Occupy Yourself: ID Theft as Existential Squatting

Lawyers call it “adverse possession,” but you probably know it as “squatter’s rights,” a principle upon which rests the assertion of title to land or property by virtue of physically occupying it. “Adverse possession is a process by which premises can change ownership,” reads the Wikipedia entry on the subject. “It is a common law concept concerning the title to real property (land and the fixed structures built upon it). By adverse possession, title to another’s real property can be acquired without compensation, by holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true owner’s rights for a specified period.”

It’s a contentious thing, this business of asserting squatter’s rights. It pits owner against user, landlord against tenant. Yet at the heart of this contentiousness lay a number of profound moral issues regarding property rights and human needs. And as it usually is with such issues, they tend to enjoy a long, storied history.

The practice of squatting dates back to the conquest of the new world, the North American in fact colonies depending on it as a way of establishing themselves. “This practice of ‘squatting on lands was one of the oldest traditions in the colonies, and become too general to be wiped out by legislation,” observes Amelia Clewley Ford in her book, “Colonial Precedents of Our National Land System as It Existed in 1800.” “It had gone on steadily in the face of prohibitory laws, threats, and forcible eviction.”

A clash of interests so fundamental as those surrounding the practice of squatting is sure to inspire violence and tenacity in equal measure. Land is one resource you can’t make more of, and dividing it makes little sense if each portion proves too small to put to use. So the battle is joined, the landlord hurling the Greek fire of the legal system against the squatter’s fortifications, which are bulwarked by natural right and claims of necessity.

Claims of necessity can – and do – find legal purchase from time to time. “The doctrine of necessity permits nonowners to trespass on, and under certain circumstances even to appropriate, the property of others in order to avoid grave harm,” write Eduardo Moises Penalver and Sonia K. Katyal in their book “Property Outlaws.” What greater harm does a person face than the one that looms constantly, namely, starvation and exposure to the elements as the result of inadequate means of her securing her existence?

Of course, being reduced to a condition of bare necessity may do little to elevate the sufferer in the eyes of those around her. Though they vary from region to region, attitudes toward squatting have generally been mixed. An article in an 1845 issue of The Living Age offers a sense of the prevailing sentiment. “The term ‘squatters’ is very ambiguous,” it states. Yet it also points out that the squatter “is no clandestine intruder upon the soil.” Rather, “he stands in the place of his forefathers, and the act which ejects him is a violent innovation on the customs of the country – a forcible change in a mode of tenancy sanctioned by the ‘use and wont’ of ages.”

The juridical gray area inhabited by the squatter arises precisely as a consequence of a collision of modes and customs. Vying with the more ancient “‘use and wont’ of ages” is the modern state, the Leviathan that rose from the inky depths of custom and convention to assert its imperium. The video clip below offers a glimpse into the under-the-radar from of life afforded by squatting (Warning: adult language)

If you wish to dodge the dictates of the state and see to your own shelter needs, a WikiHow article lists 11 tips on how to squat successfully on a piece of property. Specifically, in order to prevail squatters must:

  • Know the laws of their particular area;
  • Form a group of other people to squat with;
  • Find a place to squat;
  • Enter the space;
  • Assess the space for livability;
  • Spend the night in the space to further assess conditions;
  • Secure the building;
  • Clean the place up;
  • Attempt to arrange utility service to your place;
  • Decide how to deal with neighbors;
  • Begin the legal process of gaining title to the property via “adverse possession”;

If you think about it, “adverse possession” also describes the process by which a fraudster lays claim to your identity and directs it to his own nefarious ends. In fact, you could consider identity theft a sort of existential squatting. As a smart consumer you must work to make sure no cyber-crook treats your personal information as he would a vacant building. Effective identity theft protection and credit monitoring can help you to keep ne’er-do-wells from squatting on your credit and good name. Occupy yourself with securing these services right away

Identity Theft Protection: Bring out the Big Guns Against Fraudsters

big gunsOne day when David Greene was 37 years old he discovered that he would have been better off as a soldier in the Continental Army. He had a job, two kids and a wife. But his life, it seemed, lacked luster. The alarm clock radio would order him out of bed each morning at sunrise. An hour later, after a breakfast of frozen waffles and Sanka, he’d stumble from the house and into a ’94 Civic with a crumpled fender to commute eight miles to work, where he sat for nine hours, writing copy for cereal boxes, until it came time to inch his way home again in rush-hour traffic.

A meal of overcooked pasta or chicken pot pie usually awaited David. His wife, a large raw-boned brunette, usually sat transfixed by the Entertainment Tonight, a half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan leaning against an easy chair. She never acknowledged his arrival home. She also never bought new underwear, preferring to wear a favorite pair into great, gaping holes. Not even when the elastic had snapped would she buy herself another six-pack of Hanes. Instead, each night before bed, she rubbed a bar of Fels Naptha into her ripped and soiled panties and soaked them in the kitchen sink. She dried them above the stove.

