How To Avoid Identity Theft

According to the Federal Trade Commission, 9 million Americans become victims of identity theft every year. Someone may obtain a credit card in your name and spend thousands of dollars for which you get billed; someone may rent an apartment using your personal information, and you get billed or harassed by debt collectors; in the worst cases, a crime may be committed using your name, social security number or other personal information.

Identity theft can be a very serious issue. If you are a victim, you may have to spend considerable time and money repairing the damage to your name and your credit record. You may not be able to secure education loans or other kinds of funding, and you may be denied jobs for which you qualify otherwise. In the very worst case, you may even be jailed for a crime you did not commit.

People can steal your identity in many ways. They can steal it directly from you; a misplaced wallet, unlocked personal office, lack of online precaution can all result in identity thefts. They can also do this in more ingenious ways. Dumpster diving is one way; thieves rummage through trash in dumpsters and look for old bills or other documents with financial and personal information. There are also social engineering methods like phishing, and also offline methods like diverting your address to get your personal documents, or pretexting, calling up institutions on some pretext to get your information.

In order to avoid identity theft, you should first know how it is done. That way, you will develop your own precautionary measures to stop the theft. Here are also some standard measures people should adopt to be protected from identity theft.

First off, you should develop a healthy paranoia about identity theft. Don’t ever give out your financial information to anyone. This includes bank account number, bank account address, debit or credit card information, even your social security number, which ties up many of these other data. When using your credit card offline, make sure to purchase only from well-known stores. If you are making an online purchase, you need to be even more wary. Look for the ‘lock’ sign in your browser, which shows that the webpage you are purchasing from is secured by a Protection Agency like VeriSign. Also, make sure to purchase from the actual websites of well-known merchants, and avoid purchasing internationally.

If you are on credit marketing lists, call up 888-567-8688 (your social security number may be required to verify your identity) and get off such mail lists. Scammers will often steal your mails and use your information to buy credit cards or secure a loan. Also, if you are serving in the military, set up an active duty alert on your credit files. Credit agencies take extra precautions in such cases, before granting a loan application.

One of the most important things to do is to get regular credit reports form one of the credit rating agencies, the Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. You are entitled to a free credit report once a year; your state law may allow you more free reports, just check. Either way, make sure to stay on top of your personal finances, so you know anytime there is an anomaly.

Fed Chief falls victim to Identity Theft

The serious crime of identity theft has been affecting millions of Americans, but who could have thought that the Federal Reserve chief himself will be one of the victims. Yes you read it right, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Chairman, has fallen victim to an identity fraud ring.

According to the news and reports, the Federal Chairman became entangled in this identity theft scheme after his wife Anna's purse was stolen from a coffee shop on Capitol Hill Starbucks last August. There were four credit cards, personal checks, Social Security card and IDs in her purse. Though it was not revealed how much money was stolen, but somebody had started cashing checks on their bank account. Immediately Mr.Bernanke had reported them to the bank, filed a police report and alerted the credit card companies when the purse was stolen.

Later it was found that although the thief did not target Anna specifically, he was a part of a crime ring for which many investigations were going on for months. In a way this theft helped fuel an ongoing investigation. If we go by the statistics given by Newsweek magazine as on Wednesday, the identity theft ring had stolen over $2.1 million from financial institutions and individuals.

Cylde Austin Gray is one of the ringleaders, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in federal court in Alexandria,last month. The court record showed that he was involved in employing an army of thieves, pick pockets and office workers to swipe cards, checks and other personal records.

Mr.Ben Bernanke, in a statement to Newsweek, showed his gratefulness to the law enforcement officers who worked patiently and diligently to solve such financial crimes.

No one is safe from identity theft. So if any of your personal information is stolen, be it credit cards, checkbook, IDs or any such thing, immediately alert all your financial institutions and act wisely to protect yourself.

99 years in Prison for Mortgage Fraud

Recently, a woman from North Texas was sentenced to 99 years in prison for being involved in a mortgage fraud scheme. Yes you read it right! 99 years in jail. One can rather say life imprisonment. Kandace Yancy Marriott, a 52 year old lady of Gun Barrel City, was found guilty of framing a complicated mortgage fraud that cost taxpayers more than $3 million.

Kandace Yancy Marriott

A Navarro County jury found this Mom guilty of forging signatures of home-owners, supporting loan applications with false documents and incorrectly completing loan applications. Together with Kandance Marriott, her husband Darrell L. Marriott, their daughter Kally Marriot and Kandance's sister, Karen Hayes, were also involved in this major criminal activity. All of the defendants are facing different charges for related criminal conduct.

According to the prosecutor, such fraud scheme was orchestrated at their own company, One Way Home and Land. They targeted mainly low-income people whose loans were guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Due to this reason, the mortgage lenders did not face much financial losses but the tax payers and HUD had to cover up the costs.

The additional number of years in this tough sentence was a consequence of multiple criminal offenses committed by her. Nearly a century in prison, is it too harsh?

On the brighter side, at least from now onwards, one will fear before framing any mortgage fraud scheme, and hopefully this would further reduce the number of occurrences of fraud cases.