Insurance

Employee accused of Identity Theft

Source: Online. http://www.bayarea.com/. 6 March 2002

Jacksonville , FL – A former employee of Prudential Insurance Company stole a database containing 60,000 personal records and sold some of the private information over the internet, federal authorities say.

The employee was working in the tax department at Prudential in New York in 2000 at the time. A detective noticed a message the employee posted on an electronic bulletin board, announcing he had thousands of names and Social Security numbers for sale, according to a criminal complaint.

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Education

It’s no secret

Source: World Wastes

Minden Elementary School in Rock Lick, West Virginia , closed and was sold to a local company six years ago. While cleaning out the vestiges of the building’s former use, company employees found old school records and simply dumped them without a second thought.

The discarded records documented illnesses, abuse, malnutrition, family financial information and student IQ’s, on residents of the communities of Rock Lick and Menden whose combined population is approximately 1,000.

Residents flocked to the trash container after word got out that the records had been found. A lawyer for one of the victims stated, “It is one thing to have people know you dropped out of school: another when people know your IQ is 80. Some people have been intimidated, others harassed. Most of the victims are more embarrassed than anything else.”

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Postal Service

Two men arrested for suspected Identity Theft crimes

Check-washing alert

Source: Blue Duck, as written in Bottom Line

Thieves work neighborhoods looking for mailboxes with red flags up, which shows there is outgoing mail. The thieves steal envelopes that look like they hold bill payments. They use a chemical to remove pen ink from the payee’s name and dollar portions of the check – rewrite the check to themselves or an accomplice for much more money – and cash it.

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Postal crime prevention

Source: Printed by permission of the United States Postal Inspection Service

The United States Postal Inspection Service, Charlotte, NC, has issued the following warning to postal customers:

US Postal Inspectors advise post office box holders to be cautious about discarding unwanted mail in trash cans located in post office lobbies or other public receptacles.

Reports have been received which indicate that discarded mail is being removed from these trash cans and financial information is being obtained from the mail. Customers should be aware that discarded mail usually bears the customer’s name and address and may contain credit card or mail order account numbers. Using this information, criminals are often able to order merchandise in the customer’s name using the customer’s charge account while having the merchandise shipped to a different address. The customer may not become aware of the activity until receiving a bill four to six weeks later.

The mail may also contain pre-approved credit card information by which criminals may fraudulently obtain a credit card in the customer’s name. If a change of address is filed with the application, the customer may not become aware of this activity until reviewing his/her credit report.

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Local Government

Spying via trash

Source: The Morning Journal

LORAINE, Ohio — The city auditor was surprised that someone had resorted to spying on him through his office trash.

He figured out that someone had gone through the trash when people outside the office started asking about the financial situation of the city. Someone had gone through his office trash between the time city maintenance workers picked up the trash at night, dumped it in a Dumpster, and then took it to a landfill.

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Miscellaneous

Reconstructed documents spur lawsuit

Source: Online NAID Direct Online Newsletter www.naidonline.org

Beanie Baby addiction

Source: Associated Press

SALINAS , Calif. — A woman who used stolen credit card numbers to feed her habit was given six months in jail and five years probation with the condition she doesn’t touch her drug of choice: Beanie Babies.

The twenty-five year old woman was sentenced after pleading guilty to four counts of commercial burglary.

She said her obsession with the bean-bag toys began when she worked as a cashier at McDonald’s and had to stuff Beanie Babies into Happy Meals. She was soon ordering for herself by telephone, using her own credit cards and, eventually, stolen cards.

It was like a drug,” she told authorities. “Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was like being addicted.” Her ex-husband told police she threatened to run off with their young child if he did not bring her discarded credit card slips from his job at a hotel. She used the information to buy $8,000 worth of rare Beanie Babies at area stores.

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Man admits to rigging cell phones

Source: The Press & Sun – Bulletin

A Rochester man fleeced two cellular telephone companies by selling phones equipped with customer billing codes he had pilfered from the trash outside their offices. He told U.S. Secret Service investigators that he downloaded programs from the Internet that enabled him to change the billing codes.

The man managed to rig 50 cellular phones with other customer’s billing codes, costing the cellular phone companies fraud losses of $20,000.

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Florida man charged with credit card fraud

Source: Citrus County Chronicle

A 68-year-old Cape Coral man shopping at a local mall was using a credit card that billed his purchases to someone else’s account.

The man was arrested and charged with the fraudulent use of a credit card and dealing in stolen property. The credit card he used to purchase items had its magnetic strip altered so the credit card number a store’s automated machine read, sent the charges to someone else’s account.

The man was on a fixed income and bought items to resale at reduced prices, to raise money to live. Some of the cards he had used were found in store trash cans.