ID
Hijacked? Hire A Private Eye
March 9, 2005
This story was
written by Gregory
M. Lamb
Your phone bill says
you've made long expensive calls to
remote island nations you've never heard of. Your computer floods
screen after
screen with ads and runs as if someone poured molasses into it. After
faithfully paying bills on time for years, you apply for a loan and are
told,
"Sorry, not with your bad credit."
If these scenarios sound familiar, it's a good possibility that your
computer
or your personal financial information has become the personal
playground of a
computer hacker or identity thief. Each year 10 million Americans have
their
identities - their names and personal information - stolen. They lose
an
average of $500 and spend about 30 hours trying to clean up the mess,
according
to a 2003 survey by the Federal Trade Commission.
In this discouraging, even frightening situation, privacy gumshoes
offer a ray
of hope. More adept with gigabytes than guns, these 21st-century Sam
Spades can
make the problems go away - for a price.
At the top end are companies such as Gavin de Becker & Associates,
a
California consulting firm that among other things advises celebrities
and
other high-risk individuals on how to "hide your identity from people
who'd like to steal it," says Beth Givens, director of the nonprofit
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego.
The fee: Don't ask. (Mr. de Becker is out of the country and
unavailable to
speak, and no one else at the company is permitted to talk about its
work, a spokeswoman
says by phone.)
Some private investigators will track down records and straighten out
identity
theft too, Ms. Givens says, but they can be another potentially pricey
option.
Or you can do it on your own, if you have the time and energy, she
adds.
"Protecting your privacy is not something you can do in an
afternoon." Her Web
site offers 40 fact sheets on how to do it.
But just as some people can't bear to face tax season alone, they want
more
than a list of tips.
Last year, Allstate Corp. began offering identity-theft insurance in
Texas and
a few other states as a $30 rider on its homeowner and renter policies.
The spadework is contracted out to Kroll Inc., a risk-consulting
company.
"We take a lot of the work of identity restoration off the shoulders of
victims," says Troy Allen, vice president for fraud solutions at Kroll.
"It's very time-consuming and difficult and frustrating." The
Allstate plan includes filing paperwork for the victim, such as
notifying
credit-reporting agencies, credit-card companies, and the Social
Security
Administration.
Kroll will also help victims understand their legal rights and work
with police
and collection agencies to sort out claims - basically, everything
except those
tasks that victims must do themselves, such as report the crime and
appear in
court.
One of the biggest misconceptions about identity theft, Mr. Allen says,
is that
most of it occurs on the Internet. Thieves often simply steal mail or
paper
documents, not digital files. Your personal information is in doctors'
offices,
with former and current employers, in banks, and at colleges or
universities
you've attended, Allen says. "You are as exposed for what you've done
in
the past as for what you do in the future."
You need not have even done anything foolish. Last month, ChoicePoint,
a
data-gathering company, announced it apparently was robbed of personal
information for at least 145,000 people, including names, addresses,
and Social
Security numbers. The theft was an old-fashioned scam that used dummy
companies
and involved no computer legerdemain.
Next to that, computer hackers might seem like small potatoes. And some
of them
only send users annoying ads, says Curt Brooks, a technician at Tech
Rescue, a
computer installation and repair firm in suburban Boston. But some are
more
malicious - searching for credit-card or bank-account information to
steal
money.
His shop usually sees machines only after the spyware and adware have
gotten
out of hand. "We've seen computers that have 4,000 [secret] programs
running" - picked up through everyday actions such as clicking on
e-mail
attachments, visiting websites, or sharing music files. In two or three
hours -
at $59 an hour - nearly any computer can be cleaned up.
"Phishing" scams are the most potent online hazard. People get
e-mails saying they should verify their accounts at, say, eBay or
PayPal (an
online payment service). They click on a link that seems legitimate but
is
actually a dummy site. Once they enter personal data, such as their
name,
credit-card or bank-account number, and password, the thieves have it.
"There are some [phishing scams] that are so slick that law enforcement
officers fall for them," says Jay Foley, co-executive director of the
Identity Theft Resource Center (www.idtheftcenter.org) in San Diego, a
nonprofit group. But no legitimate business would ask for such
sensitive
information in an e-mail. If in doubt, call the company, Mr. Foley
says.
Copyright 2005 The
Christian
Science Monitor. All rights reserved.