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Blog / December 2006
myTruston is Live: Simple, Safe Identity Theft Protection
Dec 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala
myTruston (beta) is released and publicly available! Anyone can register by visiting www.mytruston.com. What is myTruston? myTruston is a web-based service that protects you from identity theft. It is simple and safe. How simple? One minute sign up. And myTruston...
California Credit Freeze Law At Risk
Dec 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala
You didn't read this on the evening news but a bomb detonated recently and it has the potential to cause earthquakes nationwide. Parts of the California credit freeze law were struck down in appeals court. In other words, this means...
Victims to Receive Choicepoint Settlement
Dec 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Victims who believe they may have suffered losses as a result of identity theft caused by the data breach at ChoicePoint Inc. finally have a chance to recover some monetary pay back. Background from FTC.gov: In 2005, ChoicePoint, a company...
Some buzz on myTruston
Dec 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Check out the buzz on the recently released beta version of myTruston, our identity theft protection service. One example: "As a financial crimes investigator, I can recommend MyTruston with confidence."— Jim Cates, Certified Fraud Examiner (ACFE), Police Sergeant (Ret.) Photo by...
UCLA data breach effects 800,000
Dec 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala
UCLA is notifying victims after suffering the largest known data breach ever at a university. This effects around 800,000 current students, former students, applicants, faculty and staff. The database was “fraudulently accessed” starting way back in October 2005! From the...
Credit bureau TransUnion Opens the Kimono
Dec 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala
TransUnion, one of the three major consumer credit reporting companies, has been quite secretive in the past. Their website was sparse and impersonal. Now it appears they are turning over a new leaf. Their website has a new look and...
Heightmax Scam Shutdown by FTC
Dec 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Heightmax is a scam that offered an herbal/vitamin supplement that promised to help young people grow. It cost around $60 a bottle which was supposed to be a month’s supply. Looks like the FTC finally got wise and nailed the fraudster...
Credit report fees increasing January 2007
Dec 15, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Two of the three credit reporting companies are increasing fees on credit report checks. Equifax and Experian say it is so they can provide better security and protection for consumers and comply with federal law (TransUnion is quiet on the...
Boeing Laptop Stolen with 328,000 People's Data
Dec 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Boeing suffers yet another data breach via laptop theft. Files on the laptop contained employees' names, Social Security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers and birth dates, with some listing salary information. This time an employee left the laptop unattended (they...
100 Million Data Breach Victims Since 2005
Dec 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Infoworld has an article on this. Note that the victim numbers aren’t precise and the Privacy Rights Clearninghouse doesn’t claim that they are meant to be. They are really all about tracking the scope of reported victims. That disclosure pushed the total...
Illegal Immigrants and Identity Theft
Dec 17, 2006 by Michelle Pastor
According to the Denver Post, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has made identity theft the primary focus for the first time in its December 12th raid on illegal immigrants working at Swift meat-packing plants. ICE officials detained an undetermined number...
Identity Theft Benefit Programs - They're Not Always What You Think
Dec 19, 2006 by Michelle Pastor
I just looked over the paperwork for some identity theft benefit programs for a client and what I found was pretty unsettling. This particular client’s husband died 6 months ago and she was inundated by her bank and other companies...
Man allegedly stole identities of 90 pro baseball players
Dec 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala
AP via ESPN.com has the story. The theft happened via dumpster diving, which is what many so-called expert cite as the most common and dangerous threat. Sure, it’s a well-known, maybe even common, but it’s totally overrated. There’s so many...
There are credit scores out there that you don’t even realize!
Dec 22, 2006 by Michelle Pastor
The FICO credit score you can buy from Equifax or Fair Isaac is the score that mortgage lenders use to determine your mortgage interest rate, but auto lenders and insurance companies see a different score that you should understand so...
Huge law firm's records handed over to government
Dec 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala
What do you think happens when a huge law firm goes belly up? Would you guess that all its records would be handed over to the government, lock, stock and barrel? It’s happening. Brobeck was a 900 lawyer firm, one of the...
Asking for input on our identity theft protection service myTruston
Dec 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala
As you probably know, the beta version of myTruston was released recently (and it’s received some rave reviews). Well, we’ve been hard at work planning new features and improvements (yes, you will be able to get more control of the reminders)....
Truston's identity theft service reviewed in popular blog
Dec 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
“The Make Money Fast Hall of Humiliation” (MMF) is an amusingly named and popular blog that focuses on outing scams and providing commentary on what to do. Today, they reviewed our myTruston™ identity theft protection service. It does the job...
Nigerian Advance Fee Scam Targets B&B Owners
Dec 30, 2006 by Michelle Pastor
Just heard an interesting twist on an old scam. The Nigerian scam, also known as the advance fee scam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud), gets a lot of press but surprisingly it’s still a very successful scam. A new variation of the scam targets...
New article: 9 Ways To Take Control of Your Finances in 2007
Dec 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala
We just published a new article 9 Ways To Take Control of Your Finances in 2007. It was written by Michelle Pastor, an accredited financial counselor and frequent contributor to our blog and articles....