North Carolina Man Steals Child’s Identity »

According to Alamance County Deputies, 44 year old Mebane, NC resident Michael John Maris stole the social security number and identity of a 3-year-old child.  He then used it to get natural gas service and a telephone.

Maris was charged with two counts of obtaining property by false pretense and one count of identity theft.  His bond has been set at $5,000.

The child’s grandmother, Linda Raker, was alerted to the problem when a collection agency contacted her requesting payment for the natural gas bill – which was in her granddaughter’s name.  That, of course, raised red flags (what child needs natural gas service, afterall ) and the grandmother notified the authorities.

It also seems that Mr. Maris is related to the grandmother, but the Sheriff did not disclose the exact nature of the relationship.

Identity theft is quickly becoming a serious epidemic.  In fact, the United States FBI website says that you cannot prevent the theft of your identity – yikes!  If you think you are a victim of identity theft, contact the authorities first and then follow these other steps

TJ Maxx Data Thief Irving Escobar Sentenced »

Irving Escobar, one of the main parties responsible for the T.J. Maxx database theft, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison and has to pay about $600,000 in restitution.

This is the latest news in the T.J. Maxx Identity theft fiasco, where more than 45 million personal records of their customers were stolen over an 18 month period, records which included customer names, credit card numbers, addresses, etc. I don’t shop at T.J. Maxx because my wife’s information was among those stolen and T.J. Maxx did not notify her or alert her or anything – not even an apology. But enough about me, back to Escobar’s story.

In March, Irving Escobar pleaded guilty to participating in an organized scheme to defraud and four others involved also pleaded guilty. A few others were arrested and have since been sentenced to probation: Dianelly Hernandez, Julio Alberti, Reinier Alvarez and Zenia Llorente. Escobar’s mother, Nair Alvarez, was deported to Venezuela after she pleaded guilty in March – hahaha, that is funny.

Authorities estimated a total loss of $3 million could be attributed to Escobar and his co-defendants on a nationwide scale. The unfortunate things, in my opinion, are 1) taxpayers now have to pay for these morons to live in prison, 2) with good behavior, they will probably not have to server their complete sentence and 3) identity theft victims in these cases will spend more time than that trying to clear up their credit.

Here is a post we did on what you should do if you suspect identity theft.

Popular Blog Topics »

Most of our blog traffic comes from Google and other Search Engines but, oddly enough, the “Search” function on our blog gets quite a workout. So, I decided to post some of the most popular searches and maybe you will see something that grabs your attention.

For example, topics related to good passwords are always popular. Autocad is another hot topic for the blog. We also get tons of traffic from readers looking to secure a wireless network. Also, the series of posts I did on the TJ Maxx database hack and resulting loss of their customers credit card information has been wildly popular (my wife, who had her information stolen as a result of this event, still has not heard from TJ Maxx).

Identity theft and what to do if you think you may be a victim is another popular topic. I compiled a 4 part series of posts that tackled that issue.

One last example, a post we did on professional web design received a lot of traffic and even resulted in a few new web design clients .

Thanks to all our readers and “happy searching” .

Identity Thief Sentenced »

A New York Court sentenced 32 year old Nigerian Lanre Elekede to 34 months in prison for his role in an identity-theft scheme. Elekede was convicted of stealing personal identity information, passing that information on to other members of his identity-theft ring and then committing fraud using that information.

Elekede and his partners stole the identities of at least 175 individuals and defrauded many financial institutions using those identities. The group exchanged credit card numbers complete with the expiration dates, the 3 digit security codes and expiration dates. Additionally, they passed out victims’ names, phone numbers, addresses, SS numbers and even mothers’ maiden names.

When he as arrested in 2004, police found notebooks that contained names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, credit card numbers, bank account numbers and other stolen personal data.

The gang used much of the stolen information to setup online gambling accounts on a Costa-Rican gambling web site betonsports.com. Betonsports PLC is also in trouble in Missouri.

See the press release on the FBI’s web site.

I am not sure how much trouble this caused for the victims, but 34 months seems like a short time to serve, especially since he will probably not serve that entire time. It can take an identity theft victim a whole lot longer than that to get their life back in order .

What To Do if You Suspect Identity Theft: Step Four »

If you ask a victim of identity theft (and their numbers are growing), there is really no easy way to deal with the intrusion. Many of them say the feelings are similar to the feelings of someone who has had their house robbed, except on a much larger scale.

It can take years to completely recover and most of that time will be very frustrating. On a positive note, credit agencies and law enforcement are developing better methods for dealing with identity theft and better ways to help the victims.

There are four main steps that you should take if you have become a victim of identity theft. Let’s recap what we have so far:

• The first step was to contact a credit reporting agency and notify them.
• The second step was close all suspicious accounts.
• Step three is to file a formal complaint with the US FTC.

Finally, here is the fourth step you should take:

File a police report with the local authorities. When you go to file this report, take the FTC ID Theft complaint form and give a copy of that to the police. Also, make sure that you get a copy of the police report when you are done.

Then, if a creditor requests proof of the crime, you can send them a copy of the police report.

Additionally, there is a section on the ID Theft Report which is entitled “Law Enforcement Report”. Ask the officer to sign that section. If he/she has questions, you can refer them to the US FTC’s website. It has a special section for Law Enforcement.

Keep all of this information in a safe location (possibly in a safe-deposit box at your local bank). Then you are sure it will be available when you need it.

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