiting an old girlfriend in California in 2003, J. Edgar Bennett of Dayton had his passport, driver's license...
Interview with IBM exec on breach notification laws
May 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Computerworld has this interview with Harriet P. Pearson, vice president of corporate affairs and chief privacy officer at IBM. It covers breach notification laws and the growing challenges of managing risk and security. If you needed any proof that the...
Federal Agencies Release Report on Scholarship Fraud
May 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The Federal Trade Commision web site announced that the Fifth Annual Report to Congress on Scholarship Fraud was released by three federal agencies. Each year, millions of students seek help in financing their college education, and some fall prey to...
Free California Senior Summit Announced
May 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala
From the California Department of Consumer Affairs: The California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) is preparing to host a first-of-its-kind senior summit to address financial, physical and emotional abuse of the elderly.Senior Summit 2006: Protecting and Serving California's Aging Population...
Ohio University reports two security breaches
May 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Computerworld reports that not only did 137,000 social security numbers get leaked, but the computer that was hacked, had been compromised for over a year. On April 24, IT officials at Ohio University noticed that someone had hacked into an...
Data breach notification law unlikely this year
May 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala
This Computerworld article thinks that there won’t be any action on a US data breach law this year. Lawmakers have introduced more than 10 bills dealing with data breach notification since early 2005. The bills differ in several ways, including...
FOXNews' new ID theft web page--puts users at privacy risk
May 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala
FOXNews.com has a new web page dedicated to stories on identity theft. That’s great. However, there is a text advertisement in the middle of the page for a service that is downright scary. The ad takes you to a website...
Citibank introduces anti-phishing tokens
May 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Computing says US banking giant Citibank has followed in the footsteps of HSBC by issuing security tokens to online business account holders. The Vasco two-factor authentication tokens will be issued to the bank's CitiBusiness Online customers in the US, who...
Three Surprising Ways You Might Harm Your Credit
May 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala
A News Letter from Identity Guard has three ideas about how you might be hurting your credit score. Ignoring the pile of unpaid medical bills, parking tickets – and library books Settling accounts for less than you owe Closing accounts...
Identity Theft via Frequent Flyer Numbers?
May 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The Guardian (via Security Wonk) does an investigative report where they are able to see someone's sensitive personal information using just their British Airways frequent flyer number....
Medical ID Theft Wrecks Victims' Health and Finances
May 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala
ABC News reports has an article (via About.com) about medical ID theft—someone using your identity to get health care. Basically they get the health care and the victim gets the bill, not a new scam, by any means. But it...
All your accounts are at risk
May 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala
This article on News-Record.com tells a grave tale. A man had over $26,000 drained from a Merrill Lynch financial account (which had check writing capabilities). The criminals wrote fraudulent, counterfeit checks against this account for over a year. Some of...
Credit Freezes Mostly Aid Those at High Risk of Identity Theft
May 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Liz Pullam Weston has an article in the Los Angeles Times about credit freezes. Credit freezes can be a terrific tool for identity theft victims and those at high risk, such as people whose personal information has been exposed to...
New bill puts law enforcement first in data breach
May 11, 2006 by Tom Fragala
CNET News.com is reporting on yet another bill introduced in the US house regarding data breaches and cybersecurity. A new proposal in Congress, called the Cybersecurity Enhancement and Consumer Data Protection Act, would force anyone who possesses electronic personal data to...
American Express Card Fraud Liability
May 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala
It’s pretty well known that Mastercard and Visa provide voluntary zero-liability for fraud victims. I’m often asked about American Express. Here’s the scoop with an American Express card, from the American Express website: Use the American Express® Card online or...
Credit Report Inaccuracies Often Reoccur
May 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Bob Brennan over at SoCalCreditDamage.com Blog writes a fantastic blog post. It’s a very important and useful insight into how your credit report can get re-tainted by an institution even after you WIN a case to have inaccurate account information cleaned...
