In our industry, many people spend a lot of time talking about what has become the fastest-growing crime in the US - identity theft. In doing so, we often use stories to help us illustrate the problem and personalize the black-and-white numbers. I'm no different. Several weeks ago, I was commenting about a story that illustrated what can happen when proper controls are not enforced and database security is breached.
...an employee of a third-party contractor (who) had misused information stored in a corporate database was blamed. He or one of his associates then used this employee data to file fake unemployment compensation claims with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
Today, I received an email from one of my colleagues that ties her to this actual incident. She gave a totally different perspective to this story (names removed and, no, that's not her in the picture at the top of the entry).
I am a victim of this actual incident....Interestingly enough, I had a tax issue arise earlier this year due to a fake unemployment claim made on my behalf that showed income that wasn't mine. When trying to resolve this issue, I learned an additional W-2 was filed... for me & it showed income of 20K-30K which wasn't mine. I learned about this incident when The State of California wanted to garnish my wages for income in 2003. It took a great deal of my time to understand exactly what happened & get everything resolved, not to mention the additional costs on my part to have my tax accountant, The IRS, The State of California & The State of Texas all involved to help me fix this issue.Credit Report tells us that there are over 30,000,000 victims in the past 5 years and more than 18,000,000 in the past two years. I can now match a face to one.
Identity theft is a huge problem today. I have identity theft protection that protects my entire family. I use SOLUS Identity Theft protection. There website has a lot of informative information. It is http://www.solusid.com.