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No Justice For Victims of Identity Theft
chicksdaddy writes: The Christian Science Monitor's Passcode features a harrowing account of one individual's experience of identity theft. CSM reporter Sara Sorcher recounts the story of "Jonathan Franklin" (not his real name) a New Jersey business executive who woke up to find thieves had stolen his identity and racked up $30,000 in a shopping spree at luxury stores including Versace and the Apple Store. The thieves even went so far as to use personal info stolen from Franklin to have the phone company redirect calls to his home number, which meant that calls from the credit card company about the unusual spending went unanswered. Despite the heinousness of the crime and the financial cost, Sorcher notes that credit card companies and merchants both look on this kind of theft as a "victimless crime" and are more interested in getting reimbursed for their losses than trying to pursue the thieves. Police departments, also, are unable to investigate these crimes, lacking both the technical expertise and resources to do so. Franklin notes that he wasn't even required to file a police report to get reimbursed for the crime: "'As long as their loss is covered they move on to [handling] tomorrow's fraud,' Franklin observes. And that makes it harder for victims like Franklin to move on, 'In some way, I'm seeking some sense of justice,' Franklin said. 'But it's likely not going to happen.'"
Somebody stole my credit card details, almost certainly when I was visiting Cyprus, and then made several eBay purchases for in total £1700. I eventually got my money back from the credit card company, but eBay were not interested at all. One person there that I spoke to on the phone accepted that these transactions were all fraudulent and that this was a well-known type of scam, but subsequent contacts there made it clear that they were not at all interested in pursuing the fraudster. I guess £1700 is small beer to them.
I tried to report it to the ActionFraud system, run by the City of London Police Fraud Squad, but as soon as you admit that the bank refunded all your money they refuse even to issue a crime reference number. I was out of pocket over the number of phone calls I had to make, and letters to write to deny these purchases in writing, which I could not recover. The main loss, of course, was the time it took. But my case is almost certainly not reflected in any crime statistics.
They tend to "lock down" credit once your identity has been stolen it is unlikely to happen again anytime soon. Totally agree with you on the space violated thing though.
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No, what we need is for companies/schools/etc. to stop using a SSN as a secret identifier. Your social security card even explicitly says it is not meant to be used as such a thing.
Every time you pay for dinner at a restaurant with your credit card, you're giving your waiter everything they need to steal your identity, especially if they ask to see your ID before serving you alcohol. Credit cards were designed in the pre-internet era. It blows my mind that we haven't moved on to something more secure.