LifeLock and FBI partner to offer identity theft summits to law enforcement

March 12, 2010 – 2:33 pm

LifeLock, an industry leader in proactive identity theft protection, and the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association have partnered to offer identity theft awareness seminars to law enforcements officials in Charlotte, Spokane and Seattle. These summits are intended to help law enforcement better identify and be aware of identity theft trends, scam methods and better ways to investigate them. This is not the first time LifeLock and the FBI has partnered to bring these events to the country. Last year they ran seminars in 12 cities across America and informed 1,243 officials from 403 different law agencies.

The summits have proved very useful according to Chief Glenn Ladd of the North Kansas City Police Department. “The identity theft education we received by hosting the summit here last October was invaluable,” Glenn said. “I believe this type of training is essential for all law enforcement officials who deal with this crime, and the open forum setting allows for everyone to be involved and share experiences they’ve encountered in the field. After having been a part of this, I feel our police department is better equipped to handle these types of cases and will have more success in combating the crime long-term.”

LifeLock strongly believes that in order to reduce identity theft all aspects of combating must be honed. Not just satisfied with offering proactive protection measures and monitoring, LifeLock has used this partnership to better educate law professionals on how to find identity thieves.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , , ,

New study shows one in seventeen U.S. adults become victims of medical identity theft

March 4, 2010 – 3:46 pm

A new study done by the National Study on Medical Identity Theft polled over 156,000 people and came up with a very interesting figure. A whopping 5.8% reported having been victims of medical identity theft in the past. That percentage translates to nearly 1 in 17 adults or 1.42 million people that have been had their identity stolen from medical documents in the United States.

Furthermore, the average cost per victim was $20,160. As we’ve posted before, the length of time that passes between the time of the theft and the victim becoming away directly increases the cost to the victim. In this case 29% of the victims discovered the theft a year after the theft. 21% said it took two or more years. More surprisingly is that almost half of the victims lost their coverage due to no fault of their own. Only a quarter of these that responded said the medical identity theft caused no additional consequences.

Read More →


Tags: , , , ,

Crime ring that sold felons stolen identity packages shut down

February 23, 2010 – 4:05 pm

Think of it as a bargain warehouse club for criminals. For a nominal fee between $7,000 to $10,000, felons and other enigmatic individuals were able to purchase brand new identity packages for themselves — complete with birth certificates, Social Security cards, work identification documents and, as a final coup de grâce, New York drivers’ licenses. The facilitators, which prosecutors say involved six individuals and over 200 “customers,” included two DMV employees in New York City and is thought to have raked in over $1 million during its operation.

Here’s how prosecutors say it worked: after the client paid the fee they would contact a DMV employee and make sure that the identity they had bought hadn’t been reported as stolen. Afterwards they would schedule an appointment with another DMV employee to use their stolen identity documents to get a New York drivers’ license. The DMV employee, who happened to be the office’s supervisor, would process their ID personally and they’d be on their merry way.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , ,

As social media use increases so does your chance for theft

February 18, 2010 – 3:11 pm

Social media has really caught on in the last few years. Starting with MySpace, the ability to share, talk and friend other people on the internet has allowed users to branch out and have more fun online. Now services like Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and Foursquare continue to allow users to further interact with their online friends, but usually at the cost of their privacy.

Certain programs like Foursquare and Google Buzz not only give personal data out, but let fellow users know your exact location at the time of posting. Foursquare started this trend by allowing people to “check in” at locations with their GPS-enabled phone. They can choose to have this information posted to Facebook or Twitter or available to see by their friends. The new Google Buzz network not only pinpoints your location on Google maps when allowed, but let’s non-friends see your post and location if nearby.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Identity theft on the rise, but proactive services like LifeLock helping greatly states report

February 12, 2010 – 10:21 am

According to a recent report by Javelin Strategy and Research, the number of victims of identity theft rose to 11 million in 2009. In addition, victims of credit, check and bank fraud also rose for the second year in a row.

