Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend, the town of Vernon and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
Identity Theft-Part Two
To support his methamphetamine habit during the late 1990’s, Stephen Massey resorted to dumpster diving. On one of his nightly searches, Massey discovered a treasure chest of recycled paper containing a gold mine of personal information: names, Social Security numbers, and addresses. Massey and a partner created one of the most notorious identity theft operations in the country. Eventually apprehended and convicted, Massey’s partner served one year in prison, Massey, two.
Special Agent Wayne Ivey of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement talked about Massey and other identity thieves at a special summit at the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department Training Academy in Franklin. Thieves utilize all kinds of unscrupulous methods to ruin innocent peoples’ lives.
How can culprits like Massey get their hands on shredded papers chock full of personal data? Simple. We allow the criminals easy access.
Are businesses shredding? Not exactly. They hire other businesses to do the work. However, the coveted information to be shredded is placed in huge bags left in break rooms allowing cleaning crews a feast.
Ivey says far too many unsuspecting, naïve individuals like to place mail for pickup in their mailboxes and pull out the red flag as an indication to the postal worker. Red flag is right. Ivey says it’s like screaming out to identity thieves, “Please steal my mail!”
Identity thieves burglarize. Computer hard drives are popular targets. So are women’s purses. The number one place for a woman to have her purse stolen is dropping her children off at school. The number two place is at the gym. Beaches and parks are also prime locations for predatory identity thieves.
Do you use the Felony Lane at your bank’s drive-thru? The felony lane is the lane furthest away from the bank window, a prime spot according to Ivey to cash stolen checks and make phony withdrawals, especially with the lane usually having the worst quality surveillance videos in the bank parking lot.
Check washing bilks consumers to the tune of $815 million each year. Personal checks are stolen, and then the ink is washed from the face of the check and is re-written. Thieves erase the ink on checks using various chemicals and then change the payee and the amount. Acetone is the most widely used chemical along with bleach and carbon tetrachloride that is used to clean carpeting. As Ivey pointed out, these materials are easily purchased at Target and Wal-Mart.
Guess what inmates are learning in prison as they await their release to commit more crimes? Memory techniques that can be used to shoulder surf. Common at ATMs and check out lines and becoming more frequent at Internet cafes, the identity thief is literally memorizing and stealing your personal information by peeking over your shoulder.
Protecting against corrupt employees is difficult. Thieves will stalk and hand pick their partners to steal information at departments of motor vehicles and restaurants. These are typically single moms that agree to a certain fee for each identity they can turn over. At an Orlando TGIF restaurant, 75-thousand credit cards were recovered by authorities. Two waitresses had been using credit card skimmers easily hidden in their uniforms to quickly zap and store names and numbers. Counterfeit equipment is available online with parts sold at Radio Shack.
Thieves have placed overlays on top of ATMs that appear to be authentic, and return days later to remove their wizardry that has captured a host of new victims. Funeral companies have been fooled by thieves posing as insurance company agents calling to verify information about deceased individuals. Another prized document by thieves: a divorce decree.
Your cell phone could do you in. Ivey cautioned to always assume when talking on a cell or cordless phone that someone else could be listening.
The MOs used by identity thieves run the gamut, and as Ivey noted, there is no silver bullet to stop this evolving crime. However, consumers can and should take steps toward prevention.
More in Part Three.
0 COMMENTS