ID Theft Mastermind Gets 9 Years
UPI.com wrote a story on the punishment for a recent Identity Theft case which shows how sentencing is finally catching up to the severity of this crime.
A Florida man who admitted masterminding an identity theft ring has been 
sentenced to nine years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution.
Oscar Diaz and his confederates used items stolen from parked cars to get money from their victims’ bank accounts, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. Prosecutors say they stole from people attending funerals.
“Diaz’s co-conspirators would even follow funeral processions in order to target cars parked at graveyards,” a release from Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said.
Diaz, 30, of Fort Lauderdale pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore earlier this month to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. At a hearing Friday he was ordered to pay the victims $130,000.
Investigators said Diaz and seven others, most of them from the Fort Lauderdale area, stole at least $200,000 during a few months in 2009. They stole identification from cars parked outside day-care centers, supermarkets and churches and used it to impersonate the victims at their banks.
Diaz’s co-defendants have already pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
Avoid Spring Break Travel Scams
Here comes Spring Break! And the scams that go along with travel and vacations, whether you are a student or just taking some time off.
Picture this: you find a great deal online for a vacation package and are counting the days till you take off for some fun in the sun. The day finally arrives and you show up at the airport, bags packed and ready to take flight. But when you reach the ticket counter, you learn that you have no flights booked… you’ve been scammed!
It happens ALL THE TIME, and scammers are getting more and more convincing. Scams rise during any busy travel season, but there are ways to avoid becoming a victim. Here are some tips on how to prevent travel scams and make sure that you get to enjoy a great Spring break trip.
- Verify the business you are booking your trip through. If you are going to use a travel agency or online booking company, make sure they are legitimate first. Go online and do your research – if people have been scammed before by the company, the internet is the first place they will go to vent. You can even ask the company for referrals so you can check up on some satisfied customers.
How to Opt Out of Data Miners and Online Directories
Whether you like it or not, your information is available publicly to everyone through online directories. Businesses and advertisers have the ability to easily find this information and then market their products to you. This means that you have never actually “opted-in” to receive these ads. Fortunately, there are ways for you to “opt-out” of widespread information sharing (see the list of more than 120 ways below).
The Top 4 Opt-Out Opportunities:
- www.OptOutPreScreen.com. Remove yourself from the marketing lists sold by the three major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. There is not cost for this list.
- www.DMAchoice.org. This puts you on a Do Not Mail list for the Direct Marketing Association. The cost is $1, but it is well worth the instant trip down in your mail.
- White Pages. That’s right, your old-fashioned printed phone directory is the source for most of the online contact info databases. Remove your directory listing (you will likely have to the phone company every month to have your info NOT shared – I know, it’s asinine) or otherwise opt out.
- www.Spokeo.com. To opt out, read this blog post about removing your info from Spokeo. This is one of the more utilized sites by identity thieves, stalkers and scammers.
Tired of Being Tracked by Websites? Do Not Track is Here.
In response to the growing demands for more privacy on the internet, Mozilla implements a Do Not Track option in Firefox 4.
The most recent version of Mozilla Firefox, which was rolled out this February, offers users the option to opt-out of website tracking. Once enabled, the user’s preference to not be tracked is automatically sent to the website. That doesn’t mean that the website has to do anything about it, but there will probably be a bit of a stink about those sites that don’t respect user’s privacy preferences (it would be the equivalent of someone making a sales call to you after you join the Do Not Call list). Unfortunately, most users will never know which websites are participating in the opt-out Do Not Track function.
Learn more about Firefox’s Do Not Track Technology and about the Big Brother issues posed by companies tracking your every move on the internet.
In my opinion, beginning to solve the surfer privacy issues at the browser level is the right direction to take. It is the most universal gate through which all surfers pass – no one visits a website without touching a browser. If consumers get behind the technology now and let the companies they do business with know that they expect them to honor Firefox’s Do Not Track technology, there will be no option but to acquiesce.
Avoid Tax Time Identity Theft
Identity theft speaker John Sileo shares his tax-time identity theft prevention tips.
This past week, a New Jersey man admitted to stealing tens of thousands of dollars in government checks from mailboxes. He stole Social Security, tax refund and unemployment checks from November 2009 to April 2010, then recruited people to cash them using fake IDs. Prosecutors say the scheme cost the government more than $70,000. Not only did this criminal have the actual financial refunds from most individuals, but he also had identity information and even social security numbers.
Around this time of year, tax time, people are more vulnerable to Identity Theft. There is very little that is more damaging and dangerous to your identity than losing your tax records. After all, tax records generally contain the most sensitive personally identifying information that you own, including Social Security Numbers (for you, your spouse and maybe even your kids), names, addresses, employers, net worth, etc. Because of this high concentration of sensitive data, tax time is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for identity thieves. Here are some of the dishes on which they greedily feed:
- Tax documents exposed on your desk (home and work)
- Private information that sits unprotected in your tax-preparer’s office
- Improperly mailed, emailed and digitally transmitted or filed records
- Photocopiers with hard drives that store a digital copy of your tax forms
Detained at Security for Having a *Bomb*
It’s snowing, non-stop a week ago Tuesday in Denver as I’m trying to catch a standby flight from Denver International Airport to a speech in Sacramento before the afternoon flights get canceled due to weather. I have an hour to spare. I put my bags on the belt and walk through the metal detector without a problem.
