Personal & Home Safety - ID Theft: A rising threat to personal safety
ID theft is reportedly the fastest growing crime in the United States. Victim profiles have included all demographics from newborn babies to senior citizens, from the affluent to those working 2 jobs to make ends meet and everywhere in between and on both sides. Some larger cities such as Phoenix, Los Angeles and Riverside have reported up to 155 cases per 100,000 people. The Federal Trade commission reported 246,570 cases in 2004, Idaho reported 600 victims while Utah reported 1831 victims in the same time period. Those rates for Utah would be less than 100 per 100,000 people. The number of cases reported in St. George are lower than this, however the devastation left behind trying to repair one’s credit and good name can take a long time and cause a lot of harm and aggravation.
There are many cases reported as ID theft that are, in fact frauds or scams and not true identity theft, where a person’s personal identifying information such as name birth date or social security number is used for monetary gain by someone else. The thieves obtain this information in many ways such as looking over a shoulder at an ATM or store while the victim enters account information or PIN numbers, stealing mail from mailboxes or even dumpster diving.
One such case resulted in the arrest of a man after a 3 month investigation. He had purchased a printer capable of printing the magnetic ink needed by check readers at stores and used information he obtained from a dumpster after the children of a lady deceased for 3 years threw out her old account statements and other sensitive information in large trash bags. Other techniques include phishing and pharming where people are duped into giving personal information to bogus accounts or phoney e-mails that look legitimate.
Tips to protect yourself and avoid having your personal information from falling into the wrong hands include shredding, monitoring your account and not carrying PIN numbers or passwords on a card in your wallet or purse or posting them near your computer.
Thieves can easily piece together the strips of shredded paper and a crosscut shredder will prevent this from happening. Monitoring your financial accounts will alert you to fraudulent activity before it goes too far. Get an account statement on a periodic basis. Have a travel account where you can transfer small amounts needed for the day so that if the card is lost or stolen, the loss will be less than if they got your main credit card.
If you must carry your social security card with you, photocopy it and then cut off the last 4 numbers, keeping the original in a safe place.
Don’t leave personal property in view on the seat of your car. Burglars routinely walk the streets, looking into cars to see if there is anything that interests them. If there is, they can open the locked door, or break the window very easily and in a few seconds the have what they wanted. We have taken many reports of wallets, purses and even drivers licenses discarded and found by joggers. The thief will not usually break in if there isn’t a temptation beckoning to them as they walk by.
We must take the opportunity away by taking precautions. By leaving temptations and opportunities available, we become part of the problem by enabling the thief or burglar, or tempting the good boy down the street who just needs some positive reinforcement and would otherwise not have had the thought to steal.
Posted by
Sgt. Craig Harding
Public Information Officer |
