Cynthia Kravitch, a South Florida financial adviser, said she's still trying to clean up her credit after her identity was stolen early last year. Kravitch's wallet was stolen along with her checkbook, driver's license, credit cards and Social Security card.
The ID thieves used her name to cash checks, opened bank accounts and got cash from ATM machines and tried to shop online, spending more than $10,000 before she discovered her personal information was stolen.
"It's been a nightmare," said Kravitch, 50.
Kravitch filed an alert with the major credit Bureaus, but didn't know that alerts expire after 90 days. She thought her issues were resolved until collectors began calling her recently.
"They opened credit card accounts that I closed after my wallet was stolen last year," said Kravitch, who sought help from the Attorney General's office.
Everyone's vulnerable
Consumer advocates said nobody is safe from ID theft, but consumers can take precautions to protect themselves. Among them: installing a firewall program and other protections, shopping only on secured sites, and ignoring e-mails that come from unknown sources.
In 2006, 62 percent of ID-theft victims did not notify law enforcement officials that they'd been targeted, FTC data shows.
"People should not be afraid to report these types of crimes to the police," said Howard Schmidt, a former White House cyber security adviser.
Schmidt said more protections are available today than a few years ago and many banks are getting better at building security systems to protect consumers.
But Schmidt added: "Cyber criminals are more organized than ever. If they steal $1 million, they will get a lot of attention so they steal small amounts from different people."
Protect yourself.
http://www.estherpinkston.com
Posted By: Esther Pinkston
Tuesday, September 9th 2008 at 4:30PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
