Keep Your Identity: It takes literally days or weeks to recover after your identity is stolen
Keep Your Identity: It takes literally days or weeks to recover after your identity is stolen
The tax season was a busy time of the year for criminals who commit the crime of identity theft. For such criminals, filing tax returns with someone else’s Social Security number (maybe yours), and receiving what should be your refund happened this year in what has been termed epidemic proportions.
So if this has happened to you, the only consolation is that you weren’t alone. After my last article, which appeared in the Naples Daily News just prior to the tax filing deadline, I heard from many of you that had your Social Security numbers stolen, and used it to defraud you and steal your tax refund. It happened to hundreds of people right here in Naples, and more than 2 million people nationwide.
If you are victimized, it can now take months or longer to receive your refund that you planned on receiving several weeks after you filed your tax return. When it happens, you are now a victim, and you have no idea when or where your Social Security number was stolen. Many reading this article are also victims and don’t just don’t know it yet.
If you still think identity theft is something you are prepared to take on yourself, and don’t need the help of experts who monitor your credit and non-credit personal identifiers, this is another wake up call. It just might be the best 50 cents a day you ever spend. It sure would have been for the 2 million plus people mentioned above. Getting their refund straightened out, which doesn’t happen overnight, is most likely just the beginning of their problems. Someone still has their Social Security number and chances are it will be used again. The FBI says that once your identity is stolen, it is often used up to 30 times. Try tackling that on your own.
A top notch identity theft company will monitor your personal identifiers by searching court records, Internet surveillance, sex offender registries, NCOA (address changes), Social Security number trace, and other public databases. If you are a victim, they will take ownership of your problem, and provide full restoration services to ensure your good name is restored. Don’t be fooled by identity theft companies that provide resolution services that only give you advice on how you can solve your own problem. They often send you a self-help kit in the mail. Just what you want after you have found out someone has stolen your Social Security number, filed a fraudulent tax return, and received the refund due you.
If you are a victim of identity theft and without the assistance of an identity theft company, your best source of information is the Federal Trade Commission website at www.ftc.gov. Their site helps guide you through the steps you should take if your identity is stolen.They have a section on “Fighting Back Against Identity Theft” you will find helpful. Make no mistake, it’s up to you, on your own, to manage your way through this process, which the FTC says can take up to 330 hours to rectify. And that is just the first of what could be up to 30 more occurrences of your stolen identity being used again and again. Additionally, the Nov. 30, 2011, column I wrote for the Daily News recaps some of the steps you should take if you become a victim. Search my name on www.naplesnews.com and you will see this and other prior articles you may find helpful.
Keep in mind your best solution, before you become a victim, is to enlist an identity theft company that will monitor and report to you immediately any suspicious activity on your three credit reports. Of equal importance is that your personal identifiers: Social Security number, birthdate, driver license, passport, Medicare card, bank account numbers and so on are being monitored.
Catching identity theft early is as important as detecting an illness early on. The sooner you find out there is a problem, the greater chance of minimizing its impact. Identity theft is something you don’t want to have to deal with on your own. If your identity theft company does not find the problem, fix it for you, and then stop the crime, you may be dealing with the wrong company.
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Skip Soper, former longtime Naples banker, is a regional distributor for iSekurity, a national identity theft firm with headquarters in Southwest Florida. iSekurity provides monitoring, Internet surveillance and full restoration services to its clients and employs former federal agents to identify criminals, restore your identity and prepare a case for possible prosecution. Contact him at (239) 784-5059, at skip.soper@isekurity.biz or www.isekurity.biz/skipsoper.
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