Anthem, the second largest health insurance company in the US, announced last week it had been the victim of a massive data breach. The good news appears to be no medical records or credit card data was compromised. The bad news was the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of up to 80 million people were compromised which could lead to an even bigger problem than had they simply taken credit card data.
Identity theft, and the fraud associated with it, is a growing problem in the US and across the globe. Out of 2.06 million complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission, 370,800 were identity theft related. In Texas, the rate of identity theft complaints rose 17% from 2011 to 2012, or 28, 299 up from 24,162.
It’s tax season! If you haven’t already filed, you have 38 more days before it’s due. For most filers, this is a busy time. I’m pulling my information together and organizing it for my CPA to make his job a little easier when we meet next week. This is also a busy time for identity thieves. While they never rest, they love this time of year. The amount of data on our returns is truly amazing.
Last fall, I received an email from the security department of my bank notifying me there’d been a questionable charge on my debit card. I first thought it was a phishing email so I called the security department of my bank to find out it wasn’t a false email. A charge for $4.58 had been made on my account at a New York sporting goods store. Not having traveled from Dallas to New York recently, I worked with the security department to identify my legitimate charges & payments and refute the ones that weren’t mine. We then shut down that debit card and they mailed me a new one.
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