Slashdot Mirror
Biggest Identity Thief Ever Gets Put Away
Anonymous Brave Guy writes "Apparently computer helpdesk employee Philip Cummings had more than just a day job: he's just gone down for 14 years in the biggest identity theft case ever. Lots of fascinating nuggets of information in that story: apparently fake ID goes for as little as $60, and the total stolen over just a couple of years was somewhere in the $50m-100m range."
People like this should be put away for a long time for ruining one's credit rating and making their lives a living hell. Restitution will be good too, but how much can you make in the can? not much.
Good riddance.
Some call me Howie Feltersnatch
Something tells me the 30,000 people he scammed aren't going to see a dime. Since Phil is not allowed to compensate with stolen funds, and he is unlikely to be returning to his lucrative helpdesk job anytime soon, I doubt he'll be able to fork over even $1 per victim.
The actual "victim" in these cases is almost always the creditor, not the person whose identity was stolen. It costs the person a bunch of time and energy to correct the problems, but the stolen money comes from the creditors, and they have a budget for fraud.
The UK has Data Protection laws now which mean that if employees have access to personal information they have to have a damn good reason, and if they don't the company is liable.
Social Security numbers were originally just a Tax ID, people wouldn't get them until age 16 or so (this was changed, according to wikipedia, in the 1980s when SSN's were required to list "dependants). It's sad, it was (as i'm told, I did not experience this) stated that it would "never be used as a national id" or something to that effect, and it has.
At least it's not to the same extent (i think) that it is in the UK. But that's not to say it won't be.
For context, click Parent.