But it’s not all bad news. The reports also says that victim’s costs and time spent to resolve identity theft have drastically decreased mostly due to proactive identity theft prevention services like LifeLock and others. Time is the main factor in how much identity theft can cost you. As most banks and credit card companies have fraud protection for the customer, most identity theft related costs incur due to the victim’s time off work, legal fees and out-of-pocket expenditures. The sooner that identity theft or identity fraud is discovered, the less cost is imposed to the victim.

The average time to resolve identity theft and fraud fell to 21 hours this past year. Still, the average person was still left to pay $373 for the experience. It’s easy to see why inexpensive proactive identity theft prevention services like LifeLock — which can be obtained for 10% off when you apply and enter the promotional code DEFENSE — really pay off in the end. Especially now that LifeLock has debuted Command Center, which notifies you the instant that your name and information appears for sale on criminal trading websites. LifeLock can alert you before your identity is even traded or sold, saving you precious money… and time.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , , ,

LifeLock discount and promotion code

February 4, 2010 – 5:37 pm

You’ve no doubt noticed the many ID theft prevention services and credit monitoring services that have popped up lately. Some have catchy songs alluding to free credit reports that aren’t actually free. Others use celebrities and CGI squirrels. But the fact remains that there’s been one company who has been performing these services for nearly five years — and doing a good job of it.

LifeLock currently has over 1.5 million members that use its services for a reason. Instead of simply offering you the ability to get your credit report (a free annual service, by the way), LifeLock takes a proactive stance on identity theft. In addition to LifeLock’s Identity Theft Alert system — which notifies you immediately when someone uses your information to apply for credit or services — LifeLock also issues every member eRecon. eRecon actively scans the web for any illegal selling or trading of your name and personal information. If they find even a hint of it, they notify you and help resolve the problem. LifeLock offers their basic membership at $10 a month, but if you use LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE when signing up you’ll receive 30 days free and 10% off your annual membership. That’s right, only $9 a month when you use DEFENSE as your discount code.

LifeLock also offers LifeLock Command Center which gives you all of LifeLock’s base services, plus more proactive measures to help protect you. LifeLock Personal Breach Detection monitors unregulated file-sharing networks for your information. They monitor payday loan requests as well. If your name and address is listed on public reports, court records, aliases or even as a sex offender’s address then LifeLock notifies you. Think of how much time, money and frustration could be involved with resolving issues like those. LifeLock offers their Command Center membership for $15 a month. However, if you use LifeLock promo code DEFENSE you’ll receive 10% off that membership cost.


Tags: , , , ,

Twitter resets accounts after offsite phishing

February 2, 2010 – 4:44 pm

Twitter is once again in the midst of a giant phishing attempt by an offsite entity. This morning, thousands of Twitter account holder were issued emails from Twitter saying that their account passwords had been reset. The email reads:

Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset. Please create a new password by opening this link in your browser.

This isn’t the first time that Twitter has taken such precautions. Just last month it and popular social network site Facebook were under phishing attacks. The problems with these attacks don’t so much reside in the hands of Twitter and Facebook programmers, but rather third party programs that have become very popular with each service. Both sites allow for integration with other websites or application. Facebook Connect, for instance, allows for your username and password to be the same as your Facebook account and also allows things to be posted to your account that don’t happen in Facebook.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , ,

Identity Theft is bad enough without getting sued by your bank

January 29, 2010 – 11:24 am

Identity theft is a horrible thing. It’s even worse when that theft gives criminals access to your bank accounts and they withdraw massive amounts of money in your name. But now there’s something even worse than that — when your bank sues over the amount stolen.

That is exactly what happened to a company called Hillary Machinery located in Plano, Texas. After becoming the victims of a group of Romanian and Italian hackers who initiated a series of unauthorized wire transfers, Hillary Machinery had their bank account depleted of $801,495 in funds. Over a two to three day period there were dozens of unauthorized wire transfers made for the account and PlainsCapital, against policy and common sense, satisfied all of them based on good faith. Typically many transactions for high dollar amount raise warning flags with banks that prompt the temporary suspension of accounts until they can verify if the transfers are legitimate or not. The criminals were using the accurate username for the business, but the bank only requires that customers have a username and password from an authorized computer. Days before the attach the bank authorized two new computers for Hillary Machinery — both of which had IP addresses from Italy and Romania.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , ,

Hard Drives Containing Information on 500,000 Patients Stolen from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee

January 26, 2010 – 1:27 pm

Bad news if you’re a BlueCross BlueShield member in the Volunteer state. Fifty-seven hard drives that contained personal information on around 500,000 BCBS members has been stolen according to the insurance company. The theft happened on October 2nd when an unidentified thief stole the drives from a closet in the BlueCross Call Center in Chattanooga.

