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FTC Delays Identity Theft Rule Yet Again
coondoggie sends news that the FTC, at the request of several members of Congress, has delayed enforcement of anti-ID-theft rules — for the fourth time since the original implementation date, November 2008. "The [Red Flags] rule requires financial institutions and other creditors to develop and carry out identity-theft prevention programs. ... The problem with the rule revolves around which entities must comply and develop identity-theft prevention programs. ... 'It's the act of delaying payment for services that can sweep in entities you wouldn't normally think of as creditors,' Kuehn said. Already, the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants have sued, saying that the Red Flags Rule shouldn't apply to their members."
why not? do they not have important data that could be used in an identity theft?
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
The reason for the objection by the AMA is that this rule would designate doctors as creditors, by virtue of them billing for their services. This would require a torrent of new paperwork to be handled by the doctors' offices. Ultimately, the time and staff cost of compliance would be extremely high, while there aren't likely to be any benefits in terms of reduction of personal data theft from medical practices, since HIPAA regulations are already very strict regarding personal information.
Since many hospitals and practices already operate on rather thin margins (3% is considered excellent for a hospital), the last thing medical institutions need is more staff to handle paperwork. They already outnumber doctors...
Congrats: Third post and you're completely orthogonal to the FA. Maybe less time in 'happyplace' and more time in 'reading'.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I know in our last safety and soundness exam the FDIC looked over our Red Flags program. I'm not saying that is where they spent the majority of their time by any means, though. Right now all the banks are getting hammered on asset quality. The regulatory bodies have written so many MOUs they're having a hard time keeping up.
I can't believe this has been modded up. The Rule has nothing to do with anyone's credentials. It was designed to require banks and businesses extending consumer credit to take steps to avoid identity theft, but was drafted so poorly that practically every business in the United States is subject to it and its onerous requirements.
Of course, reading any of the plentiful information on the Red Flags Rule, or even the linked article would take time.
Much easier to just mod up any moron who makes an anti-business comment on /.
I'm sorry, I do not believe that happy place's comment is even close enough to the topic in the article to be orthogonal to it. I guess you could take that view since doctors and lawyers are mentioned in both the article and happy place's comment. I believe that is the only thing those two have in common.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
take steps to avoid identity theft
The point of Red Flags is that the theft has already happened and now some Mexican is in your office wanting a credit line and showing you some white scandinavian drivers license and claiming that he's really Mia Bjarnor. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO??!? Oh wait, you have a policy for exactly this thing!
BECAUSE:
Association members ARE identity thieves.
Thanks for the update.
Yours In St. Petersburg,
K. Trout, C.E.O.
A set of rules that are so onerous that the lawyers and accountants are running scared of the paperwork probably is a bad idea all around, not just as applied to certain people and companies.
(note to idiots who have never seen a regulation they don't like: I am not saying that preventing identity theft is a bad idea. I'm saying this particular way of doing so is probably a bad idea)
Just make it the banks' problem. If someone opens a credit card in my name and charges a bunch of things to it, just let the bank deal with it. It's not my fault they gave a credit card to a fraud. If I tell them it wasn't me, they should have to eat the loss themselves. Then they'll make sure that anyone they give credit to is the real deal.
The point of Red Flags is that the theft has already happened and now some Mexican is in your office wanting a credit line and showing you some white scandinavian drivers license and claiming that he's really Mia Bjarnor. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO??!?
What do I do? I ask him: "You do not look like Mia Bjarnor, are you sure this is your real name?".
If answer="Yes" then GiveCredit() else CallCops();
Easy!
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Don't bother trying to force companies to prevent it... just make the company that leaked the data responsible for all losses as the result of identity theft, and then leave them up to their own devices to find a way to prevent it.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Identity theft is good for the bottom line, that's why. You can sell lots of things to an Identity thief, plus it's recession proof! If you're Best Buy (or some other vendor), you get to sell more stuff. By the next month, you've already posted the profit so then you can hang the loss on the credit card company, who then gets a bailout from the government. It's a perfect scam, all the way around!
then they are a "creditor".
When doctors and hospitals agree to give up the right to file reports about you to the Credit Reporting Agencies (i.e. give up the benefit of being treated as a creditor) is they day they can stop being required to comply with the painful parts of being treated as a creditor.
The two items are a lot more related than might appear on first glance -- the only reason a doctor/hospital has for *requiring* your SSN/TIN is in case they need to file a bad report about you to the Credit Reporting Agencies and it is exactly that SSN/TIN data collection that is the reason they were being included in this FTC rule. If they stop collecting SSN/TIN (thereby losing the ability to file a negative credit report about you), then we won't need them to behave like responsible creditors.
There are two entirely different things that are both lumped together as "Identity Theft".
The first one is where someone manages to get a bank or loan company to give them credit based on false credentials. You wake up one morning and discover that you owe lots of people you never even heard of, perhaps as much as a year after the loan was given. This is big trouble, because your success depends on convincing the originator of the loan that they made a mistake. It can take years to clean this up and plenty of money. Fortunately, it is extremely rare.
The second sort of "Identity Theft" is where someone "borrows" your credit card number. It is nothing more than credit card fraud and takes about 10 minutes to clear up. It personally happens to me at least once a year. I believe that many businesses end up selling credit card numbers one way or another, usually through employees looking for some extra income. A valid credit card number is worth maybe $2 on the open market, so if you collect of 50 of them you have yourself $100. Plenty of people could use an extra $100 a week.
Credit card fraud is so incredibly common that nearly all large stores have insurance to cover their losses. So they pretty much don't care when it happens - they file for insurance coverage and are reimbursed. The credit card companies do not care at all and pretty much refuse to even attempt to prosecute the people doing it because it looks bad. So the only loser in this is a small business that gets taken on a credit card sale and doesn't have the insurance that bigger stores have.
With a "no prosecution" stand, credit card fraud is about as rampant as it could possibly be. There are no consequences to doing it. If you walk in to a store and try to use a fraudulent credit card it might not validate - around 1960 they called the cops. Today they take the card and suggest you get lost. I suppose if you insisted they call the police they might, but you wouldn't be charged with anything like credit card fraud because nobody cares. Probably end up getting charged with making an ass of yourself in public.
Yes, I have had a physical credit card stolen and reported to the police. I knew who took it and who used it in a store (successfully, I might add), but the police wouldn't do a thing unless the credit card company wanted to press charges. They never do, so they guy got the stuff from the store and got away with it clean.
So basically you'd do what the banks are already doing? Which is (essentially) nothing.
Okay, I'll bite....what competition does the ABA have, exactly? who else in this country can even practice law without the blessing of the Bar Association? Congress, perhaps, is about the only OTHER entity in the U.S. that can do so, and many of it's members are also members of the Bar Association. So, seriously, WHAT competition?
One need not be the only player to maintain an effective monopoly, by the way.