His children would also be home when he walked in from his commute. He never quite saw them as human. They ricocheted off walls, and their hands alternately grasped and smashed small plastic toys, like the kind given away with hastily prepared food. Their eyes were like licorice drops, dead to anything but the antics of Spongebob.

The elder, a girl of ten, had mushroomed, seemingly overnight, from a run-of-the-mill toddler into a gluttonous, bulging beast hungry for even the foulest leavings, so long as they were indeed food. She often ate herself into fever.

The younger, a boy three years his sister’s junior, couldn’t spell his name. His hands and bottom lip would tremble when he was asked to write a five-word sentence. His mouth would hang open in look of eternal surprise and emit an odor of plaque and peppermint patties. Strangers delicately inquired into the boy’s peculiar affect.

Neither child could love.

David had developed an ulcer the year before. A small bare patch, about the size of a silver dollar, had blossomed on the crown of his head. He walked with a stoop and a small paunch sagged over his belt. Cold sores sprouted seasonally on the inside of his lower lip and his right eye often twitched uncontrollably. His teeth ached and he was nearsighted. He saw little reason to live.

That is, he saw little reason to live before he an ad in the local paper soliciting volunteers for a small reenactment of a Revolutionary War battle completely transformed. David didn’t recall exactly when the Revolutionary War happened – “about that time when men wore those funny triangular hats,” he’d tell himself. He did know that they, the reenacters, shot guns.

He immediately contacted the organization, The American Revolution Dramatizers, or TARD, and pledged himself to their cause. He didn’t have to wait long for a response. The next day a small brown package arrived on his doorstep. He tore open the cardboard and lifted out a detailed replica of a Continental army uniform. David gasped at the brass buttons and silver buckles; he thought it beautiful. At the very bottom of the box was a note: “Dear Mr. Greene, We are happy to have you participate in our reenactment. Enclosed you will find your uniform. The battle will take place at Prospect Park on October, 13 1998. Please be there by 7:00 am. You will receive your gun at that time. Congratulations! You may now officially consider yourself a TARD. Sincerely, Donna Joan Whelpstick, President.”

David’s flesh goose-pimpled in anticipation. In the next room, the kitchen, he could hear the splash of water – his wife scrubbing another day of use from her underwear. She snuffed and coughed as the water ran. From the living room, he heard a shrill scream, and then a series of gurgles and splashes. These domestic sounds fell away as David’s mind centered on a single thought, which gripped him firmly yet obscurely, like the gravity from an extinguished star: He was going to be a Revolutionary soldier.

We all can’t all be Continental soldiers. But we can all protect our families from identity theft. That’s why you should do your research when it comes to identity theft protection or credit monitoring services. It may be too late to reenact a Revolutionary War battle, but it’s never too late to secure your identity against fraudsters and cyber-crooks.

New Jack City: Identity Theft and Urban Violence

Nothing contains quite as many wonders as the modern city. There one truly finds God’s plenty. Moneymen, hustlers, poets, pimps, and misfits appear as actors in the urban scenes, and each plays his role in a riotous cast of thousands.

The possible evils of the city outnumber its inhabits. Charles Dickens presents the French capital as an example. “The Seine is very gloomy … and is probably the scene of far more crime and greater wickedness,” he writes in his story, “Down with the Tide.” So tenebrous the City of Lights, so menacing and foreboding!

Among the various forms of menace and foreboding is the constant threat of violence. “You will be running all sorts of risks,” George Alfred Henty had his character Mrs. Vickars tell her son Geoffrey in “By England’s Aid.” “You may be drowned on the way, or killed in a street brawl, or get mixed up in a plot. There is no saying what may not happen.” Geoffrey responds with all the confidence of boyhood. “Oh, we shall get back again without any harm, mother.” Truly, youth is wasted on the young. So eager are they to gamble that most precious and irreplaceable form of capital – rude health.

The ways in which the dangers of the city can jeopardize your health defy quantification or prediction. You could simply be bopping along, minding your own business, intent on reaching the museum or the post office before it closes, when next thing you know you’re embroiled in a contretemps with a fellow citizen, the whole affair happening simply as a matter of chance. Perhaps he jostled you on the sidewalk. Perhaps you jostled him. Incidental contact goes with the territory, as anyone with experience in city life can tell you. Yet on this point the person you bumped cannot be – or refuses to be – persuaded. He demands satisfaction of the sort that dates back to the age of chivalry. He wants blood.

The video clip below offers a revealing glimpse of the sort of crazies who howl for blood as recompense for any slight discourtesy.