These drives included identity information including social security numbers, addresses, birth dates and medical information. The company says that since that time they have notified over 220,000 potential victims, had 700 employees working on the breech and spent over $7 million to figure out how it happened and to help ensure member’s are not identity theft victims by offering a year’s enrollment in an ID theft prevention service. There has been no evidence that the information has been used in any fraudulent way, but the drives were encoded however the information on them wasn’t encrypted.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , ,

‘One Tree Hill’ actor shows his ID Theft Skills by selling stolen social security numbers

January 15, 2010 – 3:29 pm

It sounds like a drama plot from a television show: a character, used to his high-frills lifestyle, gets wrapped up in the wrong crowd and eventually in over his head. Except this story wasn’t written by a member of the writer’s guild and it didn’t air during prime time TV. And while this story does star an actor, there are real world consequences that he’ll now have to face.

‘One Tree Hill’ actor Antwon Tanner, who plays “Skills” (a former basketball star turned coach), was sentenced to three months in prison and five month under home arrest after being found guilty of selling stolen social security numbers. Tanner was busted after tying to sell more than a dozen stolen social security numbers to an undercover agent for $10,000. Tanner’s attorney, Gregory Watts, said that the actor’s decision to sell the numbers was based on “stupidity” and said that Tanner had recently suffered many financial troubles in addition to having his million dollar house foreclosed on.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A LifeLock testimonial

January 13, 2010 – 5:10 pm

We frequently write about ID theft news and how they relate to you. We also write about the benefits of LifeLock and what they’re membership can do to help deter identity theft and credit fraud from happening to you. One of the methods LifeLock helps to protect is by monitoring your credit. When a request is made for your credit information LifeLock immediately notifies you — not tomorrow, not next week, that day. Here’s a personal testimonial sent in by one of our readers that backs that claim up.

I figured you may like to know how impressed I am with Lifelock and their protection service. I’ve been a Lifelock member for nearly a year now not because I think someone is necessarily going to rip me off, but because it eases my mind. Anyway it’s easy to forget about being a member when you have no activity with your credit, but recently I applied for a credit card to a certain Swedish furniture place. My wife wants to do some remodeling. I applied online and right after a message popped up in my email. I checked it thinking it was the confirmation from the credit card that I had applied for the card.

Nope. It was from Lifelock. Within a minute of applying for credit I had a message from Lifelock telling me someone had applied using my name and the following information. I couldn’t believe it! They beat the automated email from the credit card company by 3 minutes! Unbelievable! Even though it was a legitimate credit request Lifelock was there to let me know about it that fast. A few days late I received a letter from Lifelock with the same information. They wanted to make sure I knew about the request.

After this I have no doubts about how well Lifelock is doing their job. Just thought you’d like to know.

–Joey

We thanked Joey for sending us his story and the screenshot of the emails. That really is impressive. Do you have your own LifeLock story that you’d like to share? Let us know by posting it in the comments.


Tags: , , , , , , ,

Police arrest four men in ID theft ring that spanned the East Coast

January 6, 2010 – 12:56 pm

Four Fort Lauderdale, Florida men were arrested in Bensalem, New Jersey for committing identity theft in a crime ring that spanned from Connecticut to Florida. The men were found with driver’s licenses, checkbooks, credit cards and social security numbers for around 100 people. The victims included people from Georgia, Florida, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Police were on the lookout for an organized crime ring after a rash of car burglaries in Philadelphia area. The four men are accused with breaking into vehicles, many at area gyms, and stealing purses and wallets. One of those arrested, Earl Johnson, was found to be carrying several items of identification including a $1,900 check after trying to flee from police. There’s still no word on how much the foursome stole from their victims but we’re certain it’s not a low figure.