Identity Theft Task Force Formed by Executive Order
May 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala
From the Whitehouse.gov Fact Sheet: May 10, 2006 – Today, President Bush Signed An Executive Order Creating The Nation's First Ever "Identity Theft Task Force." This task force will marshal the resources of the Federal government to crack down on...
DOD Fraud Conference Attendees At Risk of Identity Theft
May 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala
GuardMyCreditFile reports that attendees at a 2001 Defense Department fraud conference may have been exposed to identity theft—not in 2001, but this year. In August of 2001, the DOD held a conference on healthcare fraud in San Diego, CA. More...
Action Taken on Credit Freezes in Florida And California
May 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Jim at GuardMyCreditFile is following these stories. First, Florida in on the brink of passing a credit freeze law—great news for consumers there. Second, California has a bill that proposes to make that state’s already powerful credit freeze law more convenient...
Payment card industry changes standards--for the better or worse?
May 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala
C|NET reports: Proposed new security rules for credit card-accepting businesses will put more scrutiny on software, but let them off the hook on encryption. The update to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, due this summer, responds to...
FTC Testifies on Social Security Numbers in Commerce
May 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala
A press release entitled Reconciling Beneficial Uses with Threats to Privacy from the FTC newsroom. The Federal Trade Commission today told the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that in the...
Personal data of 26 million US veterans stolen
May 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Yahoo! News reports: Personal electronic data on 26.5 million US military veterans and some spouses was stolen from the home of a government employee, the USDepartment of Veterans Affairs announced.Veterans affairs officials said there was no evidence the information had...
Information for Victims of VA Data Breach
May 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Firstgov.gov has got a web page for more information about the huge security breach at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee, a data analyst, took home electronic data from...
1 Million Red Cross Blood Donors Exposed to ID Theft
May 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala
GuardMyCreditFile has this story… About 1 million people contained in a Red Cross blood donor database have been exposed to identity theft by a dishonest employee of the organization. The suspect in the case, Lonetta S. Medcalf worked as a...
Operation Global Con: 3 million victims and $1 billion in losses
May 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala
From U.S. Newswire, a press release announcing a crack down on a huge number of scams in the U.S. The fraudulent schemes investigated accounted for nearly 3 million victims through criminals operating in the US, Canada, Cost Rica and Holland....
Reporting online and telemarketing scams in US and Canada
May 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala
If you fall victim to fraud over the Internet or by telephone, in addition to reporting such crimes to your local law enforcement, here’s what you can do to help catch the criminals or at least help alert the government to...
U.S. PIRG Rips Into the VA for Security Breach
May 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog gets “medieval” on the Veterans Administration for the horrifying data breach that was reported here May 22 (26 million veterans had their sensitive data exposed). Here’s some highlights. …VA goes on to pass the buck...
Ugly Duckling Leaked Sensitive Customer Data For Financial Gain
May 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Robert Brennan of the SoCalCreditDamage.com Blog has a press release on his blog about a class action case he is representing. Consumers shopping at DRIVE TIME (formerly known as UGLY DUCKING) for used cars usually have filled out credit applications...
Brilliant Article Gets Inside 419 Advance-fee Scam
May 25, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Mitchell Zuckoff wrote a pheomenal article in the The New Yorker that takes you deep inside an international advance-fee scam (also known as a Nigerian or 419 scheme). The victim (or accomplice depending on your interpretation) is a man in his sixties,...
Oklahoma, New York & Illinois Move to Strengthen ID Theft Laws
May 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala
GuardMyCreditFile reports on movement in three states, Oklahoma, New York and Illinois, to increase consumer protection. Legislators in three states are attempting to strengthen consumer privacy laws and enhance consumer rights in order to prevent identity theft. The moves come...
Sacred Heart University Suffers Data Breach
May 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala
CNET News.com has a story that says 135,000 people may have had their personal information stolen. The school posted a notice on their web site. The Fairfield, Conn.-based university said in the posting that it discovered the intrusion on May 8...