Real Estate Investment Articles

Identity theft threatens college students

By: Kelli Kean

Kelli Kean
NI Features Writer

As college students we might fear someone stealing our bike, but what if they stole your life?

In this new millennium, identity theft is an up and coming type of fraud and college students are at risk.

“Because they are the ones with the cleanest credit record, the thief is looking for someone that is not likely going to be active with their credit, not looking at their credit report, and is going to take a little longer to discover that they’ve become a victim,” said Michelle Boykins, director of communications for the National Crime Prevention Council.

We all fear walking into our homes and finding we have just been robbed. Just thinking about the empty entertainment center, that empty desk, the house littered with paper, evidence someone has been going through out things makes our skin crawl. The worst feeling is gaping at that secret place where we keep the stash for a rainy day and finding it empty.

What many of us don’t worry about is walking into our house and finding someone else there pretending to be us, someone that didn’t just steal our things but stole our life. Not only did they steal a small stash of money in our homes, they stole our life savings, our scholarship money, our retirement fund, everything.

Due to the rise of this type of crime, the federal government passed 18 U.S.C. 1028 in 1998. This bill, also known as “The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998,” made identity theft a federal crime.

According to the National Crime Prevention Council, identity theft should be a major concern for college students since identity thieves target 18-29 year-olds more than any other group.

Despite these warnings, many students don’t consider themselves at risk.

“I never considered identity theft as a problem for college students because as college students we don’t have a whole lot of money, so what is the point of stealing from us?” said Anna Brackney, a sophomore at the University of Northern Iowa.

And yet here at UNI, last February, a security breach was detected on a laptop assigned to the Office of Business Operations. The laptop contained the Internal Revenue Service W-2 forms for 6,000 student employees, faculty and staff. The incident proves that similar problems can hit much closer to us than we think.

However, simple precautions can be taken to prevent identity theft.

When you get your driver’s license, checks, school or state ID, don’t have your social security number printed on them. Even though it’s convenient, one shouldn’t carry their social security number in their purse or wallet.

“I think it’s really stupid to do that, but I can never remember it, and you need it for everything,” said Brackney.

Also, never give out personal information over the phone or e-mail. Thieves sometimes send e-mails in the guise of banks or credit companies asking for people to verify their information. Those that fall prey to this scheme often find the cost to be extremely high. Remember, banks and credit companies don’t use e-mail to contact their clients for sensitive information.

Thieves also often use websites to gather personal information. They will create a false website that looks authentic, once again tricking the victim to unwittingly hand over their personal financial information.

One such instance of fraud involved he giant web auctioneer eBay. An unscrupulous group created an unrelated site called ebayupdates.com and proceeded to trick people into re-entering their financial data for eBay. eBay was forced to send a wide scale message to all of its users.

“I am a banker, when I am not in the legislature, and have witnessed the results of stolen identity,” said Tom Sands, a state representative in the Iowa house. “I continue to see and hear about Internet frauds that try to get information to steal a person’s identity, so it only seems identity theft will become a greater problem.”

Although some thieves are computer literate and think of creative ways to scam people, others are no better than a raccoons digging through a person’s trash to get bank statements containing account information. For this reason make sure you shred bank statements, phone bills or other documents containing personal information rather than just tossing them in the waste basket.

“The traditional way is dumpster diving, people will go through your trash and look for those bank statements, pre-approved credit offers that gives them the ability to assume your identity,” said Boykins

Checking your credit report regularly can keep you alert to any funny business going on with your account, if you find that you have fallen victim to identity theft you should report it immediately.

There are three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion that you can alert if you ever fall victim to identity theft. A police report should also be filed along with a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft. You can also request a fraud alert from the credit bureaus so that no one can access your account or credit history without your permission and verifying your identity.

In April House File 2506 passed through the Iowa congress and the governor’s office to make things easier on identity theft victims. The new law allows for ID theft victims to obtain a ‘passport’, which identifies them as the victim of the theft.rather than the perpetrator.

Source:
http://fp.uni.edu/northia/article2.asp?ID=4984&SECTION=3

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Real Estate Investment Articles

Identity theft threatens college students

Kelli KeanNI Features Writer

Kelli Kean
NI Features Writer