The nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center defines identity theft as “a crime in which an impostor obtains key pieces of personal identifying information such as Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers and uses them for their own personal gain.”
Sources for the information can be lost or stolen wallets, pilfered mail, a data breach, a computer virus, phishing, a scam or paper documents thrown out by you or a business. The crimes themselves vary widely, and can include check fraud, credit card fraud, financial identity theft, criminal identity theft, governmental identity theft and identity fraud.
To make the situation worse, thieves want more than just your money. In 2007, the Federal Trade Commission reported that credit card fraud accounted for 23 percent of the reported identity theft cases. Nonfinancial types of fraud, including employment fraud, accounted for 14 percent and government documents/benefits fraud accounted for 11 percent. Nonfinancial types of identity theft include utilities and phone fraud, medical, criminal, employment and government benefits fraud and synthetic identity theft, in which the identity is fictional rather than stolen.
Unfortunately, criminals can readily obtain personal data without having to break into a home. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that in public places, for example, criminals may watch you from a nearby location as you punch in your telephone calling card number or credit card number, or listen in on your conversation if you give your credit card number over the telephone to a hotel or rental-car company.
In addition, notebook computers filled with confidential employee information are stolen on a daily basis, and data breaches and criminal accesses also occur at retailers, payment processors and other types of companies all the time.
Once the predator has enough identifying information, he can take over that person’s identity by falsely completing applications for loans and credit cards and inflict substantial damage on the victim’s assets, credit and reputation.
As a result, people are bombarded by offers of free credit card monitoring that will reduce identity theft, typically from one of three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax or TransUnion, which implies that credit report monitoring will protect customers from subsequent criminal use of their identity records.
Are there limitations to the protection you receive from these free offers? Unfortunately, yes. A study conducted by Gartner revealed that “identity scoring and monitoring is more effective than credit-report monitoring to watch for potentially fraudulent activity.”
With identity scoring, you get an accurate and comprehensive picture of the complete person’s credit-related activity. Identity-score systems tap into a broad set of consumer data that judge a person’s authenticity. Identity-score components used by identity-scoring companies include government and public records, corporate data, credit records and predicted behavior patterns based on empirical data.
Any credit-monitoring report will arrive days after the criminal activity has transpired. Credit card monitoring also does not catch the nonfinancial use of your stolen identity and can, in fact, damage your credit rating even further.
Gartner Research notes that identity scoring tracks criminal behavior over time and across enterprises. Suspect patterns of behavior that show up across different organizations would not necessarily appear if the activity within only one organization was being monitored. In fact, credit-report monitoring is not able to identify disparate criminal activity or individual records linked by stolen data.
By contrast, identity scoring takes into account far more attributes that clearly define the individual and his behavior over a significant period of time.
Recovery after an identity is stolen is very complex. There are many calls to make and steps to take and, unfortunately for the victims, identity theft is often much simpler, and quicker, than the recovery.
Help is available in two ways. Companies can either assist victims in the resolution process or they can manage the entire process on individuals’ behalf. For those consumers who want assistance, these companies can provide resolution-process guidance, including advice for avoiding future complications. Consumers who wish to completely avoid the time and hassle involved in the recovery process may elect to have a company manage the entire process on their behalf. In either case, individuals must treat their financial and personal information with care and must be vigilant about checking statements and accounts. •
Jim Collins is president of HR Plus (www.HRPlus.com) a provider of background screening and preemployment services, and a division of AlliedBarton Security Services.
