Identity Theft and the Law
When you hear that about 10 million Americans are victimized by identity theft each year, according to the Federal Trade Commission, you may wonder why the government isn’t doing anything to try and stop these crimes. However, the fact is that the government is trying. In fact, in the past few years, several bills have been made into law to help aid in prevention. The three biggest ones are as follows:
Identity Theft Assumption and Deterrence Act In 1998, the federal government took a huge step in the war against identity theft: making this crime a federal one when it involved activity between more than one state. Before this, it was pretty much up to the states to figure out the prosecution and punishment for themselves. As a result of this law, some sentencing guidelines were put into play, and thieves faced penalties of up to 30 years in jail – plus the option of getting consecutive sentences if they had multiple convictions.
Are Financial Advisors Just for the Rich?
A financial advisor is a skilled professional that uses their knowledge concerning money matters to help others plan for their futures, and to manage the assets they have accumulated. The rich people do have these professionals working for them because they do not have time to look after all their assets, and properly allocate them to make them earn money. Their money management teams do their investing, and watch their assets to determine what else can be done to make even more money from what the people already have.
Average people need the help and advice of this type of professional money broker as well. If you have someone who is knowledgeable in finance to the point that they can assist you in setting up a budget that allows you to use the many retirement plans out there, wouldn’t you be better prepared for the future, than if you just keep following your own plan. R Full Post…
Security Expert’s Credit Card Hacked
An excellent way to improve one’s level of security intelligence is to follow the writings of Robert X. Cringley, one of my favorite technology know-it-alls.
Anyway, Cringley’s credit card was recently hacked. And if his card can be hacked, anyone’s can. Like many cardholders, Cringley received a notification from his credit card company’s fraud depar
Two Random Identity Theft Tips You Don’t Want To Miss
Today we have two random identity theft protection tips for you on pickpocketing and smishing, yes smishing.
1. Smishing People are always coming up with clever names to give to types of identity theft. First there was phishing, then there was vishing and now there is the newest incarnation: smishing. Smishing stands for phishing via SMS, or short message service, which you probably refer to as text messaging. With this scam, potential victims get a text message that instructs them to dial a toll-free phone number to solve a mishap with their financial institution. A lot of people will follow this instruction out of legitimate worry, and some will do the same simply out of curiosity.
When they do dial the number, they will find that it’s answered by a voice response system that instructs them to type in account information. After they type in the information, the thief’s system records the keystrokes. In
Estimated 11.7 Million Americans Victims of Identity Theft
According to the results of a recently released 2008 U.S. Justice Department study an estimated 11.7 million Americans (aged 16 and over) were victims of identity theft. The survey of 56,500 household residents is the first time the Bureau of Justice Statistics has collected data on these types of property crimes.
According to a press release from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only 23 percent of those victimized suffered some financial loss, but the total cost to society came to $17.3 billion during the two-year period of the study.