I think it is truly starting to get out of control. Everyone has jumped on the $1 Million Dollar guarantee as a standard offering for identity theft services.
The value of what you really would get out of that is somewhat questionable. But now I recently noticed that one of the service companies has stepped up the guarantee to $2 Million Dollars.
Well count me in then! I was on the fence for the $1 million, but if they are offering $2 million, that is the ticket. How can I resist?
Are people out there really that foolish? Is upping the artificial "air in a bottle" service guarantee going to suck people in or away from the competition?
I wonder who will be the first to hit the $10 million guarantee mark.
At that point why not just up it to $100 million?
Are you worth a million dollars, how about $2 million? If you are, you most likely have that kind of coin in a brokerage account. Most of them now after E-trade started the trend, cover any fraud losses to your account.
The average loss or theft is in the low thousands with much of that being covered. Our company research has shown that many end up with minimal actual out of pocket expenses.
Their biggest loss is time, effort, anxiety, frustration, in cleaning up the mess left behind. We suggest people start placing a dollar value on that and collect from those companies.
If you receive a fraud alert no matter what is says, this is what it means:
" SOMEONE HAS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION......we stopped them from opening up a credit account....... since a thief already has stolen your info, we really can't tell you what else they may do with it"
Showing posts with label prevention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prevention. Show all posts
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Public becoming more Savvy to Identity Theft Services
A recent story on ABC 7 in San Francisco pointed out the value or lack thereof for services by an identity theft service that charges over $100 a year and pointed out to their viewers how to perform the same services yourself easily and free.
But what we found to be the best comment was followed by a person who pointed out that any alert to fraudulent activity is NOT PREVENTION. If you are alerted to anything by any service you have already been compromised .
Finally, people are seeing the light and recognizing that being alerted does not equal being protected . The damage has been done. You will need to scramble to figure out what the thieves who already have your information are going to do with it next.
This is why defending your identity first and foremost is much more beneficial and easier than finding out you've been alerted.
But what we found to be the best comment was followed by a person who pointed out that any alert to fraudulent activity is NOT PREVENTION. If you are alerted to anything by any service you have already been compromised .
Finally, people are seeing the light and recognizing that being alerted does not equal being protected . The damage has been done. You will need to scramble to figure out what the thieves who already have your information are going to do with it next.
This is why defending your identity first and foremost is much more beneficial and easier than finding out you've been alerted.
Friday, March 28, 2008
The value of one Social Security Number in ID theft
People need to understand how valuable that simple 9 digit social security number really is to an identity thief.
A Chicago area man racked up just under under $300,000 in debt with one womans Social Security number. His purchases included a Range Rover and a home.
Apparently this has been going on since June 2005.
An unfortunate event like this points out how far one person can go with one very crucial piece of information. While most studies point out that losses are generally much smaller, those numbers are averages and will be meaningless to this victim.
She is left picking up the pieces of this man's crime spree. Will she be out the $300,000? Definitely not, but she will be required to file numerous complaints and documents to prove she was not involved or had nothing to do with this crime. She has to exonerate herself first before any financial institution will release her from these debts.
She will spend many hours with various agencies clearing the debris from this. In the end it will cost her time, energy, anxiety, and frustration. She will likely need to take time off from work to handle certain situations.
Will she be out any money? To a large extent no, but what about time from work especially if she is self employed, gas money to travel to a police station to file an affidavit, a trip to a attorneys office, possibly a bank visit, cost of parking an so on. It can add up. Every step of the way will be filled with anger and frustration that she has to go through all this for something that she had nothing to do with.
What she should realize somewhere along this journey, is that people can do things to either avoid this, or prevent it from getting out of control.
This thief obtained her number from somewhere. The fact that he used this one for so long indicates it was likely the only one he had and found it somewhere, either in the mail, trash, on an old document, maybe in a wallet he found or stole.
Where she went wrong was allowing this to go on for 30 months. If she had been actively checking her credit reports, or had a credit freeze placed on her accounts, or fraud alerts put in place, much of this would have been avoided. She should also reflect back on where she may have provided her SSN or lost any personal information.
A little bit of prevention or mitigation would have gone a long way. It is up to you to defend your identity. This unfortunate circumstance with one person and one SSN is why.
A Chicago area man racked up just under under $300,000 in debt with one womans Social Security number. His purchases included a Range Rover and a home.
Apparently this has been going on since June 2005.
An unfortunate event like this points out how far one person can go with one very crucial piece of information. While most studies point out that losses are generally much smaller, those numbers are averages and will be meaningless to this victim.
She is left picking up the pieces of this man's crime spree. Will she be out the $300,000? Definitely not, but she will be required to file numerous complaints and documents to prove she was not involved or had nothing to do with this crime. She has to exonerate herself first before any financial institution will release her from these debts.
She will spend many hours with various agencies clearing the debris from this. In the end it will cost her time, energy, anxiety, and frustration. She will likely need to take time off from work to handle certain situations.
Will she be out any money? To a large extent no, but what about time from work especially if she is self employed, gas money to travel to a police station to file an affidavit, a trip to a attorneys office, possibly a bank visit, cost of parking an so on. It can add up. Every step of the way will be filled with anger and frustration that she has to go through all this for something that she had nothing to do with.
What she should realize somewhere along this journey, is that people can do things to either avoid this, or prevent it from getting out of control.
This thief obtained her number from somewhere. The fact that he used this one for so long indicates it was likely the only one he had and found it somewhere, either in the mail, trash, on an old document, maybe in a wallet he found or stole.
Where she went wrong was allowing this to go on for 30 months. If she had been actively checking her credit reports, or had a credit freeze placed on her accounts, or fraud alerts put in place, much of this would have been avoided. She should also reflect back on where she may have provided her SSN or lost any personal information.
A little bit of prevention or mitigation would have gone a long way. It is up to you to defend your identity. This unfortunate circumstance with one person and one SSN is why.
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