As frightening as the prospect of swapping blows with a stranger is, the prospect that this stranger may draw more from you than vital fluids is more frightening still. One of the most common and anonymous forms of violence strangers visit on each other in the digital age is identity theft. This type of fraud has reached epidemic proportions and shows no signs of abating. “Identity-theft crimes have soared in the electronic age, with crooks graduating from everyday credit-card fraud to stealing people’s identities such as Social Security numbers for income tax-return scams,” reports a December 1, 2011 Miami Herald article.

Many of these fraudsters also graduate to violence in order to advance their aims. “Almost one year ago, in broad daylight, North Miami postal carrier Bruce Parton was killed for his key — a master key, authorities say, that unlocked personal financial information to residents of a North Miami-Dade condo building,” the Miami Herald article continues. “The two men charged with the 60-year-old’s murder used his so-called Arrow Key to steal the information from dozens of residents’ mailboxes. Like magic, the pair converted the identities of others into an electronic stream of cash, by filing fabricated income tax returns in the victims’ names over the Internet, according to court documents.”

A life snuffed in service to fraud: not exactly the sort of details you’d like revealed in your obituary or emblazoned on your tombstone. Yet the undeniable fact remains that violence often attends such crimes as identity theft and fraud. Criminality is criminality pure and simple, so where there’s fraud there’s sure to be violence. “Fraud and violence are the two great primary crimes in all social life,” observes a popular nineteenth-century homily.

By the former, men are deceived, befooled, rifled of their rights and disappointed of their hopes and expectations…. By the latter men are disabled, wounded, crushed, murdered.

A fraudster may not disable, wound, crush, or murder you if he makes off with your personal information, but you’ll sure feel as if he has. This is why you must immediately secure the services of a reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring provider. Having your finances drained and your creditworthiness wrecked can leave you feeling as brutalized as any physical assault would. “All civilized governments not only undertake to protect citizens from assaults against their lives,” observes Sylvester Baxter in an 1897 essay, “but from any and every sort of physical assault and offense, however petty, and even to protect men in their dignity as well as in mere bodily integrity.” If your government fails to extend to you these protections, you have a duty to secure them yourself.

The Painful Contortions of ID Theft Recovery

ContortionistIdentity theft can get you really bent out of shape. Receiving bills for credit card purchases you never made and seeing your savings drained will tie you in knots in no time.

In this credit-driven age, your good name represents your primary asset. Your fortunes rise or fall on a tick downward or upward of your credit score. It seems that everyone from creditors to landlords and even prospective employers wants to have a look of that number of yours these days.

It’s safe to say that so much rides on a credit score, which is why identity theft and related sorts of fraud are terribly pernicious. The damage inflicted on you can be far-reaching and long-lasting. You find yourself fending off creditors, dodging calls from collection agents, thumbing through piles of ominous mail, pleading with banks, and generally put through tremendous hassle – and all because some lowlife would rather rob you than work for a living.

And, man, the lowlifes are everywhere. The briefest survey of daily headlines confirms this. No corner of the map is too out of the way to feel the blighting effects of identity theft. The small northern California town of Oroville recently felt them. “Deputies arrested four suspects in an identity theft ring after an incident at Feather Falls Casino. Butte County investigators looked into a report of a fraudulent check last week,” reports November 10, 2011 KRCRTV.com story. “They uncovered an identity theft ring involving four suspects and at least 15 victims.”

That’s the thing about ID theft: There are always more victims than perpetrators of the crime. The relative proportions may increase or decrease, but the net effect is the same. A fraudster seldom limits himself to boosting a single identity.

One recently busted identity thief managed to make off with nearly a dozen IDs. The case of Maria Johnson, a.k.a. Gia Hendricks, offers some sense of the kind of success enjoyed by particularly incorrigible crooks. “Another ten or so potential victims of Maria Christina Johnson, 40, who also used the name Gia Hendricks, have come forward one day after her arrest on charges of forgery and burglary,” reports a November 9, 2011 article in Patch.com for Manhattan Beach, California.

Johnson’s modus operandi involves an appeal that clearly aims to hit men below the belt. Sex appeal is her weapon of choice. “Johnson, who is described as a ‘prolific identity theft suspect’ … is said to pose as a wealthy individual who runs a modeling agency,” continues the Patch.com article. “Police report that she ‘befriends unsuspecting people, gains their trust and then uses their identity to obtain cash and property.’”

As prolific an identity thief as Johnson proved to be, she was eventually brought to justice. Yet it’s a sure bet that there lurks many such similar fraud-minded vixens eager to strip a man of his wealth and good name.

