| Be crime-savvy when you shop
Editor's note: This week's shooting at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., underscores the public safety issues that large gathering places like shopping centers face. Today, the Sunday Record explores crime trends at our regional shopping malls. What we found is that larcencies, such as shoplifting and car break-ins and thefts, far outnumber crimes against individuals. While our region did have a mall shooting in Kingston in February 2005, incidents involving guns or assaults at Hudson Valley shopping centers were rare, according to police reports from January 2006 through July 2007.
In many localities, they are the center of weekend social life, where people converge to shop, play or just be seen. But they are also the sites of fights, identity theft and millions of dollars worth of shoplifting each year.
New laws fight ID theft, extend health benefit
The other will prevent potentially thousands of young adults from suddenly being dropped from their parents' health insurance once they graduate from college. These are two big but very different consumer issues. Let's take them one at a time. First, the identity-theft weapon: the ability to put a "security freeze" on your credit report. Freezing your credit report prevents new creditors from looking at it. If a creditor can't see a report, it is not about to extend credit to you or anyone else trying to open accounts under your name. You can lift the freeze before applying for new credit. Maryland law requires credit bureaus to allow residents to freeze their reports, starting next month. But just weeks ago, the three major credit bureaus, which long resisted freezes, started allowing everyone to put his reports on ice.
Leukemia Survivor Takes on Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, and CRAs ...
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Five years ago, Eric Drew was on his death bed with leukemia when his identity was stolen by a worker at the hospital where he was being treated. Drew survived cancer, but has taken on another battle; he has filed suit against some of America's largest banks and credit reporting agencies in a case of identity theft. The defendants in the lawsuit include Citibank, Bank of America, Chase, Transunion, Equifax, and Experian. His federal suit was filed in San Francisco, December, 2006 and is now moving forward after the defendants' unsuccessful motions to dismiss. In Drew's case, the defendants issued credit in his name to a fraudulent address in the state of Washington, where he was hospitalized and undergoing treatment, but wasn't a resident.
New Phishing Scam Email Circulating Through Tri-State
Phishing scams are easy to spot. They may appear to come from a bank you don't do business with. But two days ago, a new phishing scam appeared in the Tri-State. The e-mail claimed to be from Equifax-- the credit reporting service that keeps all our credit information. Charlene Mecklenburg of Colerain Township received the email and calls it very dangerous. It asks the recipient to update their account information. Mecklenburg and her husband check their credit record yearly with Equifax and realize only a scammer would be sending out something like this. But someone might fall for it and go to the crooks' fake website - billed as Equifax eport. If you update your personal information here you could become the victim of identity theft. I called Equifax and it has now put out a warning about this on its website.
Reports show identity theft is a growing business, costing billions
More than 8 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2005, as hundreds of data breaches cost businesses and consumers untold billions. Those are the findings of two reports that estimate the consequences and costs of all the electronic data losses that have put at least 215 million sensitive records into the wrong hands and spawned a new criminal epidemic of identity theft since counting began in 2005. The estimate of 8.3 million identify thefts came in a report the Federal Trade Commission issued Monday. Separately, private sector data security expert Larry Ponemon today will release the third in a series of surveys that looked closely at 35 of the nearly 310 security breaches that have been reported by U.S. companies and government agencies so far in 2007.
Officials: Take action to prevent identity theft
Anyone can become a victim of identity theft.Each year, identity theft affects about 9 million Americans, according to information released by the Federal Trade Commission. In fact, the problem is so widespread that President George W. Bush recently commissioned a task force to identify solutions to the issue.The April 2007 report, titled "Combating Identity Theft: A Strategic Plan," concluded that reducing opportunities for identity theft and increasing public awareness were two of the most vital steps in reducing the number of victims."Only a comprehensive and fully coordinated strategy to combat identity theft — one that encompasses effective prevention, public awareness and education, victim assistance, and law enforcement measures, and that fully engages federal, state, and local authorities and the private sector — will have any chance of solving the problem," the report said.Last year, more than 17,700 fraud and identity theft cases were reported in Florida, according to a recent press release from the Florida Attorney General's Office.
Securing the Laptop: Mission Impossible?
Nearly every week, the report of a stolen laptop hits the news and, with it, a horror story of data loss, identity theft and corporate liability. With a downside that steep, it's no wonder that the laptop is the target of corporate IT security campaigns nationwide. Few corporate executives will sleep soundly until their IT managers have done all they can to lock down laptops and limit the sensitive data on them. .
Nacogdoches Police Report - 12/10/07
IDENTITY THEFT: 3000 BLOCK OF NORTH PECAN STREET. Unknown persons used complainant's identity to open an account for a loan. POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA-EVADING ARREST. Suspect was stopped on traffic. The driver exited the vehicle and threw a cigar under the front of the patrol unit and attempted to flee. The suspect was captured and the cigar was suspected to contain marijuana. Brady Washington was arrested. THEFT: 1000 BLOCK OF HOLLYOAK. Complainant reported that a chrome and metallic orange mongoose bike was stolen from the carport of a residence. HIT AND RUN: 200 BLOCK OF WETTERMARK. Complainant reported that his parked and unattended pickup was struck by an unknown vehicle which left the scene. .
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