Word: theft
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Here's the scary thing about the identity-theft ring that the feds cracked last week: there was nothing any of its estimated 40,000 victims could have done to prevent it from happening. This was an inside job, according to court documents. A lowly help-desk worker at Teledata Communications, a software firm that helps banks access credit reports online, allegedly stole passwords for those reports and sold them to a group of 20 thieves at $60 a pop. That allowed the gang to cherry-pick consumers with good credit and apply for all kinds of accounts in their...
...Even scarier is that this, the largest identity-theft bust to date, is just a drop in the bit bucket. More than 700,000 Americans have their credit hijacked every year. It's one of crime's biggest growth markets. A name, address and Social Security number - which can often be found on the Web - is all anybody needs to apply for a bogus line of credit. Credit companies make $1.3 trillion annually and lose less than 2% of that revenue to fraud, so there's little financial incentive for them to make the application process more secure...
...think you're a victim of identity theft, you can ask for fraud alerts to be put on file at each of the three credit-report companies. You can also download a theft-report form at www.consumer.gov/idtheft, which, along with a local police report, should help when irate creditors come knocking. Just don't expect justice. That audacious help-desk worker was one of the fewer than 2% of identity thieves who are ever caught...
Three Strikes for Theft...
...california's "three strikes" statute, which doubles the penalty for second-time offenders guilty of serious or violent crimes, is unconstitutional [LAW, Nov. 11]: It amazes me that the concept of personal responsibility carries so little weight these days. Sending someone to prison for life for committing a petty theft seems harsh at first glance, but not when it's the third felony. I'm all for second chances, but every one of these criminals knew that a third strike would mean life in prison. If they choose not to change their ways, let them live with their choice...