| Yuma lawmaker victim of ID theft
State Sen. Amanda Aguirre, who has made identity theft prevention one of her legislative priorities, says she became a victim of the crime earlier this month when a credit card of hers was used fraudulently. "My immediate thought was this couldn't be happening," Aguirre said. "It's a reality check that anyone can be a victim of identity theft." Aguirre said she received a call earlier this month on her cell phone from her credit card company, which wanted to confirm whether she had bought some shoes. The following day, she got another call asking whether she had bought what appeared to be clothing. Both transactions, which were made online, were done using her credit number. In total, the purchases amounted to more than $3,000. The purchases were ordered from stores in North Carolina and California and supposed to be mailed to addresses in those states.
ID Theft Hit 8 Million Americans in 2005 Federal Trade Commission
Dec 04 2007 : Identity theft affected 8.3 million adults, or 3.7 percent of the adult U.S population, in 2005, according to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) study. The report is based on 4,917 telephone interviews with a random sample of American adults. For the study, the FTC categorized ID theft victims according to specific Federal U.S. laws. It estimated that 3.3 million American adults, or 1.5 percent of the adult population, experienced the misuse of one or more of their existing non-credit card accounts in 2005. This fraud category included checking, saving or telephone accounts. Based on the study, the FTC also estimated that in 2005 there were 3.2 million fraud victims in the category of �existing credit cards.� In addition, there were 1.8 million victims in the category of �new accounts and other fraud,� where fraudsters opened new accounts in the victims� names, or committed other frauds using their ID.
ID theft prevention tools tested
You or someone you know has probably already been a victim. Identity theft is a huge problem that just gets worse this time of year. More shopping for gifts means more opportunity for thefts. Crime Tracker 3's Sophia Choi show you how to protect one of the most important items you can own, your identity. One slip up, and you could be stuck fighting bogus charges for 880 days. That should get your attention. Something that caught our attention were special pens, the makers of which claim prevent check fraud. We put it to the test. The pens boast specially formulated ink. Detective Kim Thomas tested it against a Gel Rollerball pen and a regular ink pen. After cutting the checks into pieces, he soaked them in a variety of chemicals from gasoline to acetone.
Web scams can bring holiday headaches
Just in time for Cyber Monday and the online holiday-shopping rush, high-tech Grinches are cranking up their fraud attacks with a new round of bogus e-mail, identity-theft experts say.
Have you won $2 million in a Christmas sweepstakes held by Coca-Cola in the United Kingdom? Can you make big bucks just by cashing checks for an Irish researcher, Chinese exporter or rich oil consultant in Dubai? Is there a problem with your account at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, eBay or PayPal?
No. But you might think so if you fall for some of the recent e-mail scams infesting the Internet.
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Brown backs biometrics
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has said the UK will use biometrics on a national scale for cross-border control, for anti-terrorist measures and to combat identity theft. Brown, who has in the past been silent over such issues, said supermarkets and banks will use biometrics in the future and the government would follow them. He said: "Today Californian supermarket shoppers are paying with a finger-scan at the checkout and Japanese cash machines are asking for a finger-scan rather than a PIN. The reason is simple: they are more secure against fraud and theft. "And with passports now requiring biometrics, a necessity people understand, 80 per cent of the adult population will have to register their biometrics to ensure our borders are secure and so they can travel freely across the world." But as part of his speech at the Royal United Services Institute yesterday, Brown cited inaccurate Home Office figures of �1.7bn as the cost of identity theft to the UK.
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