ID snatchers: Modern thieves steal victims’ identities, drain their accounts

Jace Radke

Thursday, July 11, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

Protection

Guard your personal information, including Social Security numbers and PINs.

On the Web: Federal Trade Commission -- www.ftc.gov Identity Theft Resource Center -- www.idtheftcenter.org

Postal worker Fletcher Corey doesn't go on shopping sprees, so he was surprised when his bank statement showed that more than $4,500 from his checking account was spent over a weekend.

He was shocked when he learned that transaction records showed the person spending the money was him.

"I don't buy anything, so I didn't know what was going on," Corey said. "Someone was pretending to be me. It was a nightmare."

Waking up to find that someone else has assumed their identity is a nightmare that Corey and thousands of others are living.

Identity thieves feed on the inability of consumers to safeguard personal information. They use that data to commit bank fraud, credit fraud and other financial crimes.

Easy availability of credit and related information has led to a big outbreak of identity theft in major cities across the country -- including Las Vegas, which presents the perfect habitat for these chameleon-like criminals.

"We're seeing more and more of these kinds of crimes," said special agent Alan Peters of the Las Vegas FBI office. "It's easy to get lost in the shuffle in Las Vegas. People are used to seeing different driver's licenses and hearing different accents in Las Vegas.

"Finally, Las Vegas is a cash-based economy, and (so) the bad guys want to be here."

The Federal Trade Commission began doing annual studies on identity theft complaints in 2000. FTC figures show that Nevada went from fewer than 300 reported complaints in 2000 to more than 800 reported complaints last year.

Las Vegas alone had 534 reported victims of identity theft last year.

Corey was victimized in April of last year when some checks he ordered never arrived at his home. Instead, someone else got the checks and then manufactured a fake driver's license that contained Corey's identity but the suspect's picture.

In the span of three days, $4,649.43 in checks were written on Corey's account at Wal-Mart, Raley's, Wolf Camera, Pacific Sunwear and other stores.

"I didn't find out about it until after the weekend, when the bank called and told me that something had gone wrong," Corey said. "I was lucky because I jumped on it right away."

Corey closed his account and began the process of filing affidavits and reporting the crime to police and credit reporting agencies. The stolen checks caused his mortgage payment check to bounce, and it took more than two months of phone calls and meetings with businesses and TransUnion, a credit bureau, to clean up the problem.

Five people charged with bank fraud and conspiracy in connection with Corey's case are scheduled to go to trial on July 29 in U.S. District Court. Law enforcement officials say the group took more than 700 checks, credit cards and treasury checks, and assumed the identities of 50 victims.

Linda Foley, director of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to distributing information about identity theft, hears about cases like Corey's every day.

In 1992 TransUnion received 35,000 calls about identity theft -- and by last year, that number had grown to more than a million calls. Foley's resource center gets thousands of reports a month from identity theft victims.

"It's really an insidious crime because it can take people years to fix their credit," said Foley, who herself was a victim of identity theft. "We've had people who had their identity stolen five years ago and they think they've cleaned it up, but then they go to buy a house and they can't because there's something that was missed."

On average, victims of identity theft spend more than 175 hours and $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses to clear their names, FTC officials said.

Victims can suffer any number of crimes, including credit card fraud, account takeovers, online auction fraud and information sales, Peters said.

"We had one guy come into town, and he was running an eBay auction fraud under an assumed identity," Peters said. "He was selling nonexistent merchandise. When we caught up with him he had 30 different credit cards and 30 different IDs on him."

Some criminals don't use the stolen information to commit fraud, instead electing to sell it to organized groups of identity thieves.

"The criminals are getting more sophisticated, and the crimes are becoming more complicated," Foley said. "They will attack people on multiple fronts instead of just going after their credit cards.

"It's a high profit, low risk, low penalty crime."

Those convicted of identity theft usually face a maximum of 15 years in prison, but can face as little as a year or even probation depending on the nature of the crime.

That could change if the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, currently under consideration by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, is passed.

The act significantly enhances the penalties for identity thieves by creating a new classification of aggravated identity theft, and it would increase the maximum penalty for a basic case of identity theft by up to five years.

The bill would also increase the maximum penalty by five years for anyone who commits identity theft for the purpose of committing a terrorist act.

Foley would like to see even stronger penalties.

"Until we start increasing the penalties we won't see a decrease in these threats," Foley said. "Identity theft is a threat to everyone, not just consumers. These crimes supply the money to fund terrorism, murder, organized crime and drug trafficking. It all ties together."

Identity theft has garnered more attention since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the renewed focus on determining who and where suspected terrorists might be.

People should educate themselves about the threat of identity theft just as they have with other crimes, said Peters, who directs the Nevada Cybercrime Task Force.

The task force investigates those who use computers and the Internet as a tool to commit crimes -- and identity thieves are some of the greatest offenders, Peters said. The Internet offers easy access to information and to fake driver's license and identification mock-ups, he said.

"Online commerce is safe, but people need to make sure they are dealing with reputable companies and think about the information that they are providing," Peters said. "People have trained themselves not to give out personal information over the phone, and now they have to train themselves to do the same thing with computers."

After his experience last year, Corey realizes identity theft can happen to anyone.

"I was careful with my information before, but now I'm even more careful," Corey said. "I only write checks for bills.

"I don't really worry about it much anymore, but some of my unaccounted for checks are still out there, so anything is possible."

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