But no doubt many men resort to the same ploy as Johnson, using flattery, flirtation, and innuendo as so many hammer blows to break the vault of an individual’s finances. A long time ago, a woman in a very unlikely walk of life understood the fragility of personal identity and thus took steps to safeguard it in a most extraordinary manner: A child contortionist by trade, she copyrighted her poses. “In 1916 dancer Lilian Ross put in her copyright application for ‘a Dumb Act entitled Single and Double Contortion Poses on Pedestal,’” reports a November 10, 2011 < a href=”http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/11/10/3361504.htm”>Australian Broadcast Corporation story.

It appears that pilfering of property extended to products corporeal as well as physical or intellectual. “In her letter to the Registrar of Copyrights, Lilian complained ‘when I produce a new feat, it is stolen and used by other teachers,’” continues the ABC story.

You wonder who’d be so limber as to steal young Lilian Ross’s moves.

Yes, it appears that even contortionists aren’t immune from expropriation. The video clip below shows to what extremes you’d have to be driven to filch from the individual featured.

Truly, identity theft can get your knickers in a twist much faster than can the most advanced contortionist’s poses. And it’s far likelier that you’ll sooner find yourself untangling your finance’s from a fraudster’s misdeeds than untangling your toes from your hair.

When it comes to unpleasant events in life, it pays to be flexible. You should be able to bend without breaking. A November 9, 2011 WLTX.com story offers some tips on how to wrap your sensitive data in layers of sound defense. Specifically, the story recommends that you:

  • Refuse to respond any requests made over the phone by someone claiming to represent a banking, financial, or insurance outfit for your date of birth, Social Security number, or similar bits of personal information;
  • Refuse to respond to email messages requesting that same information;
  • Collect your mail regularly;
  • Take an inventory of the financial information you keep on your person and on such personal communication devices as your smartphone or laptop computer.

The WLTX.com story offers some solid advice on how to guard against identity theft. Yet not defense is complete without reliable identity theft protection or credit monitoring. Take the appropriate action to lock down your ID. Contact one of these service providers right away to learn about the many affordable forms of coverage and protection they offer.

Holidays Reveal Who’s Naughty and Nice When It Comes to ID Theft

We please ourselves to think that there’s something inherently stable about identities. Your birth name and Social Security number follow you throughout your lifetime time more or less without alteration. Sure, you can go by as nickname or have your name legally changed, but the trouble that attends the latter is such as to provide strong disincentive for doing so.

Most people learn to live with their names and, with any luck, accept their identities. A few, however, wish to shed them either for practical reasons – in response to committing a crime or being associated with felons – for psychological reasons: a rough childhood, troubled gender or sexual identity, and so on.

The psychological impulse to change your identity can come on quite strongly, because, though you remain the same person in many significant respects, it’s equally true that you can experience rather profound changes that, when taken together, signal nothing less than a complete metamorphosis.

You wonder how many people actually wish to change completely their identities. Common sense would suggest that the vast majority of folks are content to remain as they are, but would like to change one or two things about themselves.

It’s fortunate, then, that structured into the lives of many are opportunities for such mild transformation, which comes generally with a move of some sort. A spaghetti-armed geek goes away to college and comes home a rippling lady killer; a shy wallflower runs away to the big city and comes home a ravishing sophisticate: these are just two of the (admittedly stereotypical) examples of naturally occurring change that comes as a result of an alteration in life circumstances.

The stages on life’s away that allow us to doff and to don new personalities aspects can come at times that you need them most. Perhaps you wish to escape so youthful silliness that now brings you shame. The kid who is the subject of the video clip below no doubt will look forward to leaving for college as he grows older.

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Parents’ pride in their offspring, while mostly beneficial, can run to extremes, encouraging them to make lasting records of events their children wish to be forgotten. The digital age will likely prove to have an elephant’s memory. And will the various forms of fraud being committed these days online, changes to our identity stand a chance of changing pretty radically – whether we’d like them to or not.

Instances of identity theft only threaten to increase as shopping increases and more transactional media begin circulating. As if on cue, a November 8, 2011 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article presents some tips, which come courtesy of the Federal Trade Commission, on how to dodge fraudsters this holiday season. Specifically, the article recommends that you:

  • Carry when shopping only the bare essentials in terms of personal identification – driver’s license and a credit card or two;
  • Immediately shred receipts and other register-generated material if you don’t plan on the need for exchanges and returns ever arising;
  • Monitor closely your credit card billing statements, keeping an eye out for suspicious charges, which, if you come across them, you should report to the bank or company that issued your credit card;
  • Conduct e-commerce only with verified and secure online vendors;
  • Consider changing passwords and personal identification numbers (PINs) before beginning your holiday shopping, be it online or in actual stores.

