Court: Lifelock using 'unfair business practice'
Posted: Tuesday, May 26 2009 at 03:14 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
LifeLock Inc. has been ordered to change its identity theft product by a federal judge who ruled that the firm has engaged in an "unfair business practice."
The Arizona-based company -- made famous by ads revealing CEO Todd Davis' Social Security number -- was sued by credit bureau Experian last year. In its lawsuit, Experian said the company was violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act while placing fraud alerts on behalf of LifeLock customers. U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford of the Central District of California agreed, and granted a motion for summary judgment last week ordering LifeLock to stop.
LifeLock CEO Todd David said his company would use "all available avenues" to fight the ruling, but argued that its impact on customers would be minimal.
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Watch an ID thief's 'commercial'
Posted: Thursday, April 23 2009 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
PLAY VIDEO: Click to see an excerpt of an identity thief's "commercial," which was posted on YouTube recently.
Msnbc.com's Bob Sullivan reports.
Identity theft is usually a virtual, intangible crime. The theft often occurs in cyberspace, with criminals ordering merchandise with stolen credit cards, or downloading cash from online bank accounts. The victims rarely know anything has happened until months -- or even years -- later. There's no blood, no shattered glass, no broken locks. Not even the anxiety rush that comes after the brush of a pickpocket.
But identity thieves, in the end, are real people stealing real money and causing real harm. And surprisingly often, they are friends, family members, or co-workers who initiate the crime by stealing personal information found on papers left around offices or homes. The stolen data can be surprisingly easy to come by, as this ID theft “commercial” shows.
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Impostors still wreak havoc on tax returns
Posted: Tuesday, April 14 2009 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
When Aaron Marks tried to electronically file his tax return last spring, it was rejected by IRS computers. The reason, according to the agency, was that someone had already filed a return using his Social Security number. Not to worry, an IRS operator told him on the phone, just mail in your tax return and it’ll get fixed. "(The agent) acted like there was nothing to panic about," Marks said.
But a year later, the Boston resident still doesn’t have his $2,000 tax refund.
About the same time Marks tried to file, IRS officials testified before the Senate Finance Committee about the problem of tax return ID theft. The committee heard horror stories about the ease of filing false tax returns, the criminals who essentially steal citizens' refunds, and about the thousands of Americans who sometimes spend years dealing with the fallout.
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FTC fights FreeCreditReport.com with spoof ad
Posted: Tuesday, March 10 2009 at 04:28 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
You’re the federal agency charged with protecting consumers. You have a $250 million annual budget, subpoena power and the ability to refer cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. So what do you do when one of America's biggest companies continually flouts the law?
You challenge the company to a joke-off.
At least, that's what the Federal Trade Commission has done. On Tuesday it released two videos that spoof the popular FreeCreditReport.com commercials and their trademark catchy tunes.
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Two lives, one Social Security number
Posted: Tuesday, May 27 2008 at 06:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
Like arriving home to see a broken window, Holli knew something was wrong when she pulled up the statement from her new 401(k) account and saw a stranger's name there. Under her name and account information, she found a second name: Paulino Rodriguez. But was it an accident, random vandalism or a serious crime? She opened the virtual door to her account and sorted through the broken glass. Her worst fears would soon be confirmed.
After some frantic research, Holli pieced together part of the story. Rodriguez, the 401(k) Web site revealed, lived in Escondido, Calif., about 90 minutes south of Holli’s home in Fountain Valley. He was a restaurant worker in an Escondido Burger King. This was no prank -- though Holli would soon feel like several government agencies, corporations and a criminal were having fun at her expense. She was a victim of something experts call Social Security number-only identity theft, generally committed by immigrants who don’t have the necessary credentials to work legally in the U.S.
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Data voyeurism is common
Posted: Friday, March 21 2008 at 02:13 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
If you think the State Department passport privacy debacle is an oddity, it isn’t. Data voyeurism is actually a sign of the times. Low-level employees at government agencies and private companies browse personal information for sport all the time. Outside of the occasional public flogging, little has been done to stop this unnerving practice.
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Hit by ID theft, then plagued by Sprint
Posted: Friday, March 7 2008 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
You might call it a friends, family and ID thieves plan.
Last year, identity thieves wormed their way into Michael Carner’s Sprint account, tacked on 14 new cell phones and began ringing up phone charges. Even though he reported the intrusion, things only got worse. For nearly a year, the real estate agent was hit with late fees, frequent automated collections calls, service interruptions, and a $5,000 bill.
When Carner finally gave up and tried to cancel his account, Sprint had one more piece of bad news: The imposters had extended his service contract for two years, meaning he'd have to pay a $200 early termination fee to get out of his contract.
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Which firms have the most ID theft victims?
Posted: Friday, February 29 2008 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
Who's to blame for the ID theft epidemic? Surprisingly, given all the attention the subject receives, we know strikingly little about the root causes of the problem. ID theft is often called the fastest-growing crime in America, but there's precious little research into which companies have the worst security measures and which suffer the most data leaks.
Researcher Chris Hoofnagle thinks it's high time we started pointing fingers.
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Finally, warnings about shared SSNs
Posted: Friday, June 22 2007 at 06:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
Every year, millions of Social Security numbers are "shared" by more than one taxpayer. Government agencies that collect taxes, like the Social Security Administration, spot this immediately. Sometimes it's an innocent mistake; sometimes, it's identity theft. But no one ever tells the victims.
That is, not until now.
A pilot project in Utah aims to warn consumers that someone else is paying state taxes using their Social Security number. Two years in the making, it is believed to be the first such project in the nation. The first “Dear Victim” letters, about 100, started arriving this week.
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