Thursday, February 10, 2011

Pastor turns himself in

I've heard this type of story more than once but this is a recent version in print.

It is a good illustration of you can't tell who may become an identity thief or who may become a victim. It is interesting to note in this excerpt that a church elder was the ID Theft Victim and the Pastor/Thief used the church funds to pay on the fraudulent credit card (a separate but related crime I believe). The Pastor did turn himself in.

According to Detective Gary Souto, Bruce Stutzman, the former senior pastor at New Hope Alliance Church, had a Pasco warrant for using the personal information a church elder to open up a credit card and charge $17,400.

...

Souto learned that the credit card account was opened in January of that year and Stutzman,40, allegedly used $3,400 in church funds to pay on the fraudulent account.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_hillsborough/pastor-turns-himself-in-after-allegedly-opening-credit-card-in-elder%27s-name

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Legal Arizona Worker's Act

People, some in disbelief, still ask me about this so I'm updating my blog with this link http://www.morganlewis.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/publication.detail/publicationID/8b9b3671-1993-4e07-b9d3-211200f1e809 to an AZ law firm that has an article about this stating:
Penalties for intentionally or knowingly hiring or employing illegal immigrants are severe. Employers face mandatory suspension of their business licenses for first offenses and permanent revocation of their business licenses for second offenses.
And here is a link to the Arizona Attorney General's website about the law itself http://www.azag.gov/LegalAZWorkersAct/

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Anndorie Sachs Medical Identity Theft on CBS

Although I have not used this video in a training class for years, it is still a good example of how interrelated the 5 Types of Identity Theft are and how serious they can be. Anndorie Sachs suffered 4 of the 5 major types of Identity Theft when her purse was stolen.

The story is from the CBS Early Show in 2006. The video clip is a very educational way to spend 4 minutes of your time.

This story was also featured in Good Housekeeping magazine and was the first part of that article once available online here http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/money/consumer/id-theft-0807 but I have the physical magazine article myself and may consider posting it later.

To quote part of the CBS Video Transcript:
One of those victims was Anndorie Sachs. Several months ago, she got an alarming phone call: her newborn baby had just tested positive for illegal drugs — but Sachs hasn't given birth in years.

"I was absolutely floored, you would just never imagine in a million years that something could happen like this," she told The Early Show consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen. "As much as I denied it, they just kept insisting that yes, I was the mother of this child, there was nothing I could say to get out of it."

To make matters worse, authorities showed up at her door the next day, called her an unfit mother and threatened to take away her four kids.

"When you know you're innocent and you didn't do anything wrong, it just absolutely — I was in tears, I was a wreck," she said.

It turned out that someone had stolen her driver's license, walked into a hospital, and had a baby and left Sachs with a $10,000 bill and a fight to clear her name.

Chris Dorn, a fraud expert with Ingenix, a company that tracks medical ID theft cases, says victims of medical identity theft also have to worry about medical records being altered with the crook's information substituted for their own.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/09/earlyshow/living/ConsumerWatch/main2073225.shtml

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Cash Only Restaurants

Many times I've been asked how to reduce risk of Credit Card Fraud when paying your bill at a restaurant for lunch or dinner and I've replied, paying Cash is an option to consider.

Apparently, for other reasons, some restaurants are making this an easy option because as "Eateries go cash-only," "Plastic's now off the menu."

Saturday, August 21, 2010

12 Character Super Passwords

The 12-character era of online security is upon us as summarized in this CNN.com article summarizing this published case study from the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

A quick search online let me find a whole list of 12 character words and I came up with this example, which I will never use, but it is an example of a 12 character, alphanumeric word with a special character:
Zygomorphi3$

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Facebook location tool

Facebook has a lot of issues. I will try to organize them but I have a search feature for this Blog and you can search on terms like "Facebook" and I'll continue to try to keep the best keywords in the Title.

But regarding the Facebook location tool...Google did something like this previously.

George Orwell may be rolling in his grave but it may be from hysterical fits of laughter.

Now Facebook will show your friends where you (or your GPS Phone) are.

So if I'm your friend on Facebook and you send me an email I can use Google to find your house by your email and Facebook to see if you are there or maybe 100 miles away.

I have another post about this issue that you should look at as well.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Former identity thieves confess the tactics

If you have been in one of my trainings as far back as 2006, then you know we have discussed most of these already. But it is good to see these 26 Tips again and the 10 Online tips link is a good review as well:

13 Things An Identity Thief Won't Tell You

13 More Things An Identity Thief Won't Tell You

10 Ways to Protect Yourself Online

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Welcome to my blog. The primary purpose of this Blog is to provide links to source material that I may have quoted in a presentation or training or researched in answer to a question I have been asked.

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