Commonly Overlooked Sources of Identity Theft
You’ve heard it all before – conduct online business through secure Wi-Fi only, watch your incoming mail for erroneous credit invitations, check your statements and your credit reports, and set up strong passwords and alerts, yada yada! But here are a few additional times you’ll want to be vigilant, especially this holiday season!
- Car Loans. According to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, auto loan identity theft is twice as high as any other form. Most dealerships have you complete paperwork with identifying personal data (name, address, date of birth, phone number) up to and including a loan application, which likely includes your Social Security Number. How is this data handled? Unless you actually purchase the vehicle, and your paperwork becomes part of a permanent file, refuse to complete it. Most dealerships simply toss your paperwork after 30 days if you don’t make a purchase. Their trash receptacle then becomes a pre-qualified source for identity thieves.
- The Pharmacy. Pharmacy records contain your personal identifying information (name, address, date of birth, phone number, insurance plan information, employer and often, your Social Security number). Thieves look anywhere for taking basic information to build a new identity, or to re-fill prescriptions that they can then sell. Make sure your pharmacy asks for your ID, and request confirmation that they shred personal data.
Medical Identity Theft Increasing
Medical records are one-stop shopping for identity thieves. There is no need to slowly gather bits and pieces of someone’s personal information – it’s all packaged together: Social Security number, name, address, phone number, even payment accounts. Crooks have received everything from medication to a liver transplant using a stolen identity. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg! More than just medical treatment is at stake. Once a thief’s medical information is entered into your records, it’s extremely difficult to get rid of that information. It’s conceivable, for example, that at a later date, you’ll need a Type A blood transfusion but be given the thief’s Type B with dire consequences.
Identity theft of medical records has more than doubled since 2008, as stated in Javelin’s 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report. It’s not difficult to imagine the misery that a million Americans have suffered during the past two years when their identities were stolen. And the Poneman Institute, in their National Study on Medical Identity Theft, states that another half million people loaned their insurance cards to uninsured family members and friends. The unsavvy lenders have incurred huge medical bills in this “friendly fraud”.
Health Insurance Fraud: Why pay when you can steal?
Why pay for Health Insurance when you can steal it?
As the economy dropped severely in 2009, the instances of Identity Theft continued to rise. With desperate times and individuals struggling, Medical Identity Theft and Health Insurance Fraud reports by emergency rooms have been higher than normal over the past several months. According to Javelin Strategy and Research, in 2009 Medical Record Theft had the longest length of time, 493 days, between the theft and detection by the insured. This also led to the highest fraud amount of $18,480 and the largest mean consumer cost of $2987. That means the average consumer that suffers from Medical Identity Theft pays almost $3000 of his own money to resolve the theft! This shows how the financial repercussions of Medical Identity Fraud are the largest among Identity Fraud types.
There are more than just financial risks to Health Insurance Fraud. If your name is linked with another person’s medical records, their blood type, medical history and medications are recorded on your chart. Inaccurate information can lead to ER and hospital mix ups with health complications that could prove deadly.
Keeping Abreast of Identity Theft… Literally
Only in California! A Huntington Beach woman used another woman’s identity to pay for breast implants and liposuction. At first glance, it’s a laughable story. But imagine being the woman who has to prove that she wasn’t the augmentation recipient! Remember, with identity theft, you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Medical identity theft will take us to new and embarrassing depths in order to prove that we are innocent. It will give new meaning to the phrase “bearing witness”. And it prompts the question of why we don’t have a set of universal rules that govern our personally identifying information?
On a related note, I recently became involved with the Santa Fe Group which published an excellent white paper informally known as the Identity Theft Bill of Rights. Registering for a download of the paper is well worth your time – it does an excellent job of summarizing the identity theft issues that we, as Americans, face in the coming years. It includes discussions about modifying language in HIPAA to protect against medical identity theft crimes similar to and far more serious than the Huntington Beach case.
As our population grows older on the shoulders of the baby boomers, medical identity theft and its cousins will become ever more prevalent and damaging. Help us fight for our identity rights by getting involved. Start by registering for a webinar put on by the Santa Fe Group called:
Victims’ Rights: Fighting Identity Crime on the Front Lines
Here is the recent press release from the Santa Fe Group announcing the Bill of Rights:
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