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Individuals, CPA's, Enrolled Agents, Mortgage Brokers, Real Estate Agents, Insurance Agents, CEO's, and Business Owners...:
What you don't know about identity theft can severely hurt you. And it can happen to anyone! Our firm received a letter May 08 2006 from the AICPA. We were told that a backup hard drive that was being transported somehow got lost during the transfer. After taking responsibility for the unfortunate incident, they gave our firm a free 12 months credit monitoring free of charge. Nothing's happened so far - knock on wood.
The free 12 months was certainly a nice gesture on their part, but it is nowhere near enough.
Here is why: Identity thieves are a smart and resourceful bunch. All they need to do is sit on the stolen infomation and either act on it or sell the valuable information in the black market after 12 months. And now you can see the risk that everyone faces out there.
The public is at risk and the biggest problem out there right now, is the misconception that identity theft only affects or involves a person's credit. And that limited knowledge of what identity theft really is, can be potentially devastating to you.
Here is a list of at least four other categories of identity theft that might not affect your credit, but can ruin your life.
1) Character Identity Theft: A person can impersonate you, commit a crime in your name without your knowledge. You can have warrants issued in your name, you can be arrested, and you can spend time in jail. Moreover, you have the monumental and expensive task of having to prove your innocence. Imagine having to prove that you were not you and that you did not commit the crimes!
2) Social Security Number (SSN) Identity Theft: Someone, or worse yet, a number of people steals or buys your SSN and obtains employment in your name. The identity thief's employer reports wages earned to the IRS under your SSN and leaves you having to pay the tax burden on their earnings. Furthermore, an identity thief's use of your SSN can mess up your social security benefits. Imagine having to prove to the SSN office of your innocence. It can take hundreds of hours at the very minimum.
3) Medical Identity Theft: A person steals your identity, gets medical insurance in your name or uses your current medical insurance policy to obtain treatment or prescriptions. At the very minimum, you can be denied health coverage or lose your current medical coverage because they use up your benefit elegibility and/or because of false information in your medical record.
You can also be subjected to life threatening situations if the person that stole your identity has a medical condition that requires medication that will give you allergic reaction if given to you. Lets say that you got into an emergency situation like a car accident and you become incapacitated. You can't respond to questions regarding your true health situation and all they have to go on is your medical record that has the other person's information and condition. Another huge problem for you is that once a medical condition gets in your health record, it is nearly impossible to clear the error.
By the way, medical identity theft is the fastest growing category of identity theft. It is very financially lucrative for identity thieves to steal your medical identity. "An insurance card is like a Visa card with a $1 million spending limit," says Byron Hollis, national anti-fraud director of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
4) Driver's License (DMV) Identity Theft: Someone impersonates you, gets a drivers license under your name, and commits traffic related offenses in your name. When the identity thief fails to appear in court, you have warrants issued in your name. Lets say that you are driving along and you get pulled over for a routine fix-it-ticket situation like a broken brake light. The police officer does a check on your record, up comes the arrest warrants, and you end up in jail!
5) Credit Identity Theft: A person uses your information to obtain loans, goods, or services and ends up not paying the bills. The accumulating unpaid bills end up in collection, which can affect your credit.
So, now you can clearly see that once your identity is stolen, the identity thief can do just about anything including ruining your life. Once your identity is stolen, you face a highly daunting task of clearing your good name. It can take hundreds of hours to do this and with drivers license and character identity theft, you might have to hire an attorney to take care of legal problems that can result from these situations.
The best course of action is the proactive approach. Consider signing up for a service that would do more than monitor your credit. Active database searches of the DMV, SSN, the Medical Bureau, as well as credit fraud alerts and alerts of any deragatory remarks or claims on your name are essential elements in avoiding the dire consequences of having your identity stolen. Ideally, the identity theft service can do restoration of your identity to pre-identity theft status. In other words, let the experts take care of restoring your good name.
As bad as the risk is to individuals, the exposure that businesses and companies face with data breach is staggering. The government is doing its part in passing laws in an attempt to impede the growth of data breach that takes place in the workplace. If your company's management team does not know what FACTA, HIPAA, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley rule and how they might affect your business, it is time that you do. Before its too late...
Our firm offers a solution to small businesses like yours. We are partnering with companies that collect customer information such as social security numbers or credit card information, or companies who have over 10 employees where collecting the employees' social security numbers would put that company at risk.
We offer a free seminar for company management, then a mandatory FACTA required seminar for employees, that can help mitigate your exposure to class action lawsuits and civil and criminal damages that can result from data breach taking place in your workplace. This service is conducted by our experienced staff that are Certified Risk Management Specialists.
Our goal is to help your company develop a culture of awarenesss on how data should be handled. A proactive approach of educating your staff and employees and offering them a voluntary legal plan and identity-restoration services makes all the sense in the world.
Call us now and let us help you in this critical area. Peace of mind is just a phone call away....
We offer proactive solutions to individuals and businesses. Call us for more information.
