According to Javelin, 14.4 million consumers fell victim to fraud in 2018, down from the record-breaking 16.7 million victims in 2017. “But victims last year shouldered a much heavier burden than those in recent years: 3.3 million victims bore some of the liability for fraud, nearly three times as many as in 2016, and victims’ out-of-pocket fraud costs more than doubled in two years to $1.7 billion in 2018.” As the police conducted their investigation, I tried to assess the damage and look for clues. I went to annualcreditreport.com to pull my credit reports from the three major agencies. This simple action was easy, quick, and free. Not surprisingly, my Equifax file was still frozen after I locked it up following its massive credit breach in 2017, in which more than 143 million credit files were stolen. There was nothing significant there. Consumer tip: Freezing your account prevents potential creditors from accessing your file, which almost certainly means they won’t issue a loan. But you can still see if someone is trying to access your files to obtain credit. Remember, however, that the credit agencies are separate, so make sure to freeze your file at all three. That left Transunion and Experian, the other two bureaus among the “big three.” Both showed the false credit applications, so I immediately contacted the bureaus to tell them. I also froze access to those files, which, again, you can do for free. (They also try to sell you additional credit monitoring services, but basic freezes should provide adequate protection from someone tapping your information). I also passed along the reports to the police, hoping that would help them zero in on the culprit.
were cashing? Sometimes you read stories where thieves leave IDs at the scene of a crime. I thought I had something investigators could work with, although my main interest was how they stole my information. Where did they get my name? Did it come from my e-mail? The dark web – which has become a thriving black market for Social Security numbers? A third party shopping this information around? No one knew, except for the thieves. What is clear is that cyberthieves continue to adapt to efforts to thwart them. Chipped- based credit and debit cards that store information in bits and bytes instead of magnetically on “stripes,” which can be compromised with certain scanning devices from card readers, have reduced that type of theft. In response, “fraudsters have turned their attention to opening and taking over accounts,” said Al Pascual, head of fraud and security for Javelin Strategy & Research. When thieves take over accounts, he explained, they have access to funds and account information through the Internet. That often opens the door to other kinds of fraud: They can use passwords to open lines of credit, for example, which is what happened in my case. The personal information is a key to other crimes. This has made consumers more vulnerable to loss. Credit cards issued by banks will typically reimburse you for fraudulent transactions, but are reluctant to do so for other types of theft.
American Consequences
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