OK. You’ve taken precautions to guard against identity theft for the holiday season, but what about rest of the year and the year after. Much talk in paranormal circles revolves around the termination of the Mayan calendar, which happens next year. If you don’t want 2012 to be the year of your personal-information apocalypse, you should take measures to inoculate yourself against fraud all the year ’round. A November 7, 2011 FoxBusiness.com article makes some recommendations of how you can adopt a general a lasting posture that makes nabbing your ID a difficult proposition. Specifically, the article advises that you:

  • Refrain from carrying your Social Security card on your person and keep it instead in a secure, locked place;
  • Refrain from divulging your personal information to any party via telephone, text message, or email, even if that party claims to represent a governmental, financial institution, or bank;
  • Refrain from clicking on any link purporting to seek verification of your identity on behalf of a governmental or financial institution;
  • Make a habit of studying closely monthly banking and credit card statements;
  • Subscribe to a reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring service;
  • Refrain from posting personal information on such social networking sites as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter;
  • Install and update your computer’s security and virus-protection software.

Fortifying your defense against identity theft and related fraud is an absolute must in the digital age. So transform your entire attitude regarding this burgeoning form of crime; it’s one of the smartest changes you can make!

The Painful Shock of Identity Theft

In cities it’s the subway’s “third rail” that’s known to give you a jolt; out in the sticks, it’s the electric fence.

For those urbanites unfamiliar with the electric fence, the Wikipedia entry on the subject offers enlightenment. “An electric fence is a barrier that uses electric shocks to deter animals or people from crossing a boundary. The voltage of the shock may have effects ranging from uncomfortable, to painful or even lethal.”

Such a device could only be unpleasant at best and deadly at worst, you’ think. But leave it to the irrepressible inventiveness of ordinary individuals to wrest fun from what would otherwise simply be agony. The video below depicts a stunt by some young people that, while humorous, offers a sense of how powerful a punch an electric fence can pack.

The primary use for this contrivance is for keeping livestock in line. Some, however, have been eying for other applications. “Most electric fencing is used today for agricultural fencing and other forms of animal control purposes,” the Wikipedia entry continues, “though it is frequently used to enhance security of sensitive areas, and there exist places where lethal voltages are used.”

Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain apparently considers the entire southern border of the United States one such sensitive area in need of enhanced security. “On a campaign tour through Tennessee, Cain elaborated on what will be a central portion of his immigration policy: a big electric fence,” reports an October 15, 2011 Care2.com article. “Cain’s fence … would be electrified and run the entire course of the US-Mexican border with voltage high enough to kill anyone trying to enter illegally.”

The candidate has since revised his vision of border security, laughing off his earlier solution as a joke. “Herman Cain said … that the electrified border fence he once proposed as a means to solve illegal immigration was an ‘over-exaggeration,’ and that, until elected president, he will ‘tone down’ his sense of humor,” reports an October 30, 2011 CBSNews.com story.

Some exasperated Americans no doubt ask themselves, “If not an electric fence along the border, then what?” Passions run high on this issue. One faction holds the opinion that the free movement of people across national boundaries is a sign of progress, and is at any rate inevitable in a globalized economy. A second faction holds the opinion that this free movement constitutes grave peril.

Which faction is right? It depends on who you talk to. Put this question who has fallen victim to identity theft, and you’re bound to get an answer along the lines of the second faction. Identity theft offers rough and ready means of securing employment sub rosa, particularly those of children. A November 7, 2011 Juvenile Justice Information Exchange article reports that “stolen Social Security numbers are typically used to bypass illegal immigration constraints (to obtain false identification for employment, for example), commit financial fraud and work around bad credit ratings.”

A WWLTV.com story gives a sense of the risk children run of having their identity stolen. It reports that “500,000 kids a year will have their numbers stolen, some sold on the black market, often times to illegal immigrants looking to work in the country.”

Indeed, as a June 2009 Center for Immigration Studies article points out, children are “prime targets” for the depredations of fraudsters, with kids in western states the most imperiled. “In Arizona, it is estimated that over one million children are victims of identity theft. In Utah, 1,626 companies were found to be paying wages to the SSNs of children on public assistance under the age of 13. These individuals suffer very real and very serious consequences in their lives.”

Very real and serious consequences that visit these poor children before they’ve even had opportunity to make a start in life, you might add. As far back as 2006 MSNBC.com warned of the plague of lost wealth rampant ID theft committed by illegal immigrants would visit on the hapless citizenry. “Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans are right now sharing their identities with immigrants and don’t know it,” the MSNBC.com article reports. “It is the dirty little secret of the immigration issue: By not dealing directly with the undocumented worker situation, the U.S government is actually encouraging identity theft. In fact, one can argue that the origins of the identity theft epidemic can be traced to the immigration issue.”

So there you have it. Not only will the government refuse to curb illegal immigration, it will also unwittingly create incentive for the illegal immigrants to steal law-abiding citizens’ personal information. Looks like you need to create your own impregnable defense against fraud. Though perhaps not as formidable as an electric fence, reliable identity theft protection and credit monitoring can prove exceedingly effective in combating this crime. Don’t wait for ID theft to jolt your life or the lives of those you care about. Take appropriate action today.