Until the TSA screener manning the X-Ray tells me not to move. Literally, he says, “don’t move”. I’ve been standing there for about two minutes when three or four other screeners come over and take a look at whatever is on his screen. I can’t see anything, and he won’t talk to me. When I ask him what the problem is, he won’t even make eye contact with me. But everyone else is looking at me.
Two police officers, or security guards, come and shut the entire line down and send everyone but me into another line. Now about 40 people are looking at me like I’m guilty. And then I stand there for 35 minutes, not allowed to move, not given a single answer of what is happening.
There are 11 people standing around the screen, one of them is taking photos with a special camera and sending them off to someone who keeps calling back on his cell phone. The whole time, I’m getting the sense that they are actually just observing me to see if I get nervous. I don’t look like a terrorist, but suddenly I feel like a terrorist.
2010 Identity Theft Statistics Released
The 2011 Identity Fraud Survey Report by Javelin was just released, and it shows new trends in identity theft. While the report states that identity theft cases have decreased overall, it is costing consumers more time and money. The good news is that the drive to increase awareness about identity theft is working.
Meanwhile, consumer costs, the average out-of-pocket dollar amount victims pay, increased, reversing a downward trend in recent years. This increase can be attributed to new account fraud, which showed longer periods of misuse and detection and therefore more dollar losses associated with it than any other type of fraud. – Javelin Strategy & Research
The cost to resolve identity fraud issues rose dramatically in 2010 because there was a change in the type of fraud that was being committed. New Account fraud is on the rise and this is the hardest type to detect and costs the victim the most. The majority of thieves who use friendly fraud, where they target friends and relatives they know, are able to do a lot of damage by setting up new accounts in the victim’s name. Since the victim has no idea that they are a victim, they can continue to use their identity longer, which racks up more financial theft. 
Don’t Have a Fraudulent Valentine’s Day
Romance is in the air, but so is fraud.
I hate it when scammers take advantage of you on holidays. In fact, I don’t much like being the person responsible for telling you that fraud goes way up during holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day. But it’s my job, and it’s important to me, and you have nothing to worry about if you are using common sense. In case your common sense is lacking due to all of the chocolate, here are some thoughts on Valentines Scams.
In happy and/or busy moments, people tend to let their guard down. Consumers are happier, more trusting, generous and hopeful around Valentine’s Day. This is a good thing. We want people to be happy, in love and celebrating each other.
I just don’t want you to be so distracted that it gives an identity thief an opening to take advantage of you. Around this time there is a rise of online scams, especially where thieves send out malicious links that direct you to a site where you are tricked into giving personal information.
Facebook Safety: New HTTPS Facebook Settings
Facebook has announced that they will be rolling out a new security feature that will add full HTTPS support to the site. The new secure site uses the same underlying technology that banks use to keep your communications out of the reach of potential hackers. While many people don’t have this feature yet and mine just showed up today, eventually all users should have the capability.
To enable HTTPS, log into your Facebook account and at the top right go into Account -> Account Settings.
Once there, scroll all the way to the bottom and click “change” next to Account Security.
The following screen should pop up. Check the box under Secure Browsing. You can also check “send me an email” (or a text message to your cell phone, which I don’t advise giving to Facebook) so that if someone tries to log into your account from a new computer, Facebook will immediately alert you. This is a good way to find out fast if your account has been hacked.
Facebook rolled out these secure settings to make Facebook seem safer, but like many of their security changes, they are turned off by default. You must go in and manually change the feature to gain the added security.
Information Offense – How Google Plays
Google recently offered $20,000 to the first person who could hack their web browser, Chrome. Without question, a hacker will crack it and prove that their browser isn’t as mighty as they might think.
So why waste the money?
In that question, ‘why waste the money?’ lies one of the root causes of all data theft inside of organizations. Google’s $20,000 investment is far from a waste of money. Consider:
- The average breach inside of an organization costs $6.75 million in recover costs (Ponemon Study). $20,000 up front to define weak points is a minuscule investment.
- Chrome is at the center of Google’s strategic initiatives in search, cloud computing, Google Docs, Gmail, displacing Microsoft IE and mobile OS platforms – in other words, it is a very valuable asset, so Google is putting their money where their money is (protecting their profits).
- By offering up $20,000 to have it hacked IN ADVANCE of successful malicious attacks (which are certain to come), Google is spending very little to have the entire hacker community beta test the security of their product.
I would bet that there will be tens or hundreds of successful hacks into their browser, all of which will be fixed by the next time they commission a hack.
Sileo In the Media
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