Identity theft reports to the Redding police department have been increasing over the last couple weeks and continue to be a staple on the police log.
Police Chief Douglas Fuchs said there are easy ways for residents to avoid having their identity stolen.
In emails, “don’t click on embedded links. Banks will never ask you for personal information and if you don’t know who it is — delete it. It’s the same idea if someone you don’t know is calling you and you hang up,” said Chief Fuchs.
In order to make sure no fraudulent charges are being made, “check your credit card statements carefully, run a credit report on yourself at least once a year and just because you see it online, don’t believe it,” he said.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “most of the financial losses are suffered by credit issuers and banks, as victims are rarely held responsible for fraudulent debts incurred in their name;” the bureau said in an official document. “However, victims often bear the responsibility of contacting their banks and credit issuers after an identity theft has occurred. A survey determined that victim consumers spent over 200 million hours in 2005 attempting to recover from identity theft.”
Identity theft has long been a criminal problem in the United States. Before the days of hacked PayPal accounts, con men relied on forged checks and fake driver’s licenses to scam banks out of their cash. Nowadays, it’s more likely to have your identity stolen by a man hidden behind an Internet connection than by a charming narcissist who wandered into town.
The FBI says, “Although not a new crime, identity theft has evolved into a serious and pervasive threat to consumers and the financial services industry alike… A survey conducted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2006 estimated that 8.3 million American consumers, or 3.7% of the adult population, became victims of identity theft in 2005.”
Today’s identity theft comes in many different forms thanks to the World Wide Web. Some hackers send out massive dragnet bugs to “phish” large amounts of data from personal computers, while others focus on a single person to steal from.
However, Connecticut Assistant Attorney General Mercedes G. Alonso stressed that not all of today’s identity theft is based on the Internet. Ms. Alonso is a member of the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Department who corresponded with The Wilton Bulletin in a recent email
“Identity thieves ‘Dumpster dive’, i.e. literally search through consumers’ trashcans, hoping that consumers will throw away valuable personal or financial information with the regular trash that can be retrieved and harvested to commit fraud,” she said.
There are many initiatives consumers can take to protect themselves from identity theft, Ms. Alonso said, including the proper destruction of personal documents, and using a post office box for correspondence that may include sensitive financial information.
When using the Internet to control bank information or make an online purchase, Ms. Alonso said, a consumer should always pick a username and password that have high Internet security ratings.
“Folks who use the Internet for monetary transactions should select strong passwords containing a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols,” she said. “In addition, consumers should never type sensitive information into an unsecured site. If there is no “s” after http in the address bar, then the site is not secure.”
Even after following basic identity theft suggestions, some consumers may fall victim to identity theft scams that exploit unprotected information. If that happens, Ms. Alonso says, a consumer’s first plan-of-action should be to file a police report.
“If a consumer falls victim to ID theft, he/she should file a police report, contact their bank and credit card companies, and place a fraud alert on their file with one of the three credit bureaus — and they will forward it to the other two,” she said. “ The affected consumer may also want to consider placing a security freeze on their credit reports.”
For more information about identity theft in Connecticut, visit www.1.usa.gov/15r6RFQ.
Pilot reporter Kaitlin Bradshaw contributed to this story.