Identity Theft Awareness

Orbitz, a division of Expedia, has announced it was hacked last October, 2017, revealing credit card information of 880,000 customers, including names, birth dates, mailing and email addresses, dated between January and June, 2016. The current Orbitz website was not hacked, according to the company. One article on the breach: http://www.zdnet.com/article/orbitz-says-hacker-stole-customer-data/

166 of the 167 Applebee’s restaurants have been hit with payment card malware that exposed card numbers, names, card verification numbers, and expiration dates. Here is a breakdown of restaurants by state: Alabama: 2 Arizona: 23 Florida: 4 Illinois: 14 Indiana: 21 Kansas: 3 Kentucky: 14 Missouri: 2 Mississippi: 1 Nebraska: 11 Ohio: 44 Oklahoma: 6 Pennsylvania: 1 Texas: 15 Wyoming: 5 More details, including restaurants by city within states, at this article: https://tinyurl.com/ya2tkusw

Fox News has reported that a Mexican national assumed a false identity of a Texas resident 37 years ago. He was able to generate a false birth certificate, then got a California driver’s license, a Social Security number, and a passport. With this created identity, he was able to receive over $361,000 in government benefits during those 37 years.  The identity thief Andres Avelino Anduaga, 66, is a repeat felon who used the false ID to go in and out of Mexico several times a week. The real owner of the identity, who now lives in Florida, had no idea his identity was being misused. (This is very common, unless the thief does something to bring attention to the identity.) More details are in the article here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/04/illegal-immigrant-from-mexico-pleads-guilty-to-using-fake-identity-to-steal-361000-in-government-benefits.html

Last week, Equifax announced that they have discovered an additional 2.4 million consumers were victimized by the breach last year, bringing the number to 147.9 million.  Equifax says this information includes partial driver's license data, but does not involve Social Security numbers, unlike the earlier announced exposures. The interim CEO Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. Says this is not newly discovered stolen data, just a "sifting through the previously identified stolen data." There are several articles about this announcement.  Here is one: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/01/589854759/equifax-says-2-4-million-more-people-were-impacted-by-huge-2017-breach

Interesting fact: during last year's record number of data breaches, 40% of the complaints to the FTC about losing money to fraud were made by millennials, whereas only 18% of the complaints came from folks 70 years old and older. An article in Market Watch also states that while this may be true, older folks seem to suffer the greatest financial loss, perhaps because they have a little more readily available money.  The infamous "senior scam", where a con artist poses as a grandchild needing financial help, may be the key scam tool. The article lists several top scams being used to separate people from their money. Here is a link to the article: http://tinyurl.com/ybcn7tbq #idtheft