I.D. Theft -- sooooo easy

[Zkribbler]

One of the local news shows here is carrying a story about one of their reporters who cut up five credit card applications, then taped them back together, filled them in writing around the tape (as if she were an identiy theif), and mailed in the dirty, messy, taped-together applications. She got back three credit cards with no questions asked.

She even had one mailed to an address at which she has never lived. The bank said it did so as a convenience to their customers.

One bank says it has a vigorous screeming process...which obviously was not followed.

Link to story

[Berzerker]

what I'd like to know is why we cant sue financial institutions that let people steal our money.

[notyoueither]

You think that's bad?

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1156542610726&call_pageid=

...

Susan Lawrence is a North York widow who faces the loss of the 100-year-old Victorian home she had lived in for 30 years — after criminals used publicly available information to sell her house without her knowledge and put a $300,000 mortgage on it.

Elizabeth Shepherd, an actress, lost her furnished Leslieville home to identity thieves, who rented the home and sold it to an accomplice after creating a false Elizabeth Shepherd. The accomplice took out a $250,000 mortgage, defaulted and disappeared.

...

[KrazyHorse]

The principle in those cases should be caveat emptor.

If you give a loan to somebody and it turns out it wasn't really them then it should be your tough luck, not that of the person whose name the criminal used.

Anything else is ridiculous.

[notyoueither]

Yes, but the banks are being protected in law above individual victims of crime.

This will, or should, change, but a lot of people will have an awful lot of pain in the meantime.

What's funny is what the CC companies do to merchants in cases of not being careful.

[KrazyHorse]

I know they are. I think it's ridiculous. **** the banks. They should have done their homework. If that's too hard then they can force people taking out loans to buy fraud insurance.

[KrazyHorse]

The same principle CC companies force the merchants to adhere to should be the ones they have to adhere to when it comes to granting credit or the ones the banks adhere to when handing out mortgages.

If they don't do their homework and they get burned then it's their problem. The idea that the bank can come after you because somebody you've never met signed a piece of paper with your name on it is horse****.

I can't wait for the first seven figure lawsuit to come rolling back against the banks when they try that against somebody who decides to fight back.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I know they are. I think it's ridiculous. **** the banks. They should have done their homework. If that's too hard then they can force people taking out loans to buy fraud insurance.

What I find funny is that bill collectors can find the real person, but the people forking over 100's of thousands of dollars can't be bothered to verify who they are dealing with.

I agree with you. **** 'em. They were careless. They lose.

[Winston]

Along the same lines, there was a story here recently about how easy it is to steal a car, any car. Basically, you take a stroll in a residential area and seek out the car that you would like, take its license plate number and go to some (unspecified; weakest part of the story) website and look up the identity and address of the owner, then call the dealer posing as the owner and tell them you've lost the keys, and could you come round and pick up a replacement set.

[Dis]

Re: I.D. Theft -- sooooo easy

Originally posted by Zkribbler
One of the local news shows here is carrying a story about one of their reporters who cut up five credit card applications, then taped them back together, filled them in writing around the tape (as if she were an identiy theif), and mailed in the dirty, messy, taped-together applications. She got back three credit cards with no questions asked.

She even had one mailed to an address at which she has never lived. The bank said it did so as a convenience to their customers.

One bank says it has a vigorous screeming process...which obviously was not followed.

Link to story

holy ****. that's horrible. I always figured up ripping up my applications would be good enough.

Although I do recommend the opt out program. Similar to the do not call list. They will not send you credit card applications (though I still get some occasionally, but better than the 3 a week I was getting).

[Dis]

Originally posted by Winston
Along the same lines, there was a story here recently about how easy it is to steal a car, any car. Basically, you take a stroll in a residential area and seek out the car that you would like, take its license plate number and go to some (unspecified; weakest part of the story) website and look up the identity and address of the owner, then call the dealer posing as the owner and tell them you've lost the keys, and could you come round and pick up a replacement set.

that doesn't seem that easy.

[Pekka]

As ID theft is big on security field, I'd say while that is amazing, that's still in the lower echelons of how easy and what you can do with it and not get caught. But yeah, scary.

[Ming]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Susan Lawrence is a North York widow who faces the loss of the 100-year-old Victorian home she had lived in for 30 years — after criminals used publicly available information to sell her house without her knowledge and put a $300,000 mortgage on it.

Elizabeth Shepherd, an actress, lost her furnished Leslieville home to identity thieves, who rented the home and sold it to an accomplice after creating a false Elizabeth Shepherd. The accomplice took out a $250,000 mortgage, defaulted and disappeared.
[/q]

I find it appalling that she would be the one to suffer in this. She did nothing wrong. The law should protect her. Why should the bank or anybody else have a claim on her home just because they were morons.

[kittenOFchaos]

Smells fishy.

[SlowwHand]

Bankers, lawyers, and used car salemaen have a special reserved area in Hell. Even there, no one wants to be around them.