Nearly Naked Strangers and ID Theft Dangers

As you look forward to Thanksgiving you think about how you have survived another summer in which it seemed like you and your family wanted to vacation or take recreation, adversity met you at every turn. Bugs, bad weather, swoon-inducing heat – these represent some of the dark aspects of the summer holidays. But worst of all – absolutely, positively worst of all – are crowds. Everywhere you went it seems like hordes of other vacationers had taken the notion to journey to the same destination. And these vacationers were often of a most regrettable sort: loud, greasy, pushing, perspiring people, many times with ill-behaved children in tow. Added to all ready high temperatures, these other people made you summer trip a literal hell.

To beat the heat, folks flock to waterparks, especially if large natural bodies of water are in short supply. The languishing landlocked head for the slides, the sprays, the swings and rings of the local wet and wild wonderland. It’s no exaggeration that waterparks have largely supplanted municipal swimming pools, the latter simply lacking the glamour that the former enjoys in spades.

As crowded as your local waterpark is on its busiest, it probably can’t hold a candle the the pool featured in the video below. Have a look at it and you’ll quickly get a sense of how massive a crowd of fun-seekers can get.

Truly nothing says “good times” like a Tokyo wave pool!

All of those bobbing bodies bumping together, as well as into you. So many strangers in one place threaten to dissolve that distinctive sense of self that preserves you against assimilation to the massy mass.

You have to ask: Among strangers, who would be the ones to boost my ID were they given a chance? It’s long been a truism that the modern individual has become socially isolated, and is growing even more so, despite the progress of such social media as Facebook or Google +, and the constant improvements made to personal communication devices, such as iPhones and Droids.

In fact, advances in technology have only increased and expanded opportunities for identity theft. Would-be fraudsters become actual ones, thanks to the relative anonymity afforded them by the Internet, the power of which with enough know-how can be harnessed in the service of fraud at a distance. A November 3, 2011 ZDNetAsia.com article brings word of “Socialbots,” which are “computer programs resembling humans.” These socialbots “have penetrated Facebook and harvested 250 gigabytes of personal information belonging to thousands of users on the social networking site.”

The ZDNetAsia article goes on to report that “social networks were ‘highly vulnerable’ to large-scale infiltration attacks.”

Of course some simple precautions can reduce the chances that some socialbot will make off with your personal information. If you wish to guard against online ID theft, you should:

  • Limit the among of personal information you publicize on social media sites;
  • Avoid posting any information that would uniquely identify you (full date of birth, city of birth, favorite pets’ names) and would therefore allow fraudsters to get past login challenge questions;
  • Make sure that any smartphone app you use to access social media sites is password protected.

Of course, all the precautions in the world can’t protect you from identity theft if some company with which you do business screws up, as happened recently with banking behemoth Wells Fargo. An October 23, 2011 OnlineAthens.com article reports that “some customers who opened their accounts in South Carolina and Florida received pages from other customers’ accounts in their September statements.” Blamed for the botched billing was “[a] malfunctioning printer in Charlotte.”

The Wells Fargo statement screw-up should impress on you how vitally important it is that you carry sound identity theft protection or that you subscribe to regular credit monitoring. These serves insert an added layer of protection between you and any bungling business that has your sensitive information.

Carrying such protection has never been more important, especially as cyber-crooks have resorted to other means of bagging your ID online. “Thousands of Facebook users are risking their identities by falling for marketing ploys offering free stuff like, free crochet packs,” reports an October 10, 2011 opinion piece in The Sundial (the student newspaper of California State University–Northridge). “Scheming companies create these campaigns to promote themselves in exchange for access to one’s Facebook profile. Just ask the 772,308 monthly active users who have gotten suckered into it.”

“Victims of identity theft only have themselves to blame,” the opinion piece rather sternly observes; “they knew the rules and without regard threw caution to the wind.” Don’t leave your better senses flapping in the breeze. Take the appropriate today to lockdown your personal information.

Peace Through Superior Firepower: How to Put Fraudsters on Blast

Identity theft is hitting southern Utah hard. The crime, which strikes some nine million Americans every year, has grown like a weed in the most seemingly beautiful and safe places. A recent StGeorgeUtah.com article reports that, on October 17, a 42-year-old St. George man was arrested “on suspicion of 14 counts of identity fraud.” The case was likely connected to other cases, bringing the total number of victims to 21.

It just goes to show that the most heinous of crimes can pop up in even the most bucolic places. A scenic vista of rolling hills offers a sense of safety. The country dweller believes he knows his neighbors, for there are so few of them. The town saloon seems a place of safety, a haven for banter and neighborliness. Safety spreads a warm blanket, covering each and every soul of the tight-knit, rural community. But where safety seems most assured, danger lurks. And in the scenic hills and valleys of Southern Utah, that danger creeps in the form of a thief – an identity thief!