Just another reason to make sure that you have a ID theft prevention service like LifeLock at your side. In fact, LifeLock’s new Command Center constantly scans criminal databases for your name and information. If you were unfortunate enough to be a victim of a vehicle break in and had elements of your identity stolen, Command Center would notify you as soon as the thief tried to sell your information online. It’s a great service and another element of protection that no one else offers.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

How to sign up for LifeLock Command Center if you’re already a LifeLock member

December 29, 2009 – 4:42 pm

commandcenter2 LifeLock recently unveiled a new tier of ID theft protection to their members. Named LifeLock Command Center, this new tier allows members to have more control over theft prevention measures than ever before. It’s a major step forward for LifeLock and keeps them on the leading edge of solutions to help fight identity theft. See the full list of LifeLock Command Center services here.

If you’re not yet a LifeLock member and are interested in getting LifeLock Command Center, it’s as simple as signing up for the service. Instead of the usual $10 a month for the base service, LifeLock Command Center is $15 a month. And if you use LifeLock promotion code “DEFENSE” when signing up, you’ll get an additional 10% off LifeLock monthly service fees.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , ,

LifeLock introduces Command Center membership

December 21, 2009 – 5:06 pm

commandcenter LifeLock has offered identity theft prevention services since 2005. During that time they’ve grown into the largest preventative ID theft solution in the world. Now LifeLock is offering even more protection to your in their LifeLock Command Center.

The LifeLock Command Center option is a second tier membership. In addition to LifeLock’s dependable base services like eRecon, WalletLock, Identity Alerts and TrueAddress, Command Center offers even more features that place you in added control of your good name.

  • LifeLock Personal Breach Detection actively monitors global networks for your identity. If they find mention of your name, address or any other element of your ID, LifeLock will alert you by email and help you resolve it.
  • Payday Loan Alerts and Reports notify you of any payday loan activity that uses your social, date of birth or name. An important feature as LifeLock’s Todd Davis no doubt knows.
  • Sex Offender Registry Alerts and Reports alerts you if listed sex offenders are fraudulently using your address.
  • Public Records Alerts and Reports list postal addresses associated with you ID that are found in public records.
  • Alias Records Alerts and Reports lists alternative names associated different pieces of your identity found in public records.
  • Court Records and Reports lists court records documents that match your name, date of birth and other items so you know that criminals aren’t using your name to commit crimes.

All of these important services are available to you for $15 a month. And if you use promotion code “DEFENSE” you’ll receive an extra 10% off. If you’re already a LifeLock member, you can upgrade your service for a prorated rate by signing into your LifeLock account.


Tags: , , , , , , ,

How LifeLock – a proactive identity theft prevention service – can help protect you

December 14, 2009 – 11:21 am

new-protection Like it or not your identity is out there. Every time you apply for a credit card, mortgage, loan, buy something online or even go to the doctor’s office you’re releasing parts of your identity into the ether. And that identity can been scooped up, mishandled or sold to unscrupulous people who will abuse it at the cost of your time, money and good name.

That’s why a proactive identity theft prevention service like LifeLock is so important to have. LifeLock is one of the few preventative services available for people wishing to find proactive ID theft protection. Not content with simply monitoring your credit reports, LifeLock goes above and beyond most services and keeps scours the internet for your potential information. They monitor hundreds of criminal databases, chat rooms and web boards so that if your information is being peddled LifeLock knows about it and can shut it down.

In addition to the LifeLock Identity Alerts, LifeLock’s other services, which include sending you your free annual credit report, removing your name from junk mail and marketing offers, WalletLock (which helps you replace your valuable ID and credit cards if your purse or wallet is ever stolen) and TrueAddress (which monitors and alerts you of any change in your address — a common tactic of identity thieves) are all available for a $10 a month subscription. Plus, if you’re interested in becoming a LifeLock member, our website can offer you a special promotion code discount that takes 10% of your annual cost and gives you 30 days free to try the service. Just enter promo code “DEFENSE” when signing up at LifeLock.com to take advantage of the discount*.

Read More →


Tags: , , , , , , , , ,