Panthers beware of identity theft
Panthers beware of identity theft
Below the Gulf of Mexico deep in South America, someone in Brazil pays a $70 restaurant bill. The prepaid card is theirs, but the information is not. It was obtained by copying a different card’s data and saving it onto a credit card machine, most likely at a gas station.
“I’ve heard about this before, but I never thought it would happen to me,” said Vanessa Jerez, a senior hospitality major.
Jerez was a victim of identity fraud last month, but her problem didn’t end there. Earlier this month, a second physical credit card was stolen and used to purchase $217 worth of items at a CVS in Maryland.
Her bank notified her both times through text message alerts – Jerez is not alone.
The Federal Trade Commission reported South Florida as the number one Metropolitan area in the nation for identity theft and identity fraud in the last two years.
And federal authorities in South Florida recently charged 45 people, in 30 separate cases of identity theft, responsible for at least 22,000 stolen or compromised identities. The identities were used in attempts to claim more than $38 million in fraudulent tax refunds. Authorities say many were insiders that used jobs at places like schools to gain access to identities.
“While baby boomers are the biggest demographic to be targeted, college students are just as vulnerable if not more vulnerable” said Paige Hanson, manager for education programs at Lifelock, an Arizona-based company that provides comprehensive individualized identity protection to customers nationwide.
“They are often at [graduate] school and job fairs which ask for their social security number on many of their forms, but just because they ask, it doesn’t mean you should list them.”
She advises students to protect themselves by limiting the personal information they give out, never leaving their wallets or personal information out on display in their dorms or apartments and running a yearly credit report on annualcreditreport.com through Transunion, Experian or Equifax.
However last semester, FIU Chief of Police Alexander Casassaid that in regards to petty theft on-campus “people are just leaving their stuff around. It’s an opportunistic crime where someone will go use the bathroom and leave their laptops and stuff like [that].”
Non-traditional forms of theft can easily occur on smartphones and tablets. Websites like Amazon give them the option to create an account and a credit card profile, but students shouldn’t be so quick to do it even if it’s one they use all the time.
“Your smartphone conserves data and is always looking for a strong wireless connection. You don’t know if that network is secure and people are always looking for ways to grab your information anonymously,” said Hanson.
The Javelin Strategy & Research reported that familiar fraud accounts for 12 percent of victims – 12.6 million cases.
“Since close friends and family are often involved, many hesitate before reporting them,” said Hanson. “The authorities can make this call, but many still don’t press charges.”
The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act guarantees privacy of students education and personal records including social security information, tax returns, addresses and phone numbers to all state or local education agencies that receive federal education funds.
The University’s regulations in relation to FERPA state: “The University will not release or permit access to educational records and personally identifiable information kept on a student except as otherwise permitted by law and this regulation.”
If a students wants to release their records, they must fill out a form at their institution explaining the reason and what specific part of their record they wish to release.
Cumulative Academic Records and Student Financial Aid records are kept by the Office of the Registrar and the Director of Financial Aid respectively. Both are the likeliest to have the information needed for someone to be a victim of identity theft.
Hanson says if a student finds themselves in an identity theft or fraud situation, they should contact the police, make a report and send a formal letter to one of the credit bureaus explaining what happened so their score is not affected by possible fraudulent purchases.
Afterwards, they should also report it to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov so that law enforcements can use these cases to track future ones.
“After these incidents happened to me, I researched what to do online,” said Jerez. “I was surprised how easy it is. Now I will make sure to get an alert on all my accounts after a certain amount is spent.”
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