Though drug and theft-related offenses continue to top Southern Utah’s crime charts, identity theft is making headway – and there’s no stopping it! It threatens to turn once peaceful dales into veritable war zones, where each man and woman must guard his or her identity as though it were a last store of food. Quarter is neither given nor asked in a war zone. Only the toughest and most clever survive – though barely. Like the rapid reports of machine-gun fire, identity theft strikes like lightning and leaves its victim riddled the wounds of a damaged personal and financial reputation, of lost money and violated trust.

The video clip below offers some sense of what the high-caliber destructive power of identity theft can do to your personal finances.

These wounds, once sustained, don’t heal readily. They fester for weeks, even months. Pretty soon what was once a flesh wound turns gangrenous, and then you’re faced with lopping off a limb. There’s no antibiotic, no salve that can save you. That’s the havoc identity theft can bring to your life: your finances in tatters, your good name utterly desolated. Millions have suffered this fate, and many more millions will follow. Identity thieves, like terrorists, threaten to bring America to its knees.

At times it seems inevitable that every American will be touched, at some point in their lives, by identity theft. There’s no bullet-proof vest that can thwart these heinous offenses, but you can take the following steps to diminish your chances of getting hit:

  • Don’t use debit cards online;
  • Don’t give out personal information online;
  • Don’t shop at suspicious online stores;
  • Don’t respond to suspicious emails asking for personal information.

These and other precautions can help you avoid the sad fate of many a Southern Utahn. Who knows how many simple lives have been destroyed, how many simple hearts broken. The country should never be a place of fear. If you are a Southern Utahn, do yourself a favor and follow the suggestions above. Most importantly, however, make sure you invest in identity theft protection. And for added protection (It’s a war zone, after all!) add credit monitoring to your arsenal as well. It’s the closest thing to a bulletproof vest when it comes to one of the fastest growing crimes in the nation.

Effecting Cleavage Between You and Your Bad Credit

A nice rack — it’s something you appreciate whether you’re dining at your favorite barbecue rib shack or engaging in other sensual pleasures. The heat, the slight stickiness, the pleasing firmness to the bite — these qualities tell you that you indeed have a quality cut. And the first time it enters your mouth…. Oh, mama!

Members of your dinner party begin to swell, engorged by the delight of so delicious an extravagance, dizzy with the knowledge that they haven’t had it so good in a long, long time. One member throbs, and other groans; his lap dances under the weight of the tender flesh, nearly as warm as it was when it had been on the table before him, pressing down on it.

Seeing your guests content, you’re made content yourself. You’re all too happy to play host. You reach for your wallet in order to settle the bill. You hand the credit card to the server. She disappears into the back and returns just a few moments later to whisper tactfully in your ear, “I’m afraid your card has been declined.”

This scenario is no doubt a familiar one, especially these days when identity theft and related sorts of fraud are on the rise. The fact of the matter is that a fraudster can ruin even the most triumphant outing, leaving your festivities — and your personal finances — a shambles.

Wrecked finances lead to wrecked credit. Without credit that’s ship-shape and squeaky clean, it’s really difficult to get things done in life.

Just how hard on you can bad credit be? Well, it can keep you from buying a car, renting an apartment, even finding a job. “The national unemployment rate is still more than 9.1 percent and some of the people who make up that statistic say it is the reason their resumes get put on the bottom of the pile,” reports and October 24, 2011 story. Some employers don’t want to hire workers off the street, they want to hire them away from other jobs.”

Chronic unemployment is rapidly creating an underclass of untouchables whose remaining days they’ll spend in the gray twilight of benefits dependency.

Aggravating this already acute employment conundrum is the premium prospective employers place on clean credit. The WABC.com quotes Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, who offers some of sense of the dimensions of this problem faced in the Big Apple and elsewhere:

“What we’re starting to see from placement agencies is that they need you to have a job in order to get a job. They need you to have clean credit in order for you to walk into their offices this is a practice that is so outrageous.”

Outrageous, yes; but no less real for being so. “Credit history as a hiring criteria … creates a vicious circle wherein people who have been laid off are likely to fall behind on bills and damage their credit, with the resulting credit score making it harder for them to get hired and get back on their feet,” an October 13, 2011 In These Times blog post correctly observes. And it’s doubtful that the situation will change anytime soon. That’s why you must make getting — and keeping — your credit clean your first priority.

Scrubbing your credit history can seem like a tedious and protracted task. Like any other sort of cleaning, it’s certainly boring. It may help, however, to imagine your credit as a car that’s in need of a good scouring. For inspiration, then, look to the video below, and imagine your credit becoming squeaky clean in the way displayed therein. (Warning: Potentially NSFW.)

OK, so maybe the prospect of cleaning up your credit can’t be made any more appealing, but it can be made easier. Courtesy of the U.K. Telegraph comes some tips on how to optimize your credit score. An October 28, 2011 article in that fine publication recommends that you:

  • Sever old relationships by closing out accounts after they have fallen into disuse as a result of divorce, retirement of the outstanding balance, and so on;
  • Cancel out-of-date credit cards;
  • Build a positive credit history by using credit cards for modest purchasing and paying the full balance each month;
  • Scrutinize closely the fine print of any loan or credit agreements;
  • Keep on top of mortgage payments;
  • Provide accurate and truthful information on any credit or loan applications;
  • Make sure the only full credit checks — those that leave a record on your history — are performed with your full knowledge and consent;
  • Settle any outstanding debts;
  • Volunteer any additional information if you think it facilitate a creditor’s understanding concerning your earlier credit trouble.

The good news is that, when it comes to personal credit, hope springs eternal. “When your credit score is calculated, your past two years of credit history are given the most weight,” reports an October 27, 2011 Fox Business article. “So the further out from the charged-off accounts you get, the better your score. Since you can’t change the past, you need to concentrate on changing your future. Get some positive credit history added to your reports by paying your current accounts on time and as agreed. Add new credit from a secured card or a passbook loan, and your credit score will improve with time.”

Improving with time puts your repaired credit in the same league as fine wine. Soon you’ll be able to pop the cork and savor it and all the wonderful things in life it will allow you to acquire — perhaps a new home, a trip abroad, or even a Toyota RAV 4 you’d be proud to see receive the bikini car wash treatment.

Husbanding your improved credit, however, requires strong defenses such as those provided by reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring service. With these strong allies in your corner no fraudster will ever think to soak you.

Keeping Identity Theft from Trashing Your Life

It looks like Hawaii is fated to be downgraded from “paradise” to “trash pit” as stuff shook loose from Japan during the April 2011 earthquake and tsunami drifts toward The Aloha State. “Some 5 to 20 million tons of debris – furniture, fishing boats, refrigerators – sucked into the Pacific Ocean in the ake [sic] of Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami are moving rapidly across the Pacific,” reports an October 24, 2011 Yahoo! News blog post. “Researchers from the University of Hawaii tracking the wreckage estimate it could approach the U.S. West Coast in the next three years.”

Basically anything that can float has combined into a mass of garbage that could have devastating consequence in the months and years to come.

A news story on Honolulu’s KITV offers some additional details on this unpleasant flotilla:

In all that trash you wonder how many items contain sensitive personal information — information that could wash upon on the beaches of California, Hawaii, Oregon, or Washington and be put to fraudulent use by unscrupulous strangers.

In refuse some crooks find opportunity that’s difficult to refuse. Trash picking equals easy pickings for ID thieves, because so few people take the time properly to dispose of print matter containing their personal and financial information. “The easiest way for a thief to gain your information is by dumpster diving,” reports an October 14, 2011 article in The Daily Campus (the student newspaper of Southern Methodist University). “Thieves will go through trashcans in search of old bills, financial statements or even credit cards. You may think that cutting your card into a few pieces will deter thieves, but skilled thieves can easily piece these together.”

The Daily Campus article therefore recommends that you “completely shred your documents, bills and credit cards, and spread the shreds over different trash bins.” Those interested in added protection “can scramble [their] credit card data completely by running a strong magnet across the magnetic strip of your credit card before shredding it.”

Taking these measures would appear to turn the simple act of tossing your trash into a hassle and a bother. Yet whatever inconvenience you’re put to by practicing the habits recommended by The Daily Campus article is nothing compared to that which you’re apt to experience once someone gets a hold of your personal information and begins draining your bank account and wrecking your credit.

Securing disposing of your trash is but one effect means of reducing your risk of identity theft. An October 19, 2011 AZFamily.com article offers additional tips on how to keep fraudsters at bay. Specifically, the article recommends that you:

  • Invest in an effect shredder, preferably one that cross-cuts sheets of paper into confetti rather than thin strips;
  • Avoid carrying your Social Security card on your person;
  • Use a variety of strong passwords – of 8 or more characters that combine numbers with capital and lower-case letters – for your various online accounts;
  • Stay abreast of the latest alerts and dispatches from the Federal Trade Commission.

These measures can go quite some way toward limiting your exposure to the dangers of identity theft and related kinds of fraud, but they cannot completely eliminate them. That’s why a complete defense against fraudsters includes the services of a well-regarded identity theft protection or credit monitoring specialist. With such allies in your corner, crooks will have a hard time of it trashing your good name. And even if they manage to, you’ll have help in cleaning up the mess.

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