Beware The Bodysnatchers

Sydney Morning Herald
26 February 2000
Peter Huck

A mortgage for the house you never owned, bills for credit cards you never used, court summonses for crimes you did not commit. Welcome to a modern nightmare, writes Peter Huck.

BOB HARTLE'S life began to unravel in 1988, when his mother struck up a conversation with a neighbour who lived across the street. The neighbour casually asked where Hartle had been born. Hartle's mother innocently told him. Her son's nightmare had begun. Before it was over the neighbour would amass $US140,000 ($224,000) in debt, file for bankruptcy, run up traffic convictions, owe tax and buy weapons, all in Hartle's name. Hartle and his wife would spend four years and $15,000 sorting out the mess.

Armed with Hartle's name and birthplace, the neighbour wrote to the State records office and said he'd lost "his" birth certificate. He was sent a replacement. For a nightmare of Kafka-esque proportions, it was easy to perpetuate. "He didn't need any ID to get my birth certificate," says Hartle, a Phoenix aerospace worker. "It was ridiculous."

Soon the impostor had Hartle's social security number and began acquiring driver's licences, credit cards and bank accounts in Hartle's name. Hartle had become a victim of identity theft, the consumer rip-off of the digital era in which people's identities are stolen to facilitate audacious frauds and the fastest-growing financial crime in the US.

Having become Bob Hartle, the bodysnatcher began to live the high life. "He just went out and started spending. He bought a house. Three pick-up trucks. Two motorcycles. Furniture. Clothes. Whatever he wanted."

Hartle found out about his illegal namesake in 1994. Worse, he discovered that his impersonator hadn't broken the law. "He actually phoned and told me he was going to use my identity until he decided he didn't want to anymore," says Hartle. "He told me I couldn't get him arrested."

The impostor, a con artist from Florida, was right. The police weren't interested. Nor were the banking and credit card industries. If Hartle wanted to stop his usurper, he would have to do it himself. "The police consider this more of an inconvenience than a crime," says Hartle. "They figure you can get your credit repaired, get your bills straightened out."

There are thousands of stories like Hartle's. TransUnion, a major US credit reporting agency, listed 750,000 new victims last year, up from 40,000 in 1992. One in five Americans may be victims in a widely under-reported crime.

"It's simple," explains Beth Givens, whose advocacy group, Privacy Rights Clearing House, first noted the identity theft phenomenon about 1992. "We live in an easy credit economy. And in order to have easy credit you need easy access to personal information. And when you have easy access to such information you foster crime."

In 1998 American credit card companies mailed 3.5 billion pre- approved offers of credit to American households. "One of the reasons we're so vulnerable is that many credit card companies use flooding techniques to market their product," says Tom Papageorge, the Los Angeles District Attorney's consumer protection chief. "In order to streamline the process, all applicants have to do is sign the offer, check a couple of boxes and send it back."

Take the case of Mari Frank. In 1996 Frank, a lawyer, took a call from the Bank of New York. The bank wanted to know why she missed a monthly payment on her credit card. Frank was mystified. She didn't have a credit card with the Bank of New York. But the woman who had stolen Frank's identity did. "The impostor had filled out a promotional invitation," says Frank. "It wasn't even a pre-approved credit form. She crossed out my name, wrote in hers, used my social security number and her address."

Frank's identity was stolen 10 months before. During that time her impostor ran up more than $50,000 worth of debt in Frank's name. "It took me over nine months to clean up the mess. I wrote over 90 letters, spent 500 hours and $10,000 straightening this out."

In the US, getting personal information is as easy as getting credit. Internet companies glean data from diverse sources, including "non- public" avenues such as credit agencies, which store social security numbers, mothers' maiden names and birthdays - the most commonly used identifiers - and sell it online. "Amazing new software lets you find out anything about anyone!" goes a typical pitch. For $24.99 it promises to help snoop on tenants, staff, friends, enemies, bosses, anyone, including yourself.

"They sell two things," says Givens. "Public records. Which is legal. And credit headers, that portion of your credit record which has no financial details and isn't regulated. It has your name, address, phone number, employment history, social security number and date of birth."

This loophole is a boon to criminals, who can get their hands on personal data and easy credit and run few risks of being caught. The situation is compounded by credit and charge card issuers, who often write off identity fraud as the cost of doing business, passed on to the public or covered by insurance. Even if fraudsters are caught, penalties are often light. The woman, a paralegal and policeman's daughter, who impersonated Frank got off lightly. "She got a two-month work furlough and still drives the red Mustang convertible she bought in my name," says Frank.

Hartle's doppelganger served five years, mostly on weapons charges. "He's out of jail now and living in California," says Hartle. "He's a problem."

But whoever stole Casey Bauer's life last year has yet to be found. The impostor, or impostors, rented an apartment, obtained credit cards, installed a phone line and made mail-order purchases using her identity. "I contacted the police," says Bauer, an LA television producer. "But I did a lot of legwork myself. I went to the address used by the impostor. It was a mail drop. So I started intercepting the mail and got information to the police. Essentially, I investigated the crime myself."

Typically, victims spend months writing letters, signing affidavits and making phone calls. Credit card companies will pick up the tab for fraudulent charges, but first victims have to bypass passwords and PIN numbers used by thieves. "If you don't do this you'll be stuck with a bad credit report," says Givens. "If you ever want to rent an apartment or obtain a loan you can't. The worst-case scenario is if the thief commits crimes using your identity. Then you get a criminal record."

Sometimes the nightmare resumes. Bauer put alerts on her credit report to deter impostors. "But even after I'd issued the alert someone opened a credit card in my name." She has also received threatening calls and fears that the impostor knows her address. "It's creepy. They could harm me."

This feeling of violation is common. "Identity theft is devastating to victims," says Givens, who runs a support group. "It destroys your trust in institutions like banks and credit card companies. It can have very serious emotional consequences which I don't think courts understand. They think, `Well you didn't get stabbed. You didn't get raped. What's the big deal?' "

In Australia, the Institute of Criminology warns of the "boon" to fraudsters caused by the increasing use of digital technologies. The NSW Attorney-General's office is working with the Commonwealth to devise national laws to prepare for an expected explosion in identity crime.

It is recognised as a Federal crime in the US and in several States. The Federal Trade Commission advises victims, but police often assign lower priority to non-violent crime. And investigators are hampered by the time gap between identity theft and its discovery and the need to often follow paper trials across several States. Last year the LA Police Department's case load almost doubled, from 1,600 cases to more than 3,000. Fewer than 1 per cent were solved.

Victims look to prevention, urging tighter credit and privacy controls. Some want restitution from lax firms, like a Mississippi man who sued TransUnion for $4.5 million.

Watchdogs advise people to check their credit reports twice a year, monitor their work history with the social security administration and shred personal documents. Once the province of "dumpster divers", opportunists who picked through rubbish, identity theft has emerged in the workplace. "We're seeing conspiracies that hack into databases," says Papageorge. "Maybe one of the members is a health or bank employee with access to such files."

This more sophisticated approach has raised fears of organised crime involvement. What better way to commit murder or launder money than masked as someone else? The dark side of e-commerce is supra-national crime. Recently a Russian teenager stole thousands of credit card numbers from an online CD warehouse, posting them on the Internet. Ultimately, protection may mean using fingerprints or retinal scans as identification, although this has Orwellian overtones. Besides, if criminals steal your prints and iris scan, what's left? DNA? Start shredding that mail.

Web Sites

www.privacyrights.org

www.identitytheft.org

www.idscams.com

www.pirg.org/calpirg/consumer/privacy

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