The Cop Column
November, 2001
Rick Hord
Public Information Officer
Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office
Is Somebody Pretending to be You??
The same modern advances that make our life easier are also a convenience to the criminals of our society. The combination of computers, the Internet, and credit cards add up to tremendous convenience for you... and a golden opportunity for someone to cause you grief.
You could be on the receiving end of the unpleasant surprise of learning somebody else has used your name, birth date, social security number and other information to obtain credit cards, take out loans, establish utility service, or order merchandise. If that happens, contact Law Enforcement at once..
A relatively new (1999) Florida Law makes the unauthorized criminal use of someone else's personal identification information a Felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
You'd rather not have to use that law... but if you do, you want to maximize the chances of tracking down and prosecuting the culprit. Here are some tips:
*Don't give any personal or financial information to anyone who calls you on the telephone. If the transaction is legitimate, chances are you called them, not the other way around. Likewise, if you receive an e-mail claiming that a legitimate business has "lost" your credit card information due to a technical malfunction and need you to "re-enter" that information.... don't believe it.
*Internet credit card transactions are as safe or safer than in-store purchases if you are dealing with a reputable firm on a secure site. Secure sites addresses begin with "https."
*Watch out for and report daytime prowlers in residential neighborhoods... they could be "trolling" through mailboxes in search of credit cards, checks, and other items.
*Be sure to know what bills you should receive and when you should receive them. If you're missing a bill, somebody could have diverted it with a change-of-address.
*Keep accurate and timely records of all your financial transactions.
*Promptly check all bills, line-by-line, for any suspicious charges.
*Check your credit report to discover accounts or transactions that shouldn't be there. For details on this, call Equifax at (800) 685-1111; Experian at (800) 682-7654; or TransUnion at (800) 916-8800.
*Write down all your account numbers and the telephone numbers of each financial institution. Keep this information in a separate, secure location in case you need to cancel your cards.
*It's a good idea to NOT have your driver license number printed on your checks. You want the clerk to check your ID anyway... and that's one less bit of information somebody could obtain from a stolen check.
Be realistic, not paranoid. No matter how careful you might be, it's virtually impossible to keep your personal information 100% secure. Many times, identity theft is committed by family members, room-mates, or employees at stores where you do business. What you can do is make it more difficult for a would-be identity thief... and less difficult for yourself, your financial institutions, and law enforcement to get your life back to normal and get the thief